Eating higher amounts of protein could help people with colorectal cancer keep crucial muscle mass while undergoing chemotherapy, new University of Alberta research shows.
In a pilot study, researchers asked patients with colorectal cancer to reach one of two daily levels of dietary protein. The results showed that even though the patients found it difficult to eat quite that much, about half of them maintained or even gained muscle mass by simply eating more protein.
"That's a big achievement, given the muscle-wasting effects of cancer and chemotherapy," says professor Carla Prado, a nutrition expert in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences and principal investigator on the study.
Symptoms of colorectal cancer — the third most diagnosed and second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide — and the treatment itself can cause poor appetite, nausea, diarrhea, constipation and altered taste. Up to half of people with this type of cancer have low muscle mass around the time they are diagnosed, research has shown. Along with that, cancer drives several metabolic changes in the body that cause breakdown of tissue, especially skeletal muscle.
Loss of muscle mass not only reduces everyday physical function and quality of life, but also increases the risk of complications during treatment and lowers survival rates.
The study, led by Katherine Ford to earn a PhD in nutrition and metabolism, focused on whether patients could feasibly increase their daily protein intake to two grams per kilogram of body weight — double the minimum oncology nutrition recommendation of one gram per kilogram.
Fifty patients with stages two to four colorectal cancer were divided into two groups and asked to consume protein either at the one gram per kilogram level or encouraged to reach twice that amount.
All of the participants received personalized nutrition counselling from a registered dietitian, who provided meal plans and advice on how to increase protein intake using meat, fish and dairy products, and protein supplements.
