ANIMAL-MODELS FOR STUDYING NUTRITION AND CANCER

Epidemiology settles the link between feeding habits and cancer. Exper imental studies must be done to prove specific hypotheses about this l ink. Animal studies must be done before human trials, which are very h eavy. They are many animal models of carcinogenesis, and they led to t he detection of main known carcinogens. Promotion and protection by fo od are often studied in rodents injected with a chemical carcinogen. T he present paper gives examples of rodent models of breast, colon, liv er, skin, lung, pancreas and prostate cancer. The use of chemical carc inogens might be avoided eventually, with transgenic or genetically pr one animals. Last, we discuss the extrapolation of results from rodent s to humans.