Nutrition in cancer care: Expert views on taste modulation to elevate palatability and compliance

Summary 

• Nutrition is one modifiable factor in cancer treatment plans and plays an important role in patient care. But taste and smell alterations (TSAs)—commonly caused by the disease or its treatment—can make maintaining nutritional plans unpleasant and difficult.
• We believe that nutritional support should never feel like a burden for people living with cancer.
• In this article, we interviewed dsm-firmenich Taste and Medical Nutrition experts to explore how advanced flavors and taste modulation solutions can help elevate medical nutrition products to improve patient experiences, maximize compliance—and ultimately support better cancer care.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 1 in 5 people develop cancer in their lifetime.¹ And that figure could be as high as 1 in 2 in some places, like the UK.² Therefore, elevating the treatment and care of people living with cancer is an ever-present priority for science and society.

Nutrition is an integral and modifiable factor in cancer care—replacing crucial calories and nutrients commandeered by cancer cells to fuel their growth and providing people with the energy and strength needed both to fight the disease itself and to tolerate treatments. But adhering to nutritional care plans during cancer therapy can be a challenge for patients due to common side effects experienced as a result of the disease or its treatments. A prime barrier is taste and smell alterations (TSAs), which affect up to 86% of people living with cancer.³ TSAs can have huge detrimental effects on adherence to nutritional care, which in turn impacts treatment effectiveness, quality of life, and health outcomes.

We sat down with dsm-firmenich experts, Alessia Delbrück, Global Senior Innovation Manager Medical Nutrition, and Lyzandra Passarella-Dutour, Director Global Technical Taste, to explore the impact of TSAs on people living with cancer, and how forward-thinking flavors and taste modulation strategies in medical nutrition for cancer care has the potential to transform the patient experience and product efficacy. Want to keep reading? Fill in the form below to access the full interview.