After being bombarded by emails with "nutrition for cancer" from friends as well as the lively discussions in the adjunctive therapy forum on the importance of diet in avoiding recurrences, I am getting concerned that my medical prescription food: Jevity 1.5 through my crappy 14FR PEG is mostly "corn maltrodextrin & Corn syrup solids" (second and third after water). Nobody is advocating eating these ingredients as a main diet yet this is all that is available to me. Even DavidCPA's beloved VHC is mostly corn syrup solids, second only to water.
Can this really be healthy for me since I may never eat again?

I lived on this muck for more than 14 months, (Ensure). I know people that have been on it 5 plus years. It is possible.

While it is off topic, try reading the Omnivores Dilemma if you wish to have some idea how pervasive corn (and these permutations of it) in all its forms is in every bit of your daily diet.

There is a review of Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" at http://www.michaelpollan.com/press.php?id=68

I am sure you can add Nutren to the list along with Jevity, Ensure and VHC. It is mainly dairy (Calcium-Potassium Caseinate) and corn products (Maltodextrin, Corn Syrup Solids and Sugar).

Probably even the dairy cows are fed corn.

Yep, to a large part, PEG or not, if we stick to our traditional diet we're Living on Corn!

Brian

I fully agree that the Omnivore's Dilemna is a GREAT book. Both my wife and I have read it and if I had my way, it would be required reading in every high school in the nation. Thanks for sharing that you lasted more than a year on this. I suppose I should be grateful that at least it is not rotting my teeth. As my oconological dentist puts it: you need not only the plaque bacteria but something for them to eat also in order to have decay,and with just selzter water swishing in my mouth, they are starving.

Don

Thanks, I had not read that particular review, and it provided a nice refresher on Pollan's main points. Unfortunately you are right about even Nutren and every enteral drink being basically the same. Actually, it was your advocacy of another book: Anticancer - A New Way of Life" by Dr David Servan-Schriber on this board that got me worried about my absolute reliance upon Jevity. Dr S-S stresses how bad such a diet is for people trying to avoid cancer or a recurrence and even his presentation to Anderson which you shared, links the increase in sugar consumption to cancer increases.
As far as I can tell Corn syrup solids are mostly dextrose sugar. Although you would never know it from Jevity's manufacturer which describes it's ingredients as:
[quote] maltodextrins and corn syrup solids are each mixtures of glucose polymers produced by the controlled depolymerization of corn starch. They are most often categorized by dextrose equivalence (DE).They are generally recognized as safe (GRAS) food ingredients. Maltodextrins are excellent solids builders for standard and low-fat products. They are effective spray-drying aids for flavors, fruit juices, and other hard-to-dry products. They also are easily digestible carbohydrates for nutritional beverages.[/quote]

Charm,
It is a paradox that during Tx they PEG us and put us on this stuff, but afterward want us to take classes aimed at dietary changes to avoid refined foods high in sugar, fructose syrup, Omega-6, and the likes.

Dr. S-S seems to make a logical argument that the refined sugar/fructose boom has contributed to the cancer epidemic because, among other things, it causes a toxic explosion of insulin and IGF (insulin-like growth factor)in our bodies.

Of course he quotes numerous studies in support of his position and points out that nearly 60% of the calories in the 'Western Diet' come from refined food sources that were nonexistent when our genes developed.

Similar to your situation, I was Ensure dependent for almost two year during my first bout with a cancerous condition (twenty-five year ago).

Perhaps after that bout, if I had become more 'vegan' instead of returning to a traditional western diet???

My wife (an ex-body builder) put me on protein supplements. She uses a lot of the stuff as a low sugar supplement. It contains whey protein instead of sugar.

You might want to look into that as a way to add a healthier component to your diet.

Flip

thanks, but with my crappy 14 FR PEG, anything that is not exactly the consistency of Jevity just clogs up and backs up.
If I fail this next MBS on Nov 19th, I will be making an appointment to get a "mickey" and a decent size PEG.
The original plan was that this small one was temporary but it was put in before the pathology report came back indicating my cancer would come back a third time without even more radiation. The extra 25 GY on top of my prior 72GY basically fried my swallowing mechanism big time. My docs all warned me about this and were apologetic but I am still trying to prove them wrong.

Don B

For what it's worth, I don't think it would have made a difference if you had turned vegan. One reason I am so skeptical about diet claims on preventing recurrence is that our diet was as healthy if not healthier than the one Dr S-S recommends. We did ZERO sugar (not even corn sryup let alone HFCS) and organic vegetables/tofu/beans/rice as we meandered through the Pritikin diet, Mediterranean diet, and South Beach diet with modifications to all of them as they were too meat intensive. Did not prevent me from getting Stage IV cancer nor a recurrence. I do like Dr S-S interview comments that he blames environmental pesticides for his cancer and not his prior diet. It's just that his studies relied upon seem not probative (because not aimed at nor focused on) about preventing a recurrence, just first time cancer. I'm not sure if the recurrence mechanism is the same beast. My radiation doctor explained it this way: all the easy to kill cancer cells are gone and only the most aggressive and hardened ones remain after radiation & chemo. Just my opinion, but please don't waste one minute worrying or remonstrating over what could have been. Easy to say, I know and I have trouble following this good advice.