The Role of IGFs in the Dietary Lipid Regulation of Breast Cancer

The general objective of this project was to examine some of the lipid dependent processes that influence breast cancer development, so that more effective strategies can be applied to the prevention and control of this disease. Previous studies have indicated that low fat diets, and those containing large amounts of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) e.g. menhaden oil, do not enhance breast cancer development in rodents as effectively as those containing large amounts of omega-6 PUFA e.g. corn oil. This project sought both to evaluate whether diets containing various blends of omega-3/ omega-6 PUPA at several intermediate ratios could effectively delay tumor development, and to determine whether these dietary tumor effects were at all correlated with alterations in insulin like growth factor (IGF) metabolism. Our results, have indicated that several of the blended diets containing moderately high omega-3 content were effective in delaying tumor development, but there appeared to be no direct statistically significant correlation between those differences and the circulating levels of IGP-1 as measured by radioimmunoassay, or tumor messenger RNA levels for IGP-1, IGF-2, IGF-1 receptor, or IGP-2 receptor as measured by ribonuclease protection assay.