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Effects on C3H Mouse Mammary Cancer of Changing from a High Fat to a Low Fat Diet before, at, or after Puberty¹

Departments of Veterinary Preventive Medicine [J. S., J. P., S. K.], Statistics [J. P., J. A. P.], Veterinary Pathobiology [P. S.], and Veterinary Clinical Sciences [J. P.], and the Comprehensive Cancer Center [J. S.], The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 42310

A low fat/low calorie (LF/LC) diet is a relative inhibitor of murine mammary cancer. Because the mammary gland may be most sensitive to the action of a carcinogen at or near the age of puberty, we studied whether beginning a LF/LC diet before puberty would decrease C3H/OuJ mouse mammary cancer incidence more than if such a diet was begun at or after puberty. We also studied whether the advancement of the age of puberty by a high fat/high calorie (HF/HC) diet would in itself be a mammary cancer risk factor and whether dietary fat levels would affect mammary cancer metastases.

In the first study, mice were changed from a HF/HC diet to a LF/LC diet at 12 days of age, puberty, or 60 days of age. Other groups were always HF/HC or always LF/LC. In a second experiment, mice were fed a high fat diet for the same length of time, i.e., from 21 to 75 days of age (before and through puberty) or 75 to 129 days of age (well after puberty).

In one aspect of the first study, puberty was advanced by feeding a HF/HC diet until the first day of puberty. However, tumor latency, incidence, and multiplicity were not statistically different from those of the LF/LC control. Other results of the first study indicated, in general, that mice consuming a LF/LC diet beginning at or before puberty had a longer tumor latency and a lower tumor incidence and multiplicity than mice either beginning a LF/LC diet at 60 days of age or continuously fed a HF/HC diet. Lung metastases were greater in mice fed a HF/HC diet continuously compared to LF/LC continuously. In the second study, beginning the high fat diet before or after puberty did not result in statistically significant differences in tumor latency, incidence, or multiplicity.

It was concluded that the longer a LF/LC diet was fed, the lower was the mammary cancer risk. An early puberty in itself was not a mammary cancer risk factor and mouse puberty had no particular significance as an age before which a LF/LC diet should begin.

¹ Supported by Grant 84B02 from the American Institute for Cancer Research.

² To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at Laboratory Animal Center, The Ohio State University, 6089 Godown Road, Columbus, OH 43235.

Received 11/22/88. Revised 4/17/89. Accepted 4/20/89.