Leukemia dietary taboos

Never eat undercooked, cold or unclean food； Don’t mess with supplements, folk remedies, and Internet celebrity health products with unknown ingredients. ； Resolutely avoid foods that are known to trigger allergies. In addition, most of the "taboo requirements", such as saying that you can't eat chicken, not touch seafood, and not touch "fat foods", actually have no clear evidence-based medical basis, so you don't need to follow them blindly. On the contrary, it is easy to cause malnutrition and hinder the treatment effect.

When I went to the outpatient clinic last week, I met a 7-year-old boy who had just finished the first course of induction chemotherapy. His face was sallow. His family members were carrying a thermos bucket, which contained only millet porridge and boiled vegetables. They asked why he was not given eggs. He said that people in the same ward said that eggs are "fatty substances" and that eating them would make cancer cells grow faster. This made me so angry that I laughed.

First of all, let’s talk about why raw, cold and unclean food is a red line that should not be touched: Whether during chemotherapy or in the progression stage of the disease, most leukemia patients will have neutropenia, especially in the bone marrow suppression stage. The neutrophils may be less than a few tenths, and the immunity is as weak as paper. It is okay for ordinary people to have some opportunistic pathogenic bacteria in their intestines. They may spread into the blood and cause sepsis. There was a young patient who was greedy in the summer and ate a piece of iced watermelon that had been left in the refrigerator overnight. He had diarrhea for three days and suffered from septic shock. He was admitted to the ICU for a week before he was discharged. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and delayed follow-up chemotherapy. Of course, there are a few institutions that promote natural therapy and will recommend that patients eat more raw organic vegetables to supplement vitamins. This view is not recommended by our mainstream hematology departments at all, unless it is a patient who has completed treatment for more than three years and whose immune function has completely returned to normal levels. If you want to eat some salad or something, it is best to make it at home using a clean chopping board and fresh ingredients. Talk to the doctor in charge in advance before trying it. Don't try it on your own.

What is even more regrettable than eating bad food is that many family members feel sorry for the patient's weakness and try their best to find various expensive supplements and stuff them into the patient's mouth, which only leads to eating problems. Last year, an aunt was in good remission after chemotherapy. She heard from relatives that a certain imported "anti-cancer spore powder" could kill cancer cells. She spent more than 20,000 yuan to buy half a year's supply. After taking it for less than a month, a reexamination showed that her liver function transaminases had soared to 4 times the normal value. She had to suspend chemotherapy to protect her liver. Later, the spore powder was sent for testing and it was found that the heavy metal arsenic in the spore powder exceeded the legal limit by more than three times. This does not mean that all TCM supplements are useless. Our department also often consults TCM doctors to prescribe prescriptions to strengthen the spleen, stomach, and replenish qi and blood according to the patient's constitution. However, the prerequisite is to find a professional doctor from a regular hospital. Don't believe in "ancestral remedies" in the circle of friends, and don't buy health care products with unknown ingredients, especially those that claim to "100% cure cancer", which are 100% liars.

As for the mythical taboo of "making things", there is actually no need to take it too seriously. Many people say that chicken, seafood, beef and mutton are fat and eating them will cause tumors to recur. This is not the case at all. There was a young girl in our department whose albumin dropped to 28g/L after chemotherapy. Her family did not dare to feed her non-vegetarian food. She drank white porridge every day and lost 8 pounds in half a month. Later, we forced her to eat two boiled eggs every day, add a glass of milk in the afternoon, and eat lean beef and steamed fish two or three times a week. In less than a month, her albumin rose to 37g/L, and she also handled the follow-up chemotherapy very well. Of course, there is also a consensus here. If you are in the stage of fever, oral ulcers, or particularly severe gastrointestinal reactions, you should definitely avoid eating beef and mutton that are too greasy, and fish with many thorns for the time being. This is not because it will cause "sickness", but because you are afraid that it will be difficult to digest, or the thorns will scratch the mouth and digestive tract. You can still eat it after your body recovers.

Although there are some details that are not strict "taboos", it is still best to pay attention to them. For example, when your platelets are particularly low, don't eat anything that is too hard, shelled, or spiny, such as crispy noodles, crabs, grass carp with many fish bones, etc. If you scratch the digestive tract and bleed, you will be in trouble.； It is best to choose fruits with intact skins, rinse them with running water, and peel them before eating them. Don’t buy the cut and boxed fruits in the supermarket. You don’t know how long they have been stored, and you don’t know whether they are dry when you cut them. ； If you are taking targeted drugs, be careful to avoid fruits such as grapefruit and star fruit that can affect the metabolism of targeted drugs. This is clearly supported by research, so don’t take it seriously.

In fact, after all, there is no need for leukemia patients to be ascetic in their diet. The treatment is already stressful enough. As long as the core red lines are avoided, it is perfectly fine for the patient to eat whatever they want, as long as it is clean and non-allergenic. Last week, a little girl who had finished treatment for half a year came for a review. She said that she secretly drank half a cup of room-temperature milk tea last time and was happy for several days. We all laughed and said that as long as she doesn't drink ice cream and doesn't drink too often, this small happiness is completely worth it. After all, eating well, drinking well, and being in a good mood are the foundation for surviving treatment.