No more probiotic vitamins for gut health, “eat the rainbow” was my oncologist’s advice

Once my treatment plan was confirmed with my oncologist, I wanted to know everything that I could be doing to maximise the chances of success. I’m not sure if others in similar situations feel the same, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the response. It would have been great to have a magical diet or something that I could focus on to help my treatment work. But the reality is that there was not all that much I could do. It was all up to the treatment and surgery. Going through IVF, I often felt like it was the same. There is so little that we can do to influence the outcome of medical treatment. Supplements, alternative therapies, diet changes whilst doctors will always encourage you to be healthy, there is limited clinical evidence on how they impact treatment outcomes. The most impact you can have is actually before you even get to treatment.

Interestingly though there was one thing that my oncologist said that they do have clinical support on. It’s that those with a good gut health have better treatment outcomes. They explained that they have determined this by extensive diet questionnaires of patients and their microbiome results from stool samples before treatment (both of which I then had to go on and do). When they said this to me, I was instantly upset. I explained that I had taken gut supplements for years to help with my gut health but had only stopped a few months ago. I can remember thinking what a waste, I had taken them for years and then right when I needed to have them I had stopped just to save a few bucks. Ugh!

To my surprise, my oncologist shared that gut supplements are really the only thing they tell patients not to do when on treatment. What the? I asked if this was because of the actual treatment - perhaps it was an interaction thing and it would be fine to start again after but no that wasn’t the case. My oncologist explained that they have recently learnt that the supplements marketed for gut health are actually detrimental to gastrointestinal flora—the complex ecosystem of bacteria in our digestive systems. She explained that because they give you say 12 billion of one type of good bacteria, its limiting the diversity. We need a variety and diversity of good bacteria, and if we only take one supplement, we are putting too much of one type in. Her advice was that these supplements do play a role after a course of antibiotics as an example, but only in the short term. The best thing is to ‘eat the rainbow’ - we need a balanced diet rich in fruit and vegetables to give us the diversity we need.

Fruits and vegetables of every colour of the rainbow are good for us to eat. Now when it comes to gut health there are two terms that get used a lot, probiotic and prebiotics. Probiotics are living strains of bacteria that add to the population of good bacteria in your digestive system. Prebiotics are specialized plant fiber that acts as food for the good bacteria. This stimulates growth among the pre-existing good bacteria.

Foods high in prebiotics are asparagus, bananas, garlic, artichoke, onions and whole grains. Foods high in probiotics are fermented veggies, kefir (a fermented milk drink that’s similar to yogurt), kimchi, kombucha, miso, sauerkraut and tempeh.

So we went on a fibre frenzy. We added so much fruit and veg to our diets during treatment. One big thing I learnt through all this that I like to share with everyone is to check the labels on food carefully. If you are looking for probiotics, it must say ‘live’. I had been eating a yoghurt for years that had ‘cultures’ but as it wasn’t live it wasn’t a probiotic. 

I now try to eat at least 20 different types of fruit and veg a week to get good fiber, diversity and prebiotics (bananas, apples, kiwi fruit, plum, avocado, carrot, celery, cabbage, green beans, spinach, mango, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, broccoli, asparagus, capsicum, tomatoes, onion, garlic, mushrooms, corns & peas). I also have probiotics every day – sauerkraut, kefir, yoghurt and kombucha. Most of the probiotics foods are delicious – just find a good one that you enjoy and it becomes much easier.

I know it sounds like a lot of healthy foods to try and get in. My advice for doing this is do make sure there is fruit and veg at every meal – add fruit to cereal, add mushrooms and tomatoes to eggs and make a lot of soups and smoothies. Soups and smoothies are a great way to get in a heaps of fruit and veg quickly and in a nice tasting way. Having them on their own can be awful, puting it with something else tasty makes is so much nicer. There is no way I could get in such a high volume of fruit and veg without soups and smoothies. Find some healthy fun recipes and mix it up. We even eat soup on a hot summer’s night – just crank up the AC haha.

I still have a tendency to buy the same items when we do the grocery shopping and not mix it up enough. Try a different piece or fruit or veg and mix it In with whatever you can to nourish your gut. I am so grateful that when my treatment started I knew I had relatively good gut health. If I hadn’t of been looking after my diet, I know I would have been stressing that maybe my treatment would not have been as effective as it could have been. And now knowing that I am doing all that I can for my gut health in case my cancer comes back fills me with confidence. Plus my skin is better and I have more energy – there are no downsides. Just try to eat well 80-90% of the week – I am still human and love my cheat nights with pizza and chocolate. But it’s what you eat the rest of the week that matters.