”Doctor, does the patient need to avoid eating?” “Can I eat spicy food? Many such questions often bother the patients and make the outpatient doctors headache, so what are the common misconceptions that cancer patients should not have so many worries about their diet and what are the common misconceptions that can help cancer patients are summarized below. Misconception 1: The more nutritious you eat, the faster the tumor will grow In the outpatient clinic, we often encounter very thin patients who are mainly vegetarian and rarely eat meat and eggs and other foods. But in fact, the growth of tumor cells has nothing to do with how much nutrition the patient eats. Cancer cells are robbing normal cells of nutrients until the person dies, and even if the patient is malnourished, the cancer cells still grow. According to the results of the American Cancer Society, cancer patients should increase their dietary calories by at least 20%, and there is no evidence that increasing nutrients in the human body will make cancer cells grow faster, but many patients have survived for a long time because of sufficient nutrients. As a gastroenterology oncologist, we pay most attention to the nutrition of patients in our clinical work. Patients with good nutritional status are significantly better than those with poor nutritional status and wasting in terms of tolerance to treatment and prognosis. The saying that cancer cells can be “starved to death” is not based on science at all. Myth 2: It is inevitable for cancer patients to continue to lose weight during treatment, so there is no need to care too much. The reasons for cancer patients to continue to lose weight during treatment are generally the following: 1) when receiving radiation and chemotherapy, weight loss can be caused by side effects such as mouth ulcers, nausea and poor appetite; 2) cancer cells compete with normal cells for nutrients, and the body consumes energy to fight against tumors; 3) the digestive system such as the esophagus and stomach can affect the absorption of nutrients. Cancer affects nutrient absorption. Generally speaking, if the treatment is effective and the tumor is under control, even if there are some side effects, the weight will recover quickly after the side effects disappear, especially in the case of digestive system tumors, this performance is especially obvious; if the patient loses weight during the treatment process, the cause must be considered, and the side effects caused by the treatment need to be reduced by some ways If the tumor of digestive tract affects the absorption, the intake of nutrients can be improved by supplementing enteral nutrients on the basis of normal diet. Research shows that 50% of patients have lost weight when cancer is confirmed. Tumor cells affect human metabolism and it is inevitable to become thin. Many patients or family members believe that “eating fish, chicken, beef, etc. is not good for health”, and these information usually comes from the internet, some patients or friends. For example, some post-surgical patients believe that fish and chicken are “hairy” and will cause wounds to not heal, so they eat a vegetarian diet for a long time after surgery, resulting in insufficient intake of calories and high-quality protein and insufficient ingredients necessary for tissue cell repair, which causes wounds to not heal, while the continued decline in immunity will increase the chance of infection. . Therefore, we remind patients that “meat will not accelerate the growth of tumor cancer cells”, and vegetarian cancer patients should eat more vegetables and fruits, and supplement whole grains, beans, eggs and milk to have a balanced diet, which can help the organism recover health as soon as possible. Myth 4: Cancer patients should try to have a light diet, and it is better to eat less grease. A balanced nutrition intake is the basis of maintaining a healthy body. Cancer patients should consume more of them, which is helpful to enhance immunity. Myth 5: Cancer patients should not eat “spicy” food Doctors are often asked, “Is it impossible to eat spicy food if you have cancer?” However, in fact, these answers are often lack of basis. Many patients have appetite only when they eat spicy food, and after they have tumor, they are asked to completely avoid eating because of such misunderstanding. In this way, tumor itself and radiotherapy will cause loss of appetite, and then change the eating habit of spicy food will often make patients have no appetite, which will not do any good to patients’ recovery. Myth 6, as long as you can play nutrition injection, it doesn’t matter if you can’t eat. Many patients will ask doctors to infuse nutrition solution after hospitalization, thinking that the body will be better if they supplement nutrition intravenously for a few days, and it doesn’t matter if they don’t eat, but in fact, the nutrition source of human intestine is mainly absorbed by food into the intestine, if you don’t eat for a long time, the intestinal mucosa will be atrophied, causing intestinal flora dysbiosis, thus also easy to be infected, so as long as you can eat, you must try to intake through normal way. Therefore, as long as you can eat, you must try to take in nutrients in a normal way, and the supplement can be carried out with enteral nutrition preparations. Nutrients such as fatty milk amino acids given intravenously are often difficult for the body to absorb and are more often consumed in the form of energy, even in the form of ordinary drips, which are not as good as sports drinks. Even complete nutrients (carbohydrates, amino acids, fat emulsion, electrolytes, vitamins, trace elements) for medical use can be maintained to improve the nutritional metabolism of critically ill patients who are unable to eat, but they should not be used for a long time. In general, because of the consumption of malignant tumor and the influence of treatment, the nutritional requirements of tumor patients are more detailed than those of healthy people. At present, the Department of Gastroenterology of Peking University Cancer Hospital is conducting a clinical study on the combination of nutritional support and drug treatment for advanced cancer patients, and we hope that the study will give guidance on nutritional interventions for the treatment of cancer patients in the future.