A descriptive study of learned food aversions in radiotherapy patients

Food Aversion during Cancer Treatment: A Systematic Review

Individuals with cancer often present food aversion after initiation of anti-tumor treatment, which may impair nutritional status. We aim to assess the prevalence and factors associated with food aversion during cancer treatment. Articles from three databases were searched: MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane Library. English was used, with no restriction on the year of publication. Inclusion criteria were original articles that evaluated food aversion in adults and the elderly undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy treatment. Fifteen articles were included. A high prevalence of food aversion (21-62%) was observed, with meat considered the most aversive food. The aversion is usually transient and may be due to gastrointestinal problems, such as nausea and vomiting, caused by chemotherapy or radiotherapy treatment, and even psychological and emotional issues. Offering a new food before the beginning of treatment seems to be an effective strategy to reduce aversion, combined with nutritional and psychological monitoring. Cancer patients have a high prevalence of food aversion. Multidisciplinary care can minimize the consequences of cancer treatment.

[Diagnostic value of selective anorexia in pathological weight loss]

PURPOSE

The diagnostic value of selective anorexia is debated. Some authors have suggested an association between meat aversion and cancer, but most do not use it as a diagnostic tool. We aimed to characterize anorexia of different diseases to search for an association between selective aversions and diagnostic groups.

METHODS

All the patients admitted to three departments of a teaching hospital were included consecutively for 22months if they had more than 10 % weight loss in less than one year. Patients were excluded if history taking was not reliable, or if they suffered from anorexia nervosa. We compiled diagnoses at discharge and validated them six months later. We used logistic regression to identify independent factors associated with selective anorexia.

RESULTS

Inclusion criteria were met in 106patients (female 44 %, median age 65years). Most frequent diagnoses were: cancer (36 %), infection (35 %), digestive diseases (19 %), non organic diseases (21 %). Recent selective anorexia was found in 46 % of the cases. It was significantly associated with female gender (P=0.002), marginally with young age (P=0.069) and long duration of weight loss (P=0.079). Opioid use at admission was negatively associated with selective anorexia (P=0.001). No specific diagnostic category was found to be associated.

CONCLUSION

Selective anorexia does not appear to be a useful symptom to investigate pathological weight loss. It behaves more like a non-specific reactivation by current disease of earlier latent personal food aversions.

Signals for nausea and emesis: Implications for models of upper gastrointestinal diseases

Nausea and vomiting are amongst the most common symptoms encountered in medicine as either symptoms of diseases or side effects of treatments. In a more biological setting they are also important components of an organism's defences against ingested toxins. Identification of treatments for nausea and vomiting and reduction of emetic liability of new therapies has largely relied on the use of animal models, and although such models have proven invaluable in identification of the anti-emetic effects of both 5-hydroxytryptamine(3) and neurokinin(1) receptor antagonists selection of appropriate models is still a matter of debate. The present paper focuses on a number of controversial issues and gaps in our knowledge in the study of the physiology of nausea and vomiting including: The choice of species for the study of emesis and the underlying behavioural (e.g. neophobia), anatomical (e.g. elongated, narrow abdominal oesophagus with reduced ability to shorten) and physiological (e.g. brainstem circuitry) mechanisms that explain the lack of a vomiting reflex in certain species (e.g. rats); The choice of response to measure (emesis[retching and vomiting], conditioned flavour avoidance or aversion, ingestion of clay[pica], plasma hormone levels[e.g. vasopressin], gastric dysrhythmias) and the relationship of these responses to those observed in humans and especially to the sensation of nausea; The stimulus coding of nausea and emesis by abdominal visceral afferents and especially the vagus-how do the afferents encode information for normal postprandial sensations, nausea and finally vomiting?; Understanding the central processing of signals for nausea and vomiting is particularly problematic in the light of observations that vomiting is more readily amenable to pharmacological treatment than is nausea, despite the assumption that nausea represents "low" intensity activation of pathways that can evoke vomiting when stimulated more intensely.

One-year follow-up of symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux during infancy. Pediatric Practice Research Group

OBJECTIVES

1) Determine what percentage of infants outgrow regurgitation over 1 year. 2) Determine whether they develop feeding or mealtime problems. 3) Determine whether they develop frequent respiratory illnesses, including ear, sinus, and upper respiratory infections, or wheezing episodes.

DESIGN

One-year follow-up survey of parents of children identified at 6 to 12 months of age as those who regurgitate (case subjects) and matched control subjects.

PARTICIPANTS

Sixty-three case subjects and 92 control subjects attending 12 different (urban, suburban, and rural) practices in the Pediatric Practice Research Group in the Chicago area.

PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES

The Infant Gastroesophageal Reflux Questionnaire-Shortened and Revised Form and the Children's Eating Behavior Inventory (CEBI).

RESULTS

At 1-year follow-up, no parents of case or control subject described spitting up as currently a problem. The parent of only one control subject (and no case subject) reported spitting up one or more times a day. Parents of subjects were more likely than those of control subjects to report frequent feeding refusal: odds ratio = 4.2, adjusted by age (95% confidence interval: 1.4-12.0). Case and control subjects had comparable average total CEBI scores (case subjects, = 83 +/- 10 vs control subjects, = 82 +/- 11) and comparable average proportion of items identified as a problem (8% +/- 11% case subjects vs 6% +/- 9% control subjects). Case subjects were more likely to respond positively to two CEBI questions indicating specific feeding problems: 1) "my child takes more than an hour to eat his/her meals" (8% case subjects vs 0% control subjects) and 2) "I get upset when I think about our meals" (14% case subjects vs 4% control subjects). The frequencies of ear, sinus, and upper respiratory infections and of episodes of wheezing were comparable in both groups.

CONCLUSIONS

1) Infants with daily or problematic regurgitation at 6 to 12 months of age outgrew this within the following year. 2) Infants with daily or problematic regurgitation were more likely to develop feeding problems. 3) There was no increase in respiratory illnesses in infants with a history of regurgitation.

Prevention of food aversions in cancer patients during treatment

Food aversions are a common complication of cancer treatment. This study evaluated an approach for blocking the formation of aversions to dietary items in 209 cancer patients treated with chemo- and/or radiotherapy. Patients were exposed to a sensory stimulus (fruit beverage, halava, odor) before initial treatments to provide a target for aversion formation, thereby sparing dietary items. Patients who developed an aversion to the "scapegoat" stimulus experienced a statistically significant 30% reduction in dietary aversion formation relative to patients without a scapegoat aversion or those not exposed to the scapegoat. The most effective scapegoat was the beverage, probably because it was consumed in greatest quantity. Exposure of patients to a "scapegoat" food or beverage just before chemo- and, probably, radiotherapy can markedly reduce the incidence of treatment-related aversions to foods in the patients' customary diet.