Nutrition and Cancer: Introduction 1

Abstract

The interest in nutrition and cancer is not new. In 1809 William Lambe (1) published a treatise on diet and cancer in which he impugned foods of animal origin and ordinary water as the principal causes of cancer. Lambe's prescription for cancer prevention was a strict vegetarian diet and distilled water. There was an interest in undernutrition as a preventative measure in experimental carcinogenesis at the beginning of this century (2, 3). Major research activity relating to diet and cancer was evident in the 1940s with the work being centered in the laboratories of Tannenbaum at the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago and of Baumann who was at the University of Wisconsin. A survey ofindex entries under "diet" found in Cancer Research, Volumes 1 (1941) to 43 (1983) shows 52 listings between 1941 and 1950,49 between 1951 and 1960, 18 between 1961 and 1965, 13 between 1966 and 1975, and 70 between 1976 and 1983. Clearly interest is on the upswing.