Cancer survivors often have bad diets

Cancer survivors may be less likely to follow a healthy diet than other people, particularly where leafy greens and whole grains are concerned, a U.S. study suggests.Researchers analyzed the diets of about 1,500 cancer survivors and 3,000 people without any history of tumors, ranking them based on how well they followed U.S. dietary recommendations. Neither group ate very well, but the cancer survivors generally had less nutritious habits than the other people in the study, researchers report in the journal Cancer.The findings are troubling because nutrition plays an important role in preventing diseases, and poor eating habits can exacerbate many chronic health conditions common among cancer survivors, lead study author Dr. Fang Fang Zhang, a nutrition researcher at Tufts University in Boston.
“It is remarkable that cancer survivors are still burdened by suboptimal dietary intake,” Zhang said. “Not getting enough fiber and having too many empty calories are established risk factors for many chronic health conditions.”