Abstract: Patients with advanced cancer often have anorexia, weight loss, early satiety, fatigue,impaired immune response and other manifestations of metabolic disorder syndrome. The above state is called cancer cachexia and is an important cause of death in cancer patients. In starvation, fat from adipose tissue is consumed to maintain the content of protein in muscles, but in this syndrome, both fat and protein are consumed, leading to a serious decrease in protein stores. The etiology of this syndrome is thought to be a process mediated by catabolic factors secreted by immunoreactive cells or by tumor cells, such as TNF- α, IL- 1, IL- 6 and so on. In addition, the levels of some hormones like glucocorti-costeroid, leptin and Ghrelin in the patients with this syndrome are different from those of normal people. However, the role of hormone level changes as part of the mechanism of this syndrome is not entirely clear. At present, the clinical management of metabolic disorder syndrome in cancer patients is not satisfactory. Nutritional supplements cannot effectively restore the protein content in muscles. Almost 1/3 of patients with advanced cancer die from this metabolic disorder instead of the cancer itself.Research on this topic is needed to elucidate the exact mechanism of cachexia so that effective management can be developed and patients' quality of life can be improved.