A healthy diet
Eating healthily is important for everybody, and it’s especially the case if you have non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). Both the condition itself and the effects of many of the treatments mean that a healthy diet can be particularly beneficial during your treatment period and afterwards. It can help keep your energy levels up, and will help ensure that your body gets all the nutrients it needs to repair itself after treatment.
There are no special dietary requirements for people with NHL.
A sensible, well-balanced diet, with lots of fruit and vegetables, is what you should aim for. If you want advice about your diet, you may find it helpful to talk to a dietician.
Your specialist doctor or another member of your healthcare team will be able to provide information about dieticians in your local area. Most family doctors can also advise patients about seeing a dietician. It is not a good idea to try unusual diets, which might not be nutritionally balanced, while your body is trying to deal with NHL and its treatment.
A problem that many patients with NHL face is loss of appetite, often accompanied by nausea (feeling sick) or vomiting (being sick). This is typically due to the treatments at least as much as it is due to the disease.
Chemotherapy and radiotherapy, for example, can both cause a loss of appetite with nausea and vomiting. They can also cause food to taste different from usual – either making it lose its taste or making it taste unpleasant. These side effects are temporary and go away once the treatment is finished. Usually, the worst effects last only a few days at most.
There are dietary adjustments and changes to your daily eating pattern that can help to minimise these problems. Patients, and their family members and friends, often get very worried if they think that they're not eating well. It is important to remember that, for most people, not being able to eat or not feeling like eating for a few days is not likely to cause significant problems, although it is of course unpleasant.
It is very important, though, to drink enough fluid. It might be easier to take small amounts of fluid throughout the day. Water and fruit juice are better choices than tea and coffee, which are not so good at keeping the body well hydrated.
As with liquids, it is often easier to take small amounts of food at fairly frequent intervals rather than trying to stick to the usual routine of three meals a day. In particular, many people find it helpful to:
- Avoid fatty foods
- Avoid foods that have a strong smell
- Eat cold food, such as salads, or food that has been allowed to cool slightly if the smell of food is upsetting
- Avoid preparing food - if possible have someone else prepare it or, if this is not possible, prepare cold meals, such as salads, which are less likely to provoke sickness than cooking hot food
It is often a good idea to avoid favourite foods during times of sickness after chemotherapy or radiotherapy. This is because such foods can become associated with the sickness and then always bring on feelings of nausea. This is especially likely in children. Patients are also advised to avoid alcohol during treatment.