The effect of dietary fat on metastasis of the lewis lung carcinoma and the BALB/c mammary carcinoma

Abstract

The effect of feeding mice diets high in beef tallow (high in saturated fat) or corn oil (high in polyunsaturated fat) on the production of lung metastases by the Lewis lung carcinoma and the BALB/c mammary tumor was determined. Diets were fed ad libitum, and the mice fed the high‐fat (24.6%) diets consumed more calories and gained more weight than those fed the control (5%) diets. With the Lewis lung carcinoma, we found that both high‐fat diets significantly increased the growth of the primary tumor in the footpad as well as the number of spontaneous metastases produced after the primary was removed; this was in comparison with results from the appropriate control diets. With the BALB/c mammary tumor, the high‐fat beef tallow diet (but not the corn oil diet) significantly increased the number of lung metastases formed after tail vein injection.

In addition, the group given the control corn oil diet had more metastases than the group given the control beef tallow diet. Overall, these studies showed that the consumption of high‐fat/high‐calorie diets increased metastasis compared to the consumption of low‐fat diets. However, the results varied depending on the tumor model used and the type of fat.