Dietary Composition, Meal Timing, and Cancer-Related Fatigue: Insights From the Women's Healthy Eating and Living Study.
Amber S Kleckner, Ian R Kleckner, Cynthia L Renn and 3 others
PMID 38032743WHAT IT FOUND
Among breast cancer survivors, the high-vegetable, low-fat diet intervention did not lower fatigue overall.
Still, starting and ending meals earlier, and higher diet quality, were linked to less tiredness and more energy.
Key findings
01The high-vegetable, low-fat diet intervention did not improve fatigue for the whole group at year 1 or year 4.
02Greater lutein concentrations were associated with less tiredness and more energy, while total carotenoids were not associated with either outcome.
03Eating after 9 pm was associated with more fatigue than eating before 7 pm.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This was an exploratory secondary analysis of a trial whose main purpose was not fatigue. The fatigue measure was not validated for reliability or validity in cancer survivors. The sample underrepresents African Americans, Hispanics, and older adults. No sleep logs were available, so eating timing could not be compared with sleep schedules. Comorbidity data were missing for 502 participants and were imputed. Cross-sectional diet and meal timing findings show association, not proof that changing diet or timing reduces fatigue. Subgroup and mediation findings were hypothesis-generating and not confirmatory.
Declared interests
The article text does not state author conflicts of interest. The publication types list U.S. Public Health Service research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not tell breast cancer survivors that this diet will reduce fatigue. The randomized intervention did not improve fatigue overall, and the meal timing findings were associations, not tested treatment effects.