ABSTRACT
There are more than 200 Mendelian inherited cancer-prone syndromes. Persons with these syndromes may provide an unparalleled resource for studying the effects of dietary interventions. This chapter discusses the role of diet and genetics in human cancer, with particular attention to carcinoma of the colon, gallbladder, and esophagus. A crucial detriment to the understanding of genetic-environmental (G-E) interaction in cancer etiology is the fact that cancer geneticists often totally disregard the contributory role of the environment, while their cancer epidemiology colleagues neglect genetics. Research in pharmacogenetics provides rationale for the significance of G-E interaction in cancer etiology. Certain facets of hereditary cancer's natural history appear with sufficient frequency among putative carriers of the deleterious cancer-prone gene(s) as to lead to their characterization as "cardinal principles of cancer genetics." Epidemiologic studies of cancer in migrant populations have stressed changes in dietary patterns as a cancer link, particularly among Japanese immigrants to Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States.
