Effect of dietary polyunsaturated fat on the growth of a transplantable adenocarcinoma in C3HAvyfB mice.

Weaning male and female C3HAvyfB mice were fed a low-fat (4.5%) diet until they were 60-70 days of age when they were fed high-fat (18.6%) diets containing either sunflower-seed oil (polyunsaturated fat diet) or tallow (saturated fat diet). After receiving either of the high-fat diets for 4 weeks, each mouse received an inoculum of approximately 1,700 single cells from a transplantable mammary adenocarcinoma. The cumulative incidence of tumor-bearing mice was significantly greater among both males and females fed the polyunsaturated fat diet than among males and females fed the saturated fat diet. The mean times elapsed before palpable tumors developed were less when mice were fed the polyunsaturated fat diet than when mice were fed the saturated fat diet, but these differences were not statistically significant. The cumulative incidence of tumor-bearing mice was also significantly greater among females than males. The results supported the suggestion from previous work in this laboratory that the polyunsaturated fat diet exerts its effect on the promotional stage of carcinogenesis rather than on the initial event of neoplastic transformation.