Self-Care During Cancer Treatment: Practical Tips for Patients
Featuring: Thanos Kosmidis, Co-founder and CEO at CareAcross
In short
Thanos Kosmidis, co-founder and CEO of CareAcross, walks cancer patients and caregivers through practical self-care strategies covering nutrition, exercise, health data sharing, and taking part in medical research. The session emphasizes that self-care is built on education, personalization, and working alongside your healthcare team — not on rigid rules or perfect diets. Evidence-based self-care can improve quality of life, help manage treatment side effects, and give patients a genuine sense of control over their health.
- •Aim for 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity per week (in sessions of at least 10 minutes) and two 30-minute resistance training sessions per week — but check with your doctor first, especially if you have bone metastasis or other limitations.
- •Use the Mediterranean diet as a flexible starting point: emphasize whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and moderate fish and poultry while limiting saturated fats — then personalize it based on your cancer type, treatment, weight, and side effects with help from a cancer dietitian.
- •Before sharing your health data for research, understand who will see it, how it will be stored, and what your consent covers — look for platforms that anonymize or pseudonymize your information.
- •Ask your doctor about clinical trials or research opportunities, and consider patient support groups and digital health services grounded in clinical guidelines to stay informed between appointments.
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Brad Power October 15, 2025 “What is self care? A theoretical framework for self care is built on a couple of pillars. First of all, it's about getting the right education about what it means when you have cancer, to take care of yourself. Interacting with both mechanisms of action, but also all your tools. Nutrition is a tool, perhaps physical activity is another tool.
Then through that, get some self control towards the disease, some self reliance; become controlled in terms of how cancer affects you. ” – Thanos Kosmidis “There are many people who come to us … asking about a diet: ‘We want to have a list of what to eat in the morning, in the afternoon and evening,’ be it for preventing cancer, if that's the case, or for staying strong with cancer. We feel this is really hard for two reasons.
One is that even if there is such a perfect diet, having it and then adhering to it is a very different story. But it also depends on the circumstances of each individual. We prefer to have in mind some sort of guidelines and directions around nutrition and then around the diet.
Meeting Summary
Patients who have been diagnosed with cancer face confusion and being overwhelmed at navigating many decisions and finding services, including on their quality of life, nutrition, and self-care interventions. Thanos Kosmidis, Co-founder and CEO at CareAcross, is uniquely qualified to lead a discussion on the non-medical challenges that patients and caregivers face and “best practices” for managing cancer care.
He has a background in computer science, telecommunications and business. CareAcross is a global meeting point for cancer patients and caregivers, which supports and empowers them while accelerating oncology research and development. The company has been through the MIT Enterprise Forum and MassChallenge accelerators. They have led four clinical trials, of which one is complete. They presented one at ASCO.
They have been focusing on Europe: UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Greece. Why should you actively engage in self care activities (such as exercise, diet, and stress reduction) as part of your cancer care?
•Support your overall quality of life, health, and well-being, including your immune system and microbiome health; enhance your physical (e.g., heart and bone), cognitive, and emotional health
•Increase your resilience against disease
•Increase your resilience against treatments; reduce your cancer symptoms and side effects, assist with pain control
•Control your weight, such as malnutrition or weight gain
•Feel a sense of agency and control, that you are doing something to affect your health, better understand your symptoms and side effects, improv improve your psychological well- being, better relations with your doctors How should you engage in self care activities (such as exercise, diet, and stress reduction) as part of your cancer care?
•Educate yourself: find out what you can do to help yourself, types of interventions, understand the standard guidelines
•Personalize: modify your activities to reflect your age, weight, specific cancer diagnosis, and current health condition
•Consult with healthcare professionals : review the plan, make sure you consider any risks, especially if you have specific limitations like bone metastasis or side effects
•Implement: follow your program of behavior change interventions, manage your symptoms, develop self-control and self-reliance, get emotional support What exercise guidelines should you consider for your cancer care?
•Aerobic activity: the recommended standard guideline is 150 minutes of moderate- intensity activity per week; can be vigorous-intensity activity for half that time; minimum of 10-minute sessions; activities that make you sweat and elevate your heart rate
•Resistance training : the recommended standard guidelines is two strength training sessions per week, about 30 minutes per session, 4 sets of exercises, 12-15 reps per exercise
•Personalize: modify your exercise program to reflect your age, weight, specific cancer diagnosis, and current health condition.
•Consult with a doctor : to consider risks What dietary guidelines should you consider for your cancer care?
•Follow a balanced diet, with the Mediterranean diet as a good example: restrict saturated fats; eat moderate amounts of fish, poultry, and dairy; emphasize whole grains, vegetables, and fruits
•Personalize your diet, depending on your specific cancer diagnosis, age, weight, treatment, comorbidities, and side effects
•Consult a cancer dietitian for personalized nutrition advice How can you safely store and share your health data?
•Identify the data you want to collect and share (e.g., outcomes, electronic health records, genomics, wearable data)
•Understand how and why your data will be used, who will see your data, how it will be transmitted, and what is included in your consent
•Review the security and data confidentiality measures (anonymized, pseudonymized, or identified) of the data storage platform How can you participate in medical research?
•Capture and share observations about your situation, preferences, and experiences
•Look for clinical trials and research projects using matching services
•Ask your doctor about research opportunities
•Protect your personal information: carefully read consent forms before participating; be aware of privacy, security, and confidentiality guidelines How can you learn more about things you can do for your health when you have cancer?
•Contact Thanos Kosmidis at thanos.kosmidis@careacross.com or see the CareAcross website
•Find and use digital services that provide personalized support based on evidence and clinical guidelines to keep informed
•Talk to peers, participate in patient and caregiver support groups and online communities
•Consult with healthcare experts, e.g., cancer dietitians for tailored nutrition advice, cancer exercise therapists for exercise
•See previous discussions we have had on lifestyle, exercise, nutrition, and stress reduction:
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•Adding Exercise for Everyday Life and Developing a Medical Device to Personalize Cancer Treatment
•“Exercise as a Countermeasure to Hormone Deprivation Therapy Side Effects and for Bone and Mental Health”
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•"A Patient’s View on Nutrition, Supplements, Integrative Oncology, and Complementary Therapies"
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•The information and opinions expressed on this website or platform, or during discussions and presentations (both verbal and written) are not intended as health care recommendations or medical advice by Cancer Patient Lab, its principals, presenters, participants, or representatives for any medical treatment, product, or course of action. You should always consult a doctor about your specific situation before pursuing any health care program, treatment, product or other course of action that might affect your health. For the video recording, please see here. Meeting Notes KEYWORDS Cancer patient lab, personalized services, non-medical challenges, nutrition, physical activity, self-care, health data, medical research, Mediterranean diet, cancer diagnosis, side effects, quality of life, clinical trials, digital health, patient support. SPEAKERS Thanos Kosmidis (93%), Roger Royse (4%), Brad Power (3%) CHAT CONTRIBUTORS Rick Davis, Russ Hollyer SUMMARY Thanos Kosmidis, co-founder and CEO of Care Access, led a discussion of personalized services for cancer patients and caregivers. He discussed the importance of nutrition, emphasizing a balanced diet like the Mediterranean diet, and the role of physical activity, recommending 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity and two sessions of resistance training per week. He highlighted the significance of self-care, citing a 25% to 90% improvement in side effects. He also addressed the value of sharing health data securely and participating in medical research, noting the need for evidence-based interventions and the challenges of personalizing CareAcross different healthcare systems. OUTLINE Introduction
•Thanos Kosmidis, co-founder and CEO of Care Access, provided an overview of non- medical challenges faced by cancer patients and caregivers and personalized services for their health.
•His company is Care Access which has been focused on cancer for several years.
•Care Access is a digital health company focused on cancer, with a strong evidence base. Nutrition and Cancer
•Nutrition is complex and misinformation abounds.
•A balanced diet, for example the Mediterranean diet, should be a base.
•Adhering to a perfect diet is challenging.
•Individuals need personalized plans.
•Nutrition can impact overall health, resilience against disease, and the prevention of malnutrition and cachexia.
•Every cancer diagnosis is unique, affecting how nutrition impacts the patient.
•Factors like age, weight, height, and specific cancer subtypes influence nutrition needs.
•Treatments, comorbidities, and side effects also play significant roles in nutrition management.
•It is important to consult healthcare professionals for tailored nutrition advice. Exercise and Cancer
•The guidelines for aerobic and non-aerobic activities emphasize the importance of moderate intensity exercise.
•Aerobic activities should total 150 minutes per week, while resistance activities should include two sessions per week.
•Physical activity has benefits on heart health, bone health, cognitive function, and emotional well-being.
•Exercise can help manage cancer-related fatigue and improving overall quality of life. Self-Care and Its Evidence-Based Benefits
•The theoretical framework for self-care includes education, symptom management, and quality of life improvement.
•Self-care depends on behavior change.
•Clinical trials and real-world data showing improvements in side effects and quality of life with self-care interventions. Health Data Sharing and Security
•You can share your health data for medical progress and improved quality of life.
•You need to define, describe, and annotate the data properly.
•You should consent and understand the context of data collection.
•The infrastructure for secure data storage and sharing includes security measures and compliance with regulations. Participation in Medical Research
•Participating in medical research can help scientific progress and provide societal benefits.
•Patient-reported outcomes and experiences are valuable in research.
•Continuous data collection throughout the patient journey is useful.
•Patients should use platforms that provide relevant material and support based on their data. Challenges and Opportunities in Different Healthcare Systems
•Healthcare systems in the US and Europe are different in diagnosis and treatment timelines.
•Patients in different countries have unment needs and access to Centers of Excellence. Hydration and Fatigue Mitigation
•Staying hydrated is important.
•Tips for making water more appealing include adding flavor or avoiding carbonated water. Protein Intake and Cancer Outcomes
•There is a debate around protein intake and its impact on cancer outcomes, for example higher red meat consumption among colorectal cancer patients.
Full transcript
Roger Royse This is the weekly presentation of the Cancer Patient Lab. I'd like to introduce Thanos Kosmidis. He is going to present about providing personalized services for your health and cancer. Thanos is co-founder and CEO of CareAcross. He's going to lead a discussion on non-medical challenges that patients and caregivers face. His background is in computer science, telecommunications, and business.
CareAcross, as I'm sure he'll explain, is a global meeting point for cancer patients and caregivers. Thanos Kosmidis 0:43 I really appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts with you. We're grateful to Brad and the Cancer Patient Lab for providing this forum. Of course, I'm new to this, in the sense that I haven't participated in these, but I know you have been doing this for a while.
I’m really grateful that you've been doing this for everybody out there. It's really extraordinary what can be done with these media and communications. The company is called CareAcross. It's been focusing on cancer for several years. I won't speak too much about it today. I will talk about it a bit more towards the middle part of the presentation, when it's a bit more relevant and timely.
Some practical – but also in some cases theoretical – frameworks towards tackling day-to-day life with cancer. The disclaimer we just heard is very appropriate. Here you have ours as well. This is not medical advice. We know we don't want to, and we cannot really replace medical advice. It's invaluable. Please speak to your doctors, keep speaking to your healthcare professionals. They're there to help you.
Easier said than done sometimes, but that's what I would do. And thank you for making a note of this. There are some themes in this webinar, and I'll try to stick to them. These are the main topics that we wanted to address here. This will be one-by-one. The first one is nutrition. The second one is touching upon physical activity, and what could be done. How much is recommended? Evidence on self-care.
What does it mean to self care after a cancer diagnosis, and then some discussions on health data and sharing data, but also participating in medical research, really relevant and appropriate, and I would say, quite interesting topics. The first topic is one of the most interesting ones out there. I have to admit that we are always impressed by the amount of information – but also misinformation – about nutrition.
Nutrition is a notoriously hard topic to study and generate evidence for, so it is no wonder that there's so much out there in terms of trial and error, but also understanding what can be done around that when it comes to nutrition, then nutrients, and food and diet.
I'm sure you've read more than your fair share of blog posts and articles and peer-reviewed publications, but essentially one topic that we also have found very interesting and very relevant is, what does it mean for each individual? There are many people who come to us as an online free service asking about a diet. But also it really depends on the circumstances of each individual. That's what the evidence shows.
A balanced diet can generally help. There are numerous types of balanced diets. One of the most relevant ones, and maybe also applicable in this case, not that this means that this is helpful or not in cancer, is a Mediterranean Diet.
Even adhering to this can be a challenge, because it talks about a low intake of saturated fats, moderate intake of fish, poultry, dairy, mainly yogurt and cheese, as it says here, but also high intake of whole grains, veggies, fruits, and others. This is probably easier said than done. I have to say that I don't even know how many of these are applicable or adhered to in the Mediterranean itself.
Maybe we can call it something else, but beyond that tongue in cheek, it's also a matter of keeping it in a balanced manner. And there are a lot of discussions out there. There's a lot of expertise as well. There are oncology dietitians who are very familiar with this, and they can help you tailor. You know what you could do in terms of keeping a balanced diet specifically for your case. Why is that important? What is the impact of nutrition?
We pretty much all know about this. First of all, overall health and well being. We know how it feels when we're not nourished properly. We generally know how it feels when we are diagnosed with a disease like cancer. Staying resilient against the disease is something that nutrition definitely helps, both on a macro and a micro scale. Both are important when we receive treatments. These are not necessarily easy treatments.
You would probably say the opposite. These are very challenging ones. Staying resilient and actually being able to withstand the treatment, but also make the most of it. If we look at it from a molecular level, going a bit further in the molecular realm, and the more biological aspects of this microbiome, if only we had what a penny for its time. We read about this recently, very interesting stuff.
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