Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of nutrition counseling on the dietary intake and nutritional status cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy treatment. The study was conducted over 6 week period and included 104 patients : 66 received nutrition counseling as the variable group of 42 male and 24 female and 38 patients received no counseling as the control group of 19 male and 19 female. Nutrition counseling was accompanied with the radiation therapy and adminstered via counseling session and distribution of printed material during radiation therapy for 6 weeks. Nutrition counseling aimed at maintaining a balanced diet and preventing weight loss of subjects, guideline used for energy and protein intake were 35kcal/kg IBW and 1.5-2.0g/kg IBW, respectively. Over the course of the study, the counseling group increased significantly in comparison to the control group's energy intake, evidenced by the counseling group's initial mean daily energy intake of 1932.0kcal, and 4 and 6 week mean energy intake values of 2046.6kcal, 2066kcal, respectively. But mean energy values of control group was 1614.3kcal at 4 week. Th energy intake per weight values and protein intake per weight values for initial, 4 and 6 week intervals for counseling group were 33.2kcal/kg, 33.7kcal/kg, 34.0kcal/kg, and 1.48g/kg, 1.58g/kg, 1.59g/kg, respectively. Based on results, nutrition counseling had positive effects on both the variety of diet and energy intake of the variable group, mostly due to an increase in dairy product and egg consumption. In addition, the percentage of counseling group patients who consumed all 5 food group increased from 48.5% to 54.5%. Sufficient energy intake and protein consumption seem to be important factors in weight loss prevention, evidenced by weight gain by subjects in the counseling group who had 36.1kcal/kg/day mean energy intake and 1.77g/kg/day mean protein intake after 4 weeks. Counseling group subjects experiencing weight loss had lower intake and 1.77g/kg/day mean protein intake after 3 weeks. Counseling group subjects experiencing weight loss had lower intakes of 29.3kcal/kg/day for energy and 1.33g/kg/day for protein during the same period. Another significant factor in weight loss prevention of the counseling group could be the variety of diet. The dietary variety scores(DVS) of both counseling and control groups differed significantly : the counseling group had a mean score of 34 while the control group of patients. At the end of the study, the mean percentage of subjects within each group having a DDS 5 was higher in the counseling group (54.5% v.s. 24.0%). In this study, nutrition counseling for cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy proved to be effective in preventing weight loss, a major complication during radiotherapy. Nutrition counseling not only increased protein and energy intake, but also had desirable effects on variety or diversity of diet.
