Colorectal Cancer Prevention and Fishful Thinking
Menée à partir d'échantillons tumoraux inclus en paraffine et archivés après prélèvement sur 1 125 patients atteints d'un cancer colorectal, cette étude évalue, en fonction de la stabilité des microsatellites, l'association entre la consommation de produits de la mer riches en acides gras polyinsaturés oméga-3 et le risque de développer la maladie
The foundation of the growing list of health benefits of essential fatty acids that have been studied by reputable investigators and claimed by profitable dietary supplement corporations is among the more controversial in medical nutrition history. In a provocative, impolitic letter to the Lancet in 1956, Hugh MacDonald Sinclair, an Oxford physiologist, speculated that dietary essential fatty acids decrease the risk of degenerative illnesses including cardiovascular disease and cancer (1). Despite the mostly negative response to his writing and the prevailing mindset of the times—that all animal-derived dietary fat is detrimental—Sinclair pursued his research on the benefits of fish oil. In 1976, he ventured to Greenland to collaborate with Bang and Dyerberg, Danish investigators who had reported that the Inuit Eskimos had a very low incidence of heart disease that may be attributable to the omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), (ie, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in their marine-based diets (2,3). A 2014 systematic review of the literature points out that the initial reports of low incidence of cardiovascular disease in Inuit Eskimos were based on incomplete health records and were not representative of the Inuit population (4). In fact, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease in Eskimos in Greenland and other Inuit populations is similar to or greater than non-Eskimo populations (4). It seems that the controversy surrounding the potential benefits of dietary omega-3 benefits is far from over.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading cancers in the world and the United States and has long been considered preventable through effective screening and surveillance. …
Journal of the National Cancer Institute , éditorial, 2015