Chemopreventive effects of dietary mustard oil on colon tumor development

Fatty acid composition of dietary fat is one of the detrimental factors in colon cancer development. Fats containing omega 6-polyunsaturated fatty acids (e.g. corn oil) enhance and omega 3-polyunsaturated fatty acids (e.g. fish oil) reduce chemically-induced colon cancer in animal studies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of dietary mustard oil (containing omega 3-polyunsaturated fatty acid) on azoxymethane-induced colon cancer in rats and compare with corn and fish oil treated groups. Colon tumor incidence and multiplicity were found to be 90, 75, and 50% and 1.7, 0.8, and 0.4 tumors/rat in corn, fish and mustard oil treated groups respectively. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid levels were highest in serum and colon microsomal fractions of the fish oil group followed by the mustard oil group. Corn oil group had the highest level of omega 6-polyunsaturated fatty acid levels in serum and colon microsomal fractions. The results indicate that dietary mustard oil is more effective in preventing colon cancer in rats than dietary fish oil.