March 13, 2026
Jessi Behrendsen
Food isn't just fuel – for cancer patients, it is a critical part of treatment. That's the driving force behind a new paper published in Cancer: Interdisciplinary International Journal of the American Cancer Society, co-authored by HRS Professor Colleen Spees, PhD, MEd, RD, examining the integration of food and nutrition into oncology care.
The research grew out of a landmark randomized controlled trial in which Spees and her team delivered over 30,000 medically tailored home-delivered meals to patients undergoing lung cancer treatment, alongside nearly 1,800 one-on-one dietitian-delivered counseling sessions. Participants who received the intervention showed significant improvements in diet quality and experienced less unintentional weight loss, a critical outcome given that malnutrition affects up to 80% of lung cancer patients.
"Nutrition plays a foundational role in cancer care, yet malnutrition remains a pervasive, underrecognized and undertreated condition among oncology patients," Spees said, noting there is currently just one dietitian for every 2,300 cancer patients across the nation in outpatient settings where over 90% are treated.
The work caught the attention of the American Cancer Society, which hosted a national Food is Medicine in Oncology Symposium and invited Spees to present at a second convening in Washington, D.C. which was held on March 12.