Neither dietary ethanol nor beer augments experimental colon carcinogenesis in rats

Abstract

There is an epidemiologic association between beer consumption and rectal cancer. Beer and ethanol were tested in the rat-dimethylhydrazine (DMH) experimental carcinogenesis model in order to verify this observation. Ethanol was found not to affect the number of colonic tumors induced by DMH (86 vs. 77 controls, P = 0.764). In rats fed beer and treated with DMH, there was a decrease in gastrointestinal tumor induction (P = 0.043). This instance then becomes one of many in which conclusions drawn from epidemiologic studies have been contradicted when subjected to analysis in an experimental colon carcinogenesis model.