Columbus, OH,
10
December
2018
|
20:32 PM
Europe/Amsterdam

Columbus Dispatch: Cancer Patients Receive Nutrition Tips

When fighting cancer, one important factor to consider is nutrition and knowing what to eat so you can remain strong and get enough nutrients to sustain you.

Through a $7,000 grant from the OhioHealth Foundation’s Home in Ohio event, the cancer services team at the OhioHealth Delaware Health Center was able to develop a free program for patients and survivors in partnership with Kroger that helped educate patients on convenient, easy ways to stay on top of their nutrition.

Earlier this year, cooking demonstrations were held at the Delaware Health Center. More recently, patients were able to tour a Kroger in Delaware with a Kroger dietitian to learn tricks for finding healthy, convenient food.

“The goal is to help them find foods they can make and eat when treatment leaves them underweight, malnourished, fatigued, nauseated or with new sensitivities to smells or tastes,” Maria Tucker, administrative nurse manager in oncology at the Delaware Health Center, told Columbus Dispatch reporter JoAnne Viviano. “There’s no doubt that the cancer diagnosis, with the therapy that a patient receives, puts them at higher risk for these nutritional deficits and the side effects,” said Tucker.

In addition to receiving the guided tour through the grocery story, participants were also given a shopping bag containing a cookbook with recipes from the American Cancer Society, additional recipes, shopping lists and a $50 Kroger gift card.

Sherry Powell, a lung and kidney cancer patient, told the Dispatch that the event helped her learn better protein choices and gave her tips on counteracting the salty taste in her mouth from chemotherapy pills.

“I knew I had to get my diet under control and keep it under control,” Powell told the Dispatch. “Because people with cancer, you know, they lose weight and waste away.”

OhioHealth is hoping to offer another session of the program in the spring. Contact Melissa.Latham@ohiohealth.com to learn more.

Click the Dispatch Metro section image on the right to read the full article and to learn some of the tips shared with patients on the tour.  

For more information on Cancer Care at OhioHealth, click here or call OhioHealth CancerCall at (614) 566.4321 or 1 (800) 752.9119.