Anticlastogenic Dietary Factors Assessed in Mammalian Assays

Abstract

Epidemiological investigations resulted in the formulation of a hypothesis that could be tested in the laboratory, namely, high levels of dietary fat increase the risk of breast cancer. Dietary guidelines with respect to fat and cancer are usually expressed in terms of the percentage of total calories derived from fat. In this way we obtain a positive correlation for the incidence of breast cancer deaths when we compare the daily fat intake in the population of different countries. In the diet of most western industrialized countries, fat consumption comprises about 40% of total daily calories, whereas dietary guidelines recommend Only 30%. When, instead of total fat intake, only the percentage of calories from polyunsaturated fatty acids is taken into consideration, no correlation between age-adjusted mortality from breast cancer and polyunsaturated fatty acids is apparent (3). On the other hand, animal experiments suggest that polyunsaturated fatty acids under a low fat regime contribute more to tumorigenesis than do saturated fatty acids (7).KeywordsArachidonic AcidPolyunsaturated Fatty AcidEicosapentaenoic AcidFatty Acid EsterImportant Fatty AcidThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.