A comparison study of dietary and physical activity habits among cancer patients treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy

Author Info

Ayse G?nes-Bay?r Ecem Ortasar? Mahmut G?m??

Corresponding Author

Ayse G?nes-Bay?r
Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, Bezmialem Vakif University, Istanbul, Turkey

A B S T R A C T

Objective: Cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the World. At the same time, the number of receiving treatment for cancer cannot be underestimated. Today, the most common therapies in cancer treatment are chemo- and radiotherapy which affect differently the patients’ daily life because of their side effects. It is important to minimize these side effects during and after the therapy. Some researches revealed that adequate and balanced nutrition can improve the patients’ quality of life whereas the guidelines for cancer recommend highly regular physical activity. Thus, we aimed to compare dietary and physical activity habits in patients receiving two different therapies. Design, setting, subjects: To collect the data, the questionnaire was used including socio-demographic data, cancer types, anthropometric measurements, dietary and physical activity habits. Sixty-six chemotherapy and 66 radiotherapy patients participated in this study. Results: Most preferred food groups in chemotherapy patients was “fruits and vegetables” (76%; n = 50) and in radiotherapy patients was “meat, poultry and fish” (71%; n = 47). Median daily water consumption was 1.8 liters in chemotherapy patients and 1.4 liters in radiotherapy patients. Both groups were skipped meals due to lack of appetite. Forty eight percent of chemotherapy patients (n = 32) and 34% radiotherapy patients (n = 23) were being physically active regularly. Just 17 chemotherapy and 10 radiotherapy patients did physical activities every day. Conclusion: Consequently, the both group of patients may get professional support for physical activity and diet from medical experts

Article Info

Article Type

Research Article

Publication history

Received: Fri 08, Feb 2019
Accepted: Thu 14, Mar 2019
Published: Wed 03, Apr 2019

Copyright

© 2023 Ayse G?nes-Bay?r. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.COR.2019.01.08