When you’ve lived inside serious illness, your relationship to medicine changes.
You quickly learn what is essential. What is protocol. What is non-negotiable. And then, somewhere along the way, you more slowly start to notice everything else. The possibilities not handed to you within a protocol, but found in late-night searches like: protein during pediatric chemotherapy
This series is about those things: small, supportive tools that are easy to integrate into cancer care and may help support the body’s healing processes.
These topics are not a replacement for medical care. They merely support the body in what it’s already doing. As always, bring things to your care team when you need to.
Why Protein Matters During Cancer Treatment
When our naturopathic oncologist reviewed Beau’s labs during treatment, she looked at things most oncology practices monitor, but do not routinely discuss with patients. One of them was albumin: the protein in your blood that gets measured as a marker of nutritional status.
Research shows12that hypoalbuminemia (low albumin) is common in pediatric cancer patients and in some groups is associated with inferior survival rates. There is a lot to say there, but to keep things simple: protein matters. Our doctor said that maintaining adequate albumin levels, ideally above 4.0 g/dL, was a lever worth pulling- something we could actively work to improve.
The why is straightforward. Protein in the diet is very important for cancer patients, whose metabolic rate is particularly high. Chemotherapy is metabolically expensive. Recovery is metabolically expensive. Your body needs raw materials to do either of those things. Protein is the raw material.
Hitting a protein target required consistent protein intake which was cool, cool, cool with a kid nauseous and in the mood for nothing. It became obvious quickly that a neutropenic, worn down kid wasn’t much in the mood for a juicy steak.
A mint flavored protein drink though? That could work.
Enter Equip Protein Powder.
Stopping the Nausea Spiral
A quick bit on nausea.
As any patient would attest, it is one of the biggest barriers to eating during cancer treatment. What is less understood: when blood sugar swings, nausea gets worse. When nausea gets worse, kids eat less, blood sugar crashes, and nausea spirals.
Protein plays a key role in regulating blood glucose levels.3 It’s one of the few levers that actually interrupts that cycle. Another lever is Zofran, which I will speak about in another post. But to mention quickly, of all the things we avoided during cancer, Zofran was one that was popped like candy. Staying on top of nausea was imperative for a cascade of things.
But back to protein.
Being intentional about protein was a nutritional level we pulled, often. Not obsessively. Not forcing it when Beau was too sick to eat. But on the days he could eat, making sure something protein-forward was available. This is easier said than done, but sometimes it as offering him two sips of a protein drink.
Equip Protein Powder: What We Used and Why
We used Equip Protien Powder for most of treatment.
I do feel the need to state up front that in our natural health food journey, we have tried a lot of things that do not taste normal and are filled with grit and grin and bear it type energy. I will announce that when taste is something that needs to be considered, because sometimes it’s not the most relevant part of the product.
This is not one of those products. This is legit good. Well, in fact, the chocolate flavor is good, but the chocolate mint tastes like an actual Thin Mint.
Five years out from treatment, we’re still on AutoShip because my teenagers have essentially stolen it for their gym routines to increase gains.
Our protein powder has outlived cancer treatment by serving an entirely different purpose in our house, what a gift.
The code BETSYLARRABEE gets you a discount, and me a small kickback. As always, it’s the product I’d purchase for our family with or without affiliate link.
Take the Protein on the Go
Much easier than getting out the blender: use a shaker bottle. Both of these work well—the first is stainless steel if you want to keep the drink cold. (or hot, honestly in the winter mix with hot water and it’s got a hot chocolate feel.)
The trick to preparation is order of operations:
- Add water to blender bottle first. Otherwise the protein gets gunked and stuck at the bottom.
- Add about a cup of water and the protein and shake that into a slurry.
- Then add milk, if you prefer.
There’s something about the fat content in milk, almond or cow, that makes it super foamy if you add it to powder alone.
So mix with water first, then add the milk after.
Other Protein Sources
The diet as not liquid protein alone. When capacity allowed, we leaned on other sources. Great protein sources that were easy to manage include:
- Eggs (he preferred his hard-boiled)
- Chomps meat bars
- Avocado with salt and lemon
- Greek yogurt (full fat!)
- String cheese
- Rotisserie chicken made in to chicken salad by Meemaw.
These are easy snacks to throw in a bag and take in the car or clinic.
The Quiet In Between
One thing I’ve learned over the years inside pediatric cancer is that not everything helpful comes with a protocol.
Some things are essential, while some things are optional.
But most live quietly in the in-between.
My hope is that you find small, supportive tools here. Things that are easy to integrate and help you feel a little more steady on an otherwise unsteady road.
For us, Equip Protein Powder has become one of those things.
Other posts in this series
Affiliate note: If you choose to purchase through the links above, Equip (https://www.equipfoods.com/BETSYLARRABEE) provides a meaningful discount and I receive a small commission. The Amazon shaker bottles help with convenient mixing. I only share tools that have made sense in our home and that we have used consistently.
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