Eat And Treat

A little tweak in your diet can help fight even the most dreaded diseases.

- Gunjan Sharma

My chemotherapy was one of the best phases of my life. I rediscovered myself,” says Nirmala Gupta, 58, who fought third-stage breast cancer three years ago. Quite unusual for someone to say such a thing.

Cancer was not a stranger to Nirmala. She had seen her mother and sister suffer from it. So when she felt a lump in her breast, she knew it was not normal. She consulted a doctor without telling anyone and even underwent a few initial tests. When her doctor confirmed cancer, she broke the news to her husband.

Within a week, she underwent surgery to remove the lump. Dr Siddharth Sahni, senior consultant, oncology, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, told her that to be able to bear the side effects of the strong medicines, she needed to prepare her body. “My sister grew weak after chemotherapy,” says Nirmala. “She couldn’t eat anything because of ulcers in the mouth and food pipe, a side effect of chemotherapy. I didn’t want that to happen to me.”

Nirmala’s elder daughter, Ritika, studied how to prepare one’s body for chemotherapy and found that food played a major role in it. Chemotherapy, she says, kills the rapidly dividing cells in the body. “These are generally cancer cells, but other cells such as those in bone marrow, mouth and gut also get affected. Chemotherapy drugs bring down the body’s immunity so that the body doesn’t resist them,” says Nirmala.