Research
Macro partitioning
β-hydroxy β-methylbutyrate (HMB) supplementation (3 g/day) may help improve body composition in cancer patients, particularly those with smaller initial weight loss, by minimizing protein degradation.
HMB supplements (3g/day), often combined with arginine and glutamine, may help gain lean mass in cancer patients, especially those who haven't lost much weight yet. It may not be effective for patients with severe cachexia.
ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
A greater effect of the supplement was noted in patients with smaller initial weight loss (<5%), which suggests that some patients in the study might be in the refractory cachexia stage at which point nutrition interventions are unlikely to provide benefit.
Why this rating
Studies show mixed results, with some showing lean mass gain and others showing no difference, possibly due to short duration or patient selection.
Source
Nutrition interventions to treat low muscle mass in cancer
Carla M. Prado et al. · Journal of Cachexia Sarcopenia and Muscle · 2020
DOI 10.1002/jcsm.12525
narrative_reviewCited 371×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Fish oil and Eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA) supplementation (2.0-2.2 g/day EPA and 1.5 g/day DHA) can help preserve skeletal muscle and reduce intramuscular adipose tissue in cancer patients, particularly those with advanced lung or pancreatic cancer.Good
- Nutrition interventions targeting 25-30 kcal/kg/day energy and 1.0-1.5 g/kg/day protein intake can prevent or attenuate low muscle mass (MM) in cancer patients, though current evidence is limited by short intervention durations and lack of oncology-specific study designs.Moderate
- Supplementation with Branched-Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs), specifically leucine (2-4 g/day), may help ameliorate muscle loss in cancer by promoting protein synthesis, though long-term effects on muscle mass require further investigation.Moderate
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