Mutagenicity of 24-hour duplicate of Japanese diet

In order to elucidate the genotoxicological characteristics of the Japanese diet, the mutagenicity of 24-h duplicate of the diet samples were investigated. The mutagenicity of blue rayon extract was examined in the Ames Salmonella/microsome assay. Thirty-two (91.4%) of 35 samples revealed mutagenicity toward Salmonella typhimurium TA98 in the presence of S9 mix. The mutagenic activities showed significant correlations with the consumption rates of broiled fish (r = 0.517, p = 0.0021) and broiled meat (r = 0.494, p = 0.0036). In other test conditions, 6 (17.1%), 5 (14.3%) and 8 (22.9%) samples were mutagenic to Salmonella typhimurium TA98 without S9 mix, TA100 with S9 mix and TA100 without S9 mix, respectively. Findings in the present study suggest that high consumption of broiled fish and broiled meat are important as the source of mutagens/carcinogens in the Japanese diet. In the present study, however, biological inference of these findings could not be made in relation to the occurrence of cancers, especially of the gastric cancer, which is the most prevalent form of cancer in Japan.