Arnold 1989.

Methods	Randomised controlled trial. Duration 6 months. Intervention to 10 weeks and follow‐up to 6 months for some outcomes.
Participants	Adults (n = 50: 29 men and 21 women aged 34 ‐ 88 years) living at home, planned to receive radiotherapy for cancers of head and neck. Mean weight in treatment and comparison groups was 1 ‐ 2 kg below usual weight at study entry. 3 deaths in the dietary counselling and supplement group.
Interventions	Intensive dietary counselling (n = 27) versus intensive dietary counselling and the prescription of nutritional supplements to provide an additional 960 ‐ 1080 kcal/day (n = 23).
Outcomes	Survival*, number having a complete response to therapy, radiation side‐effects, tumour status, body weight*, serum albumin, transferrin and change in dietary energy*, protein intake.
Notes
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Described as randomised, but no details of method.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No details of method of allocation concealment.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Clinical outcomes	Unclear risk	Not discussed.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Functional outcomes	Unclear risk	Not discussed.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Nutritional outcomes	Unclear risk	Not discussed.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	No withdrawals. 3 deaths in the dietary counselling and supplement group.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	All outcomes reported. Data on mortality obtained from the paper. Data on weight change obtained by extrapolation from Figure 3. Energy intake data presented in a figure with no standard deviations or standard error, therefore risk of bias. No response received from author to request for data.
Other bias	Low risk	Baseline variables stated, groups similar at baseline.