On the influence of certain diets upon the growth of experimental tumors

Abstract

The study of the experimental tumors of animals has brought forward numerous interesting observations upon the variation in susceptibility of animals of the same species obtained from different sources, to a given tumor strain, as well as variation in the rate of growth of the transplanted tumors. We have undertaken the study of the relation of certain diets to tumor growth and wish to briefly report the results obtained with a diet based upon the work of Mendel and Osborne. In their studies of the effect of feeding with pure vegetable proteins they encountered numerous combinations which effectively prevented growth, the animal meanwhile appearing in good health. This seemed to us to offer a most interesting opportunity to study the behavior of the tumor cell under these conditions; in other words, regardless of whatever the cause of cancer may be, can an inoculable tumor grow in a host which is apparently incapable of normal cell growth?

This report, while based on a small series as tumor experiments go, shows a result so uniform and striking that its consideration would seem justified. In these series we have made use of white mice, having by preliminary observations determined that a diet made up on the basis of Mendel and Osborne's work, of a combination of glutenin and gliadin, would effectively retard the growth of young white mice.

One series of fifty mice inoculated with the tumor obtained through the courtesy of Dr. Rous, of the Rockefeller Institute, gave twenty-three tumors out of twenty-five mice on a normal control diet, but only four out of twenty-five on a vegetable protein diet, of which three tumors later disappeared. In another series of fifty males, all again inoculated with the same tumor, eighteen out of twenty-five on normal diet developed tumors, with three out of twenty-five on a vegetable protein diet; a third series of fifty females gave fifteen tumors out of twenty-five on normal diet with seven out of twenty-five on a vegetable protein diet.