Q&A with My Cancer Coach: Chemo Side-Effects: Nausea and Lack of Appetite

Jane M. Guyette, Transformational Nutrition Coach

I had my 3rd round of chemo February 22nd-24th. As chemo side-effects are cumulative (meaning they get worse over time rather than better), it's no wonder this round was more difficult than the first two. I've been concerned about my nausea and lack of appetite, feeling I'm not getting the nutrients I need to detoxify from the chemo and eradicate the tumor that's metastasized to my liver. About a month before the chemo started, I'd already drastically changed my diet, including morning juicing and eating a lot of fruit and vegetables. Since the chemo started, it's been very difficult to keep up with these healthy cancer-fighting habits. So I reached out today to my cancer coach, Jane Guyette, and she gave me some very worthwhile and comforting advise. 

Whether you're going through chemo treatments yourself or caretaking someone who is, you might also benefit from what Jane and I discussed. My questions are in italics and precede Jane's answers, indented for ease in reading.

I don't feel well. I'm constantly nauseated and the smell of vegetables makes me want to vomit. I can't even imagine juicing them and drinking them. About the only thing that tastes good to me is rice and fruit, and I know I shouldn't be eating a lot of rice. So my concern is if I'm not getting a lot of the green leafy vegetables in and I'm leaning more towards fruit because that's what makes me feel good, is that good or bad? And what should I be doing to try and get more leafy greens in?

Right now if you like the fruit go with the fruit. Fruits are antioxidants and right now you probably have a lot of oxidative stress in your body. So you're going to need to combat a lot of that stress. [Oxidative stress reflects an imbalance between the systemic manifestation of reactive oxygen species and a biological system's ability to readily detoxify the reactive intermediates or to repair the resulting damage.] What happens is in the detoxification process the liver releases oxidative stress radicals. And they're like run warriors. And they jump all around and they destroy other liver tissue. So you have to take like 10 times the amount of antioxidants to combat the oxidative stress molecules in the liver.

So anytime you can bring in Vitamin C or foods that increase strong antioxidant formulas you're gonna be fine until you get past this phase of where you're feeling nauseated and you get back to where you can be eating more.

Rice can be very soothing and have an anti-nausea effect, a white rice even. So for a day or two, if it's organic, I personally think it's not a big deal. If you cool it down a little bit it's actually a resistant starch and what it's going to do is promote the growth of good bacteria.

I'm using the organic Jasmine rice that you brought me.

That's fine. You can use that. We're not dealing with blood sugar right now. We're just looking at what's going to heal you. So your blood sugar might go a little bit wonky, but I'm not worried about that right now because you're not doing it on a daily basis. You're just trying to get past this place of nausea.

As far as the leafy greens -- do you feel like eating anything cooked? Do you feel like eating anything steamed?

What I'm craving is the chia pudding that you taught me how to make with fruit on it.

Then that's what your body's wanting. Actually that is great. Because chia has that mucilaginous affect to it where it's gonna coat your digestive tract and keep the nausea down. And then the other thing you can do is probiotics. The other thing is cut up some red cabbage, boil it, let it cool down and drink the water. And that's gonna be really soothing to the digestive tract. It's got L-Glutamine in it and L-Glutamine will kind of coat the digestive tract to help rebuild and is also a precursor to glutathione in the liver. And you will know if it works with you or not because you will have an immediate reaction and you will not that's not good for you.

What will be the immediate reaction?

It will make symptoms worse. And it won't necessarily an instant reliever. It will be a reliever of over three or four days. The red cabbage juice would be really great if you can drink that.

So what you're saying is what my body's craving is probably what it needs to detoxify the liver?

And also soothe and coat the digestive tract. So wanting the chia seeds, anything mucilaginous -- it sounds like that's what you're wanting.

It tastes really good to me and it goes down smoothly. I use the recipe you gave me and top it with fresh or frozen fruit.

After you soak it, lightly blend it so you're breaking the casing on the chia seed. Just a slight blend on it. If you have bad stomach you body's not going to break it down and you're not going to get the benefits. You don't want to overblend it because then you ruin the Omega 3s.

I have one of those hand blenders I can just pop it in a few times.

Perfect. And that will open it up to you.

I'm not worried right now about the rice because go with you cravings. Your cravings are great cravings. I don't have an issue with that. The only thing I would say if you want to eat rice steam some veggies in with it, see if you can mix it in and flavor it up. Spinach doesn't have much taste.

I was thinking about kale. I love cooked kale and I love steamed broccoli, so that's really good. I can easily do that and be happy with it.

My last question is between juicing, raw, and steamed -- am I getting the same nutrients? Is there a better was to get the nutrition between those three.

Juicing is going to be the best. Juicing is in its raw form with all the good bacteria and all the nutrients and it hasn't been heated and nothing's been ruined. And by juicing with the kale and cruciferous you're breaking open the fibers, so you're squeezing out the nutrition in it.

Raw and cruciferous you're not going to get much nutrition unless you're chewing the heck out of it and turning it to soup in your mouth. with crucieferous you're better off steaming it or blanching it. But don't overcook it. You want the core of that vegetable to still be cool. And you will get more liver protection with steaming it because the fibers are going to break down and they're going to release the inside of what's inside those fibers.

So cruciferous would include anything green?

Cruciferous vegetables are your kale, cauliflower, brussell sprouts -- so it's better to eat them cooked rather than eating them raw.

And from an Ayurvedit perspective it's better to cook your food rather than eating raw. When you're going through chemotherapy the whole digestive tract is just raw. And you're seeing that with the anus because you've got blood down there. So think about how all the skin in the digestive tract looks like that. Fiber in there is like a knife. So by eating cooked -- I think cooked is better and juicing. But if you're looking for the maximum benefit, juice the vegetables.

Not everybody can handle raw food. It's an individual thing. So you have to listen to your gut. If you have something going on and you know raw food is not good for you, you can do cooked and take probiotics.

These are great answers, Jane! Because I've been so worried that the nausea is preventing me from eating the foods I need to get well. I've been concerned, too, that eating too much fruit is putting too much sugar in my body with nothing to balance it out -- but now I'm just going to go with my body tells me it needs.

Not having hunger and having nausea is the body's way of saying to you that it really doesn't want food because it wants to concentrate on healing the problem it has. You want to give it the easiest food you can for the best assimilation and digestion. The less work your body has to do, the better. This is why I say skip the animal product and just do vegetables because those are easier to digest if they're cooked and/or juiced. Or fruit. Do fruit raw. The fruit gets processed super easy. So that will just run through your body, it won't take a lot of effort. A lot of it's reserved and left for healing the damage the chemo and the cancer have left behind.

Through the wonders of Skype and Zoom, Jane is available to work with clients anywhere in the world there's an Internet connection. Click here to contact Jane directly.