Question

Anna has completed chemotherapy with great success when it comes to battling her cancer. However, she’s been feeling more fatigued than usual, her skin is pale, and she has shortness of breath and diarrhea not attributed to her treatment. Her blood test results indicate that Anna is anemic.

Question 1: Identify and describe the type of anemia that Anna is suffering from, and what may have caused it. Discuss the role of the vitamin involved in red blood cell production, as well as how deficiency may affect other functions in the body. You will need to defend your answer using specific facts, data, and other information drawn from the textbook and at least one other supplemental source.

Jack is very health conscious and takes an antioxidant vitamin supplement daily because he’s heard that these vitamins reduce risk for chronic disease. His girlfriend, Jill, thinks that any supplements are unnecessary if one has a healthy, balanced diet. They bring their questions on what exactly antioxidants do, how they reduce risk for disease and the best sources to you, a nutritional health professional.

Question 2: Define for Jack and Jill what the terms “free radical” and “antioxidant” mean and explain their actions in the body, including how these molecules interact. Discuss the research surrounding the supplement versus food debate and recommend the best sources for antioxidant vitamins. You will need to defend your answer using specific facts, data, and other information drawn from the textbook and at least one other supplemental source.

Answer 1

Type of anaemia- chemotherapy induced anaemia

Chemotherapy reduces the haemoglobin (Hgb) level by inducing a suppressive effect on bone marrow and toxic effects on erythrocytes. The incidence of anaemia has been correlated directly with the number of chemotherapy cycles the patient receives.3 Early studies demonstrated a profound adverse impact of anaemia on a cancer patient’s functional capacity, quality of life (QOL), prognosis and survival.4–6 Pre-clinical studies have shown that anaemia is associated with antineoplastic therapy resistance,7,8 which is partially attributed to the hypoxic effect of anaemia and the reliance of ionising radiation, as well as certain types of chemotherapy agents, on adequate tissue oxygenation for their ability to kill cancer cells. Therefore, anaemia theoretically contributes to furthering malignant progression and tumour survival in the oncology anaemic patients.9–14

Cause-

You might get anemia during chemotherapy, because some drugs can kill cells that form red blood cells in the bone marrow. It can also be a major cause of fatigue during treatment.