In some online forums this topic would be a third rail issue. In the one corner would be lined up some people who’s lived experience is that their diet or other lifestyle change has worked for them. In the other corner would be those who managed to change their diet, get fit and healthy, and still quickly needed treatment.

Maybe I am naive, but my feeling is that as long as we remember to be kind, and that what works for one person may not work for another, then we should be fine to talk about this. Remember it is possible to disagree agreeably!

You will read lots of claims about various diets and lifestyle changes online. One of my favourite go to places for balanced information that neither accepts things uncritically nor rejects them too quickly is the Cancer Research pages on alternative diets and other therapies. They explain what clinical evidence exists and at the same time are open to the fact that some interventions can be helpful for some people some of theme.

Blood cancer patients should consult a dietician and/or your healthcare team before starting any diet or food supplements. Someone online may tell you that they are clearly feeling much more healthy, fitter, and slimmer from something they have changed in their diet or lifestyle. They may report results in terms of blood numbers that sound amazing.

But we can’t ever know if the person’s disease was simply a mild version. Or if they had a spontaneous remission. Or in some less scrupulous cases people will make a claim for something to have cured their cancer and conveniently not mention that they have also had chemotherapy!

Some people do improve their general health using all sorts of different methods. But some people dramatically improve their diet, lose weight, get fit, but still end up needing early treatment.

You would need to look at hundreds of people on any particular diet and compare the results with a group of hundreds of people like me who find it hard to make dramatic changes. I am no model in this area. Though to be fair I have kept off some of my extra fat and do eat less carbs and processed food than I used to.

One thing most dieticians would agree that one of the most important things anyone can do is to reduce the amount of processed and high sugar / carbohydrate foods you eat. There are a range of popular ways of trying to achieve this: macrobiotic living, veganism, vegetarianism, intermittent fasting, the 5:2, ketogenic diet, the Daniel plan, and many other diets will all lead to a big reduction in these modern poisons. Perhaps it doesn’t matter which diet you use to achieve this goal? Though again it is important to make sure that we do have sufficient intake of all nutrients.

As someone once said the best diet for you is the one that you will stick to. However, if your blood cancer is progressing and you are losing weight without trying to, or indeed if the weight is coming off too quickly, your doctors will want you to increase your calories not reduce them. During chemotherapy I was even put onto fortified milkshakes because from a few weeks before I started treatment I had started a dangerously fast weight loss.

Over to you: what do you think?

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