ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between fecal steroids and colon cancer in tamarins. It also examines the bile acid spectrum in the feces of tamarins and marmosets and determined bile acid concentration as well as the proportion of deoxycholic acid. The cotton-top tamarin, Saguinus Oedipus, offers such an opportunity to study spontaneously developing colon cancer in a subhuman primate. Cancer of the colon is among the most prevalent malignancies of many "westernized" populations of North America and Europe. In animals, studies showed that rats fed a high-fat diet and given a carcinogen were more prone to large bowel cancer than rats fed a low-fat diet; the levels of coprostanol as well as the bacterial modifications of the acidic steroids by the intestinal flora were enhanced by a high-fat diet. The relationship of fecal steroids to colorectal cancer has been ascribed to several aspects of sterol metabolism.
