By Ana Espino | Published on November 25, 2025 | 3 min readCancer treatment, whether based on
chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or immunotherapy, is frequently associated with
gastrointestinal side effects. These digestive symptoms have a direct impact on
patients’ nutritional status and may compromise the effectiveness of
oncological treatments.
Conventional approaches aimed at
reducing these side effects rely mainly on symptomatic medications
(antiemetics, antidiarrheals, etc.), but they have
limitations, including
partial effectiveness, tolerance issues, or lack of response in some patients.
In addition,
nutritional management is often underused or poorly integrated
into standard oncology protocols.
The main challenges include the
lack
of clear recommendations, the
interindividual variability of symptoms, and the
difficulty in demonstrating the isolated effectiveness of nutritional
interventions within a complex clinical context.
The aim of this narrative review is
therefore to examine the
existing evidence on the use of nutritional
interventions in managing digestive symptoms induced by cancer treatments, and
to identify practical strategies that can be integrated into routine clinical
practice.
What is the real value of nutrition
in managing side effects?
This review focuses on
adult
patients undergoing cancer treatment, with a particular emphasis on
nutritional
interventions used to
reduce digestive symptoms induced by chemotherapy or
radiotherapy. The approaches explored include
dietary adjustments (texture
modification, low-FODMAP diets, fiber intake), targeted oral supplementation
(glutamine, probiotics, omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants), as well as the use
of functional foods.
The findings show that certain
nutritional interventions can reduce the severity of digestive disorders.
Glutamine appears to reduce mucositis, probiotics help limit post-radiotherapy
diarrhea, and low-FODMAP or fiber-enriched diets improve intestinal symptoms.
The addition of omega-3 fatty acids may also play an anti-inflammatory role. However, the studies are often small, heterogeneous, and poorly standardized,
which limits the generalizability of the results. The effectiveness of these
interventions therefore remains promising but still needs confirmation through
more robust clinical trials.
Better nutrition for better
treatment tolerance?
Digestive symptoms induced by
anticancer treatments remain frequent, debilitating, and often underestimated
in terms of their nutritional and functional impact. Their management
represents a real
clinical challenge, as pharmacological treatments alone do
not always provide adequate control.
In this context, this study aims to
explore existing data on effective nutritional interventions in order to
identify concrete solutions that can be incorporated into the care of patients
with cancer.
The results of this review indicate
that certain targeted nutritional strategies may play a
significant role in
reducing gastrointestinal symptoms and
improving patients’ quality of life.
Nonetheless, this review has limitations that highlight the need for further
research. Larger, more rigorous, and more targeted clinical trials will be
needed to confirm the effectiveness of nutritional interventions depending on
cancer type and treatment modality. It is also essential to better integrate dietitians and nutrition specialists
into care teams to provide more comprehensive and personalized patient
management.
Read next: Plant-based diets and disease progression in men with prostate cancer
About the author – Ana EspinoPhD in Immunology, specialized in Virology
