Obesity management in cancer presents a unique paradox: while intentional weight loss may offer cardiometabolic and quality of life benefits, it also carries the risk of accelerating muscle loss and compromising treatment outcomes. This presentation explores the subtle balance between reducing fat and preserving muscle mass in oncology care.
Weight loss in cancer can be a double-edged sword. Beneath visible improvements on the scale may lie hidden dangers, sarcopenia, functional decline, and worsened prognosis. Evidence consistently shows that low muscle mass, even in individuals with overweight or obesity, predicts higher mortality and reduced treatment tolerance. Maintaining adequate muscle reserves emerges as a cornerstone of safe and effective metabolic management.
This presentation will address the state of current evidence on dietary, exercise, and pharmacologic interventions in oncology, including insights from recent Cochrane and ASCO reviews. Although exercise demonstrates strong benefits for physical function and fatigue, data on diet and weight-loss interventions remain limited and inconclusive for survival. However, emerging strategies, such as high-protein diets, multimodal e-health interventions, time-restricted eating, and new anti-obesity pharmacotherapies, show promise when designed with muscle preservation in mind. The speaker will also highlight how ongoing clinical trials across diverse cancer types, including breast, endometrial, and prostate cancers, are now testing these integrated approaches to achieve safe, effective, and metabolically balanced weight management.
By reframing the goal from weight loss to body composition optimization, this session emphasizes that in oncology, it is not just how much weight is lost that matters, but what is lost. What we do not see can, indeed, hurt the most. Effective care must address body composition together to optimize health outcomes.