On today's show, Sean was joined by Kay Neylon and Dr Aoife Ryan to talk about weight loss during cancer treatment.

UCC has developed a new cookbook, Good Nutrition for Cancer Recovery, to help cancer patients put on weight as malnutrition and weight loss are important contributors to the death of cancer patients. The majority of patients with advanced cancer experience involuntary weight loss which is related to increased morbidity, decreased quality of life and poor survival.

Kay has been under going treatment for pancreatic cancer for the last 3 years. Throughout her chemotherapy and radiation she has experienced sickness and nausea leading to her losing weight. Strong smells from cooking and coffee would bring these waves of nausea on.

"Sometimes all I could manage was toast.  You have to force yourself to eat"

The book has been developed by the Nutritional Sciences Department in University College Cork with culinary lecturers from Cork Institute of Technology in collaboration with Breakthrough Cancer Research.

“If you’ve ever watched someone you love suffer from cancer,” says Dr Aoife Ryan, dietician and lecturer in nutritional sciences at UCC, “then you know that one of the side effects of cancer is weight loss. This weight loss can be very dramatic and can affect up to 80% of cancer patients”.

Recipes were submitted from dietitians, nurses, doctors, celebrity chefs and cancer patients. The recipes in the book are family favourites but the ingredients have been enhanced to maximise the calorie intake in small volumes.

The book will be available and from oncology centres across Ireland as well as online at www.breakthroughcancerresearch.ie or www.cancercookbook.ie. The book is free but individuals or cancer patients who wish to make a donation to cancer research can text BCR to 50300 to donate €4.

Listen back to the interview here: