Start with your current nutritional needs.
We review your usual intake, recent weight changes, appetite, digestion, treatment schedule, relevant labs, and any barriers to preparing or eating food. Maintaining nutritional adequacy and muscle is a central consideration during treatment.
Plans can change when nausea, mouth discomfort, altered taste, swallowing problems, bowel symptoms, or fatigue affect eating. Significant weight loss or difficulty eating needs timely attention and may require oncology nutrition or dietitian support.
Make the plan workable.
- Adjust meals to symptoms. Consider texture, timing, portion size, and foods you can tolerate.
- Support adequate intake. Discuss energy, protein, hydration, and whether additional nutrition support is needed.
- Respect preferences. Culture, taste, budget, cooking capacity, and help at home shape a realistic plan.
- Coordinate the details. Food–drug interactions and treatment-specific restrictions are reviewed with your care team.
Therapeutic diets, fasting & metabolic approaches.
You may have questions about ketogenic diets, fasting, carbohydrate restriction, or the phrase “starve cancer” from Jane McLelland’s book. These ideas deserve a careful discussion, rather than an assumption that more restriction is better.
Evidence is insufficient to recommend a particular restrictive diet or fasting strategy as a universal way to improve cancer control during treatment. Restriction can also make it harder to meet nutritional needs. Your diagnosis, weight trajectory, symptoms, medications, and treatment goals should guide the discussion.
Metabolic drug research is not a reason to deprive yourself of food. Explore our separate page on repurposed and off-label drugs for the distinction between a research rationale and clinical evidence.
After treatment: rebuild at a manageable pace.
Post-treatment nutrition may focus on lingering symptoms, strength, sustainable eating patterns, and longer-term health priorities. Advice is adapted to your recovery rather than framed as a way to guarantee prevention of recurrence.
We can work alongside your oncologist, primary care provider, and registered dietitian. A coordinated plan helps ensure that practical nutrition support and medical follow-up reinforce one another.
Common questions.
Do I have to follow a strict cancer diet?
No universal diet fits every diagnosis or treatment phase. The first priority is an individualized plan that meets your nutritional needs and works with your care.
Should I cut out all sugar to starve cancer?
Eliminating sugar does not selectively starve a tumour. Restrictive eating can reduce overall intake, so discuss dietary changes with your care team rather than using this idea as a treatment plan.
Can nutrition help with nausea and poor appetite?
Food strategies may help you maintain intake, but persistent symptoms also need assessment and appropriate medical management. Nutrition support complements prescribed symptom treatment.
Can you collaborate with my dietitian?
Yes. With your permission, relevant information and recommendations can be shared with your registered dietitian and other treating professionals.
Learn more.
These resources explain the approach and the evidence discussed above. Research findings are interpreted in the context of your diagnosis and care.
- Nutrition in cancer care · NCI professional summary ↗
- Exercise, diet & weight management during cancer treatment · ASCO guideline ↗
- Sugar and cancer: common questions · NCI ↗
Page updated November 2026.
Care with Dr. Jeff Martineau, BScH, BHSc, ND
Start with your priorities.
Care is offered at Healthcode Regenerative in Vancouver. Care includes assessment, shared decisions, and communication with your oncology team, with your permission. Learn about my education and clinical training, or begin with a meet and greet to discuss whether the practice fits your needs.
Book a free meet & greet#280 – 1285 West Broadway, Vancouver, BC V6H 3X8
(604) 283-9811 · info@healthcodefx.com