At the 47th ESPEN Congress in Prague, Czech Republic, Nutricia joins the global healthcare community to spotlight the transformative potential of medical nutrition in cancer care.
One in three patients with cancer reports to experience treatment delays or interruptions due to weight loss1. Despite established guidelines to address weight loss from medical societies, like the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and
Metabolism (ESPEN) or the European Society For Medical Oncology (ESMO), implementation of nutritional screening and care remains inconsistent. This leaves many patients without access to essential nutritional interventions when they need it the most, leading to malnutrition.
Malnutrition, i.e., not getting enough nutrients to cover daily needs, is not merely a side effect of cancer. It is a driver of poorer treatment outcomes and quality of life, longer hospital stays, reduced treatment tolerance, and increased healthcare costs4.
Clinical evidence shows that science-based medical nutrition interventions in cancer can help address malnutrition and maintain weight and muscle mass, improve quality of life, increase tolerance to treatment, reduce complications, and shorten hospital stays5. In fact, 85% of patients report that medical nutrition supported them throughout treatment1. Yet, only one in three patients who need it receive it3, due to low understanding of the benefits of medical nutrition, lack of standardized protocols, and overstretched healthcare systems.
As Prof. Carla Prado stated at the Nutricia Satellite Symposium, which she chaired today at ESPEN in Prague:
New research findings by Nutricia presented at ESPEN further build on the evidence of medical nutrition in supporting patient outcomes during cancer treatment, through a total of seven abstracts.
Among these, a large-scale, multi-center, multi-country clinical trial involved patients receiving chemo- and immunotherapy for colorectal and lung cancer. It showed that high-protein, omega-3-enriched oral nutritional supplements help meet patients’ nutritional needs effectively6.
These studies are part of Nutricia’s robust evidence generation platform, dedicated to understanding and ultimately better meeting the nutritional needs of patients with cancer.
For example, patients with cancer require up to twice as much protein as healthy individuals, yet less than half meet their protein needs7. With its Fortimel and Nutrison ranges, Nutricia supports patients who are malnourished due to their cancer, providing science-based medical nutrition that helps meet their nutritional needs, when normal food alone is not enough8.
Katrien Van Laere, SVP Research & Innovation, Chief Medical & Scientific Officer at Danone comments:
Building on 125 years of research, innovation and care, Nutricia pioneers medical nutrition that helps enable life-changing and life-saving health outcomes, so that people can live their life to its fullest.
Nutricia supports healthy growth and development in early life and plays its part addressing some of the world’s biggest health challenges from birth through to old age. The Nutricia portfolio includes a wide range of nutritional solutions for pre-term birth, faltering growth, food allergy, rare metabolic diseases, age-related conditions and chronic disease, such as frailty, cancer, and stroke.
As part of Danone, Nutricia embraces the company’s long-standing mission of bringing health through food to as many people as possible. Danone aims to inspire healthier and more sustainable eating and drinking practices while committing to achieve measurable nutritional, social, societal and environment impact. Visit www.nutricia.com.
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