"It is surprising," says Fang Fang Zhang of Tufts University. “They had poor adherence to the dietary guidelines for Americans and their intake patterns were worse for fiber and empty calories and from solid fats and added sugars."
No one is very good at hitting those guidelines - with 48% of average Americans eating healthfully versus 47.2% of cancer survivors.
But the result is alarming because maintaining a healthy diet is a proven way for survivors to live longer.
"Cancer survivors are very motivated to make positive adaptation of food choices for long-term health but in fact their diet quality is not better than those without cancer and it is even a little bit worse," Zhang says.
She urges that cancer survivors follow a diet rich in fiber, vegetables, fruits, whole grains and lower in sodium.
The data was collected from a national health and nutrition survey. Survivors had weathered all sorts of cancer, except non-melanoma skin cancer, and the two groups were matched to have the same gender, race and ethnicity to make it as true of a comparison as possible.
Interviewers checked in with everyone enrolled in the survey to check what they had eaten over a 24-hour period.
This was to safeguard against people filling out the forms themselves and under-reporting what they really ate.
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