11) Weight loss
Similar to anemia, weight loss is also associated with the dietary restrictions patients have during esophageal cancer. It becomes harder to pass food through the esophagus, and such difficulty leads patients to eat only the strictly necessary and even less than that. When there are dietary restrictions, nutrient deficiencies become more common if we are not careful to pick the correct foods to get complete nutrition out of the food we are eating. Thus, uncontrolled esophageal cancer usually results in malnutrition, which worsens the prognosis and makes the individual more susceptible to the underlying disease.
Another reason why esophageal cancer patients experience weight loss is related to cancer cells, which steal excess nutrients and oxygen from the blood to grow without restraint. Thus, dietary restrictions and cancer itself are responsible for the unplanned weight loss, which also has a prognostic value in the event of esophageal cancer.
