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Clin Exp Metastasis (2009) 26:415424
DOI 10.1007/s10585-009-9239-x
RESEARCH PAPER
Dietary stearate reduces human breast cancer metastasis burden in athymic nude mice
Lynda M. Evans Eric C. Toline Renee Desmond Gene P. Siegal Arig Ibrahim Hashim Robert W. Hardy
Received: 9 October 2008 / Accepted: 18 January 2009 / Published online: 8 March 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Abstract Stearate is an 18-carbon saturated fatty acid found in many foods in the western diet, including beef and chocolate. Stearate has been shown to have anti-cancer properties during early stages of neoplastic progression. However, previous studies have not investigated the effect of dietary stearate on breast cancer metastasis. In this study, we present evidence that exogenously supplied dietary stearate dramatically reduces the size of tumors that formed from injected human breast cancer cells within the mam-mary fat pads of athymic nude mice by approximately 50% and partially inhibits breast cancer cell metastasis burden in the lungs in this mouse model system. This metastatic inhibition appears to be independent of primary tumor size, as stearate fed animals that had primary tumors comparable in size to littermates fed either a safower oil enriched diet or
a low fat diet had reduced lung metastasis. Also stearate fed mice sub-groups had different primary tumor sizes but no difference in metastasis. This anti-metastasis effect may be due, at least in part, to the ability of stearate to induce apoptosis in these human breast cancer cells. Overall, this study suggests the possibility of dietary manipulation with selected long-chain saturated fatty acids such as stearate as a potential adjuvant therapeutic strategy for breast cancer patients wishing to maximize the suppression of metastatic disease.
Keywords Breast cancer Dietary fat Metastasis
Linoleic acid Stearic acid Stearate
AbbreviationsDHA Docosahexaenoic acid EPA Eicosapentaenoic acid NK Natural kill T cells
Introduction
The role that dietary fat plays in breast cancer development and progression has remained a controversial area for over 60 years. While epidemiological studies have produced conicting results, in vivo studies consistently support a role for dietary fat in breast cancer, suggesting it is not only the amount of fat, but also the type, present in the diet that affects tumorigenesis, cancer growth and metastasis (reviewed in [1, 2]). To date, studies suggest the omega-6 unsaturated fatty...