Another study, led by Hood, is using cognitive and behavioral interventions to help manage chronic cancer pain. A more recent approach is addressing loss of appetite by non-medical means. Garst says problems with appetite or taste sensation are common in lung cancer patients even before diagnosis and treatment, and they are virtually universal in patients on chemotherapy. Susan Schiffman, professor of medical psychology, is leading a study to measure taste changes in older lung, breast and colon cancer patients and to improve flavors with enhancers she has developed. Taste and smell receptors are always regenerating, and chemotherapy blunts this regeneration.
Chemotherapy can have a profound effect on the senses of taste and smell.
We have drugs that can address weight in general, but it's hard to improve appetite when things taste bad. In other studies that she's done with elderly people, Schiffman has noted that taste is more important than the quality of the food. In one study in a communal setting, I took the same food that the residents would normally be served, used the flavor enhancers, and they thought the food was much better than they'd ever had there. In the new study, participants will have their taste sensations measured, but one group will receive flavor enhancers and nutritional information and the other only nutritional information. A second aspect of the study will measure participants' immune activity, and neuroimaging studies will examine the flavor-taste connection by imaging activity in the brain.