The effect of dietary milk and calcium on experimental colorectal carcinogenesis

This investigation was based on an epidemiologic association of milk consumption and decreased intestinal cancer risk. Furthermore, there is also some indirect evidence that calcium supplementation in humans and animals may decrease colon cancer risk and that calcium, by inference, may be the protective factor in milk. In order to investigate these associations in a controlled laboratory setting, dietary supplementation of low fat dried milk (37 g/kg diet; N = 18) and calcium carbonate (40 mg/kg rat/day; N = 17) were compared separately to regular diet controls in the rat-dimethylhydrazine colon carcinogenesis model. The results of this investigation showed that neither milk-supplemented rats nor calcium carbonate-supplemented rats had fewer DMH-induced colorectal (P = .374) or total gastrointestinal tumors (P = .291) than did regular diet controls (N = 10; by analysis of variance [ANOVA]). Milk supplementation did result in a significant decrease in tumor burden when measured by incidence of metastases (P = .035) and of intestinal obstruction (P = .011; by chi-square test), when compared with calcium-supplemented and control rats. Though this implies that milk supplementation provides protection against some aspects of carcinogenesis of the colon, in rats fed low fat diets, this does not appear to be mediated through the calcium content of milk.