Introduction: Receiving a cancer diagnosis is an important moment in anyone's life. Consequently, many patients are prepared to change their everyday habits and begin to look for advice from a wide range of sources. Women with breast cancer are particularly motivated and committed to making changes to their lifestyle and diet. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the changes in nutritional and other lifestyle habits following breast cancer diagnosis in Slovenia. A further goal was to estimate the proportion of breast cancer patients using dietary supplements and alternative diets or ascertain their desire to attend a consultation with a dietician.
Methods: A link to an online questionnaire was sent to the email addresses of members of Europa Donna and posted on their website (www.europadonna-zdruzenje.si) and Facebook page.
Results: A total of 102 patients were included in the study. We found that a majority of breast cancer patients changed their eating habits (68.6%) and/or physical activity level (53.9%) following diagnosis. On average, they increased their fruit and vegetable intake and reduced their intake of sugar, red meat and fat. Alternative diets were used by 29.4% of patients, with a high proportion of patients (75.5%) consuming dietary supplements. More than a half of the patients (69.6%) expressed a desire for a consultation with a dietician.
Conclusions: Nutritional support during cancer treatment is part of medical treatment and has an important role to play in secondary and tertiary cancer prevention activities. More dieticians should therefore be incorporated into the health system.
Uvod: Diagnoza rak predstavlja pomemben trenutek v življenju posameznika, ko so mnogi pripravljeni na spremembe in začnejo iskati ter zbirati številne nasvete. Še posebno so motivirane in zavzete za spremembe življenjskega stila in prehrane ženske z rakom dojk. Namen raziskave je bil ugotoviti spremembe prehranjevalnih in drugih življenjskih navad, za katere se odločijo bolnice po diagnozi rak dojke v Sloveniji. Prav tako nas je zanimalo, v kolikšni meri se bolnice z rakom dojk odločajo za uživanje prehranskih dopolnil in alternativnih oblik prehranjevanja ter ali se želijo udeležiti posveta z dietetikom.
Metode: Povezavo do spletnega vprašalnika, ki je bil namenjen samo bolnicam z rakom dojk, smo poslali na elektronske naslove članic združenja Europa Donna ter jo objavili na njihovi spletni strani www.europadonnazdruzenje.si in Facebooku.
Rezultati: V analizo smo vključili 102 bolnici. Ugotovili smo, da bolnice z rakom dojk v življenju po diagnozi največkrat spremenijo prehranjevalne navade (68,6 %) in/ali fizično aktivnost (53,9 %). Prav tako po diagnozi največkrat povečajo vnos sadja in zelenjave ter zmanjšajo vnos sladkorja, rdečega mesa in maščob. Alternativne diete je preizkusilo 29,4 % bolnic, kar velik delež bolnic (75,5 %) uživa tudi prehranska dopolnila. Več kot polovica bolnic (69,6 %) pa je izrazila tudi željo po posvetu z dietetikom.
Zaključki: Ker predstavlja prehranska podpora med zdravljenjem raka del medicinske obravnave in je tudi del sekundarne in terciarne preventive raka, bi se na ta način lahko pospešilo vključevanje dietetikov v zdravstveni sistem.
Keywords: alternative diets; breast cancer; dietary changes; dietary supplements; dietitians.
© 2021 Karmen Grašič Lunar, Nada Rotovnik Kozjek, Milena Blaž Kovač, published by Sciendo.