Background

Nutraceutical foods, like walnuts which are rich in immunonutrients, can have medicinal benefits. Dietary walnuts have been shown to slow or prevent tumor growth in mice genetically programmed to grow breast or prostate tumors. This study investigated whether walnuts could exert the same preventable effect in a transplantable carcinoma rat model.

Methods

Eighteen rats were randomly fed a diet containing walnuts (10% of food by weight), and 36 were fed a diet without walnuts (control) for 21 days. On day 22, 18 control diet rats were switched to the walnut diet. All other animals remained on their same diet. Within each diet group, 6 rats were implanted with the Ward colon carcinoma (TB), and 12 were sham-operated. Five days later, 6 sham-operated animals were weight-matched to a TB and then pair-fed for the remainder of the study. The remaining 6 sham-operated, or non-tumor-bearing rats, were ad-lib fed.

Results

The tissue of the walnut-eating rats showed higher omega-3 fatty acid (immunonutrient) content which did not slow or prevent tumor growth or the loss of lean and fat mass typical of this TB model. In addition, blood glucose, insulin, IGF-1, and adiponectin levels were significantly lower in the TB, demonstrating metabolic dysregulation. Again, these changes were unaltered by consuming walnuts. Plasma proteomics identified six proteins elevated in the TB, but none could be connected with the observed metabolic dysregulation.

Conclusion

Although walnuts’ rich immunonutrient content prevented tumor growth in genetically programmed mice models, there was no effect in this model.

中文翻译：

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饮食核桃（一种营养保健品选择）对啮齿动物恶病质肿瘤模型中代谢失调循环标志物的影响

 背景

核桃等营养食品富含免疫营养素，具有药用价值。饮食核桃已被证明可以减缓或预防基因编程产生乳腺癌或前列腺肿瘤的小鼠的肿瘤生长。这项研究调查了核桃是否可以在可移植性癌症大鼠模型中发挥相同的预防作用。

 方法

18 只大鼠被随机喂食含有核桃的饮食（占食物重量的 10%），36 只大鼠被喂食不含核桃的饮食（对照），持续 21 天。第 22 天，18 只对照饮食大鼠转为核桃饮食。所有其他动物都保持相同的饮食。在每个饮食组中，有 6 只大鼠被植入沃德结肠癌 (TB)，其中 12 只进行了假手术。五天后，将 6 只假手术动物与 TB 进行体重匹配，然后在研究的其余部分配对喂养。其余 6 只假手术或非荷瘤大鼠随意喂养。

 结果

吃核桃的大鼠的组织显示出较高的 omega-3 脂肪酸（免疫营养素）含量，但这并不能减缓或阻止肿瘤生长或该结核模型典型的瘦肉和脂肪量的损失。此外，结核病患者的血糖、胰岛素、IGF-1 和脂联素水平显着降低，表明代谢失调。同样，这些变化并没有因食用核桃而改变。血浆蛋白质组学鉴定出结核病中六种蛋白质升高，但没有一种蛋白质与观察到的代谢失调有关。

 结论

尽管核桃丰富的免疫营养素含量可以阻止基因编程小鼠模型中的肿瘤生长，但在该模型中没有效果。