A diagnosis of blood cancer can impact on your nutrition and your overall wellbeing.

Nutritional goals whilst you are living with blood cancer may be:

• To prevent or reverse malnutrition
• Avoiding weight loss (preserving muscle)
• Minimise weight gain
• Minimise side effects from treatment – decreased appetite, nausea, diarrhoea, dry mouth, and taste changes.

Being malnourished can affect your overall quality of life – causing weakness, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and pain.

Treatment for blood cancer can affect your nutrition. Some treatments can cause taste changes, nausea, diarrhoea, dry mouth and mucositis. These can affect the types and how much food you are able to eat.

Some people are prescribed corticosteroids, also called steroids, as part of treatment. Steroids can cause weight gain. It can increase your appetite and cause oedema in your legs, arms, abdomen and face.

Some general nutrition recommendations for people living with blood cancer:

• Maintain a healthy weight – avoid weight loss by eating and/or drinking enough calories. Or lose weight – it’s important to get advice from your health care team before trying to lose weight.
• Get essential nutrients through your food intake – protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, antioxidants and water.

A dietitian can assist with a plan for your situation. You can access a dietitian through the hospital or through a care plan with your GP (if you don’t have private health insurance or insurance that covers dietitians). Find a Dietitian in your area.

There is information to assist you reach your nutritional goals and recipes in our Eating Well booklet – a guide for patients and their support people.

Food safety

Food safety is important for everyone, especially if you are living with blood cancer.

Some blood cancers and treatments can weaken your immune system, which means it’s harder to fight off infections. Food contamination from bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi or mould can lead to food poisoning. This can cause serious illness in people with a weakened immune system. It is important to safely prepare, store and eat foods.

Having good food hygiene and following food safety guidelines can help reduce your risk.

Shopping and storage

Tips from the Food Safety Information Council on shopping and storage:

• Clean – clean your shopping trolley or basket, put fruit and vegetables into a clean bag, clean your re-usable shopping bags.
• Choose – don’t choose anything that has broken packaging, check used by dates.
• Vulnerable people – people with poor immune systems may need to avoid certain foods like soft cheeses and deli meats.
• Chill – keep hot and cold foods separate and shop for them last. Take shopping home as soon as possible to store.
• Separate – avoid shopping where raw and cooked foods are kept uncovered together or are packed using the same utensils. Separate raw and ready to eat foods in shopping bags. Pack frozen and chilled items together in shopping bags.
• Storage – store chilled and frozen items as soon as you get home. Use a cooler bag with ice bricks if you are delayed getting home. Store food items as per the label instructions.

Food preparation

The Food Safety Information Council lists food safety basics for food preparation:

• Clean – clean hands for 20 seconds before preparing food and after handling raw meats and vegetables with visible soil. Wash utensils and chopping boards in warm soapy water and dry thoroughly.
• Chill – chill food that requires refrigeration as soon as possible at 5°C or below.
• Cook – properly cook food, meats should be cooked until they reach 75°C.
• Separate – keep raw and cooked foods separate during preparation and storage.

Handling riskier foods

The Food Safety Information Council have more information on how to handle riskier foods.

If your immune system is very low you may be given instructions by your treatment team. This may include avoiding:

• Pre-made food – sandwiches and buffet-style food.
• Shellfish, sushi, pate, raw meat and deli meats.
• Soft cheeses – brie, camembert, feta and blue vein.
• Reheating food where possible.