Cancer Treatment Challenges
Lean Body Mass and Weight Loss
Maintaining your weight during cancer treatment is so important. The loss of as little as 5 percent of your body weight can adversely affect your response to cancer therapy. But maintaining your weight is important for more than just your fight against the disease — it's essential for your quality of life.
Slowing your weight loss and building and maintaining lean body mass can give you more energy for the independence and activities you treasure — like spending a morning in the garden or an evening with friends and family.
What Is Lean Body Mass?
Lean body mass is functional tissue that is vital for life.1 Specifically, it consists of all components of the body (muscle, bones, organs, skin) except fat. Maintaining LBM is essential for strength, organ function, skin integrity, wound healing and immunity. You may be losing LBM if you have weakness, fatigue, lack of strength or energy, loss of appetite, early satiety (feeling full sooner than normal or after eating less than usual), or weight loss.
How Cancer Causes Weight Loss
Weight loss due to cancer is different from weight loss due to dieting. Certain types of cancer cause changes in the body that result in decreased appetite, burning more calories than normal and increased breakdown of lean body mass.
When your body fights cancer, this response can continue indefinitely. The cancer produces substances that alter the metabolism of protein, carbohydrates and fat, and cause your body to burn calories faster than you can ordinarily replace them.
If you do not address these metabolic changes, eating more food or using conventional nutritional drinks may not be enough to prevent or reverse your weight and muscle loss.
Cancer Types Most Likely to Cause Loss of Lean Body Mass
- Colon
- Esophagus
- Head and Neck
- Kidney
- Pancreas
- Rectum
- Stomach
- Breast
- Leukemia*
- Ovarian*
- Prostate*
*Advanced Stages
Wound Healing
During the course of your cancer therapy, you may experience treatment-related wounds — especially following surgery. If you experience any type of injury or wound during treatment, it may take more time than normal to heal. To properly heal wounds, your body must form collagen. Collagen is a major component of skin and other tissue, and its creation is an essential part of the body’s tissue repair process, including wound closure. So, increasing the amount of collagen in your body can help speed the healing process.
No Reason to Wait
Sometimes a balanced diet alone isn’t enough to help you maintain and restore lean body mass. Rest or therapy isn’t always enough to help you heal. Ask your doctor, nurse or dietitian about supplementing your diet. But before you talk to your health care team, see How Juven® Helps or visit the Tools section of this Web site for some helpful aids.
References
- Wolfe R. The underappreciated role of muscle in health and disease. Am J Clin Nutr 2006;84:475-482.
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