Nutrition matters deeply to people affected by cancer. Nutrition support can improve nutritional status, symptom management, treatment tolerance and quality of life, while dietary patterns may also influence longer-term health outcomes. At a time when many aspects of cancer and its treatment can feel beyond their control, food is also something people can actively influence.
Yet patients and families are navigating an increasingly complex nutrition landscape, where established evidence sits alongside emerging research, supplements, restrictive diets, social media claims and persuasive commercial messages. From symptom management and dietary patterns to ginger, the microbiome and nutritional supplements, the evidence ranges from established to promising, uncertain and, at times, potentially harmful. So how do we translate this complexity into meaningful conversations with patients?
This presentation will explore a practical, person-centred approach to nutrition conversations across the cancer continuum. It will consider how we communicate what we know, acknowledge what we do not know, and provide useful guidance when the evidence is incomplete. Importantly, evidence is only one part of the conversation. Recommendations also need to consider nutritional status, symptoms, treatment, risk, patient goals and preferences, and the potential opportunity costs of restrictive, expensive or burdensome interventions.
Nutrition can provide an important sense of agency and hope. But the pursuit of the “right” diet or supplement can also contribute to anxiety, financial burden, nutritional compromise and false hope.
Rather than simply categorising nutrition approaches as hype or hope, clinicians can help people navigate the space between them with science, curiosity and compassion. Our role is not simply to tell people what the evidence says, but to help them understand what it means for them.