Cervical Tissue and Plasma Concentrations of -Carotene and -Carotene in Women Are Correlated^1,2,3

Manuscript received 8 April 1998. Initial reviews completed 24 June 1998. Revision accepted 12 July 1998.

Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0901 USA and ^* Department of Food Science and Technology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1096 USA

Results from epidemiologic studies suggest that a carotenoid-rich diet may reduce risk for cervical cancer, possibly by inhibiting the progression of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, a preneoplastic lesion of the cervical tissue. Laboratory studies suggest that the mechanism may be linked to the metabolism of carotenoids to retinoic acid or retinoic acid-like compounds, which has been hypothesized to occur in the cervical tissue. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the presence of provitamin A carotenoids in biopsied samples of this peripheral tissue in human subjects and to examine the relationship between baseline concentrations of these carotenoids in plasma and normal cervical tissue in subjects who were being evaluated for possible participation in a diet intervention trial. Subjects were 13 women aged 19-41 y. With the use of HPLC methodology, plasma concentrations of -carotene, -carotene and -cryptoxanthin were determined with UV/visible light detection for plasma and electrochemical detection for cervical tissue. Relationships between plasma and cervical tissue were evaluated with Pearson correlation analysis. Adjusted for plasma cholesterol concentration, plasma -carotene and -carotene were correlated with cervical tissue concentrations (r = 0.91, P < 0.001; r = 0.90, P < 0.001; respectively). Adjusted for plasma cholesterol concentration, plasma -cryptoxanthin tended to be correlated with cervical tissue concentrations (r = 0.62, P = 0.058). These findings suggest that plasma concentrations of -carotene and -carotene are good predictors of cervical tissue concentrations of these compounds in human subjects and describe a first step toward demonstrating a biological link between provitamin A carotenoids and cervical cancer in vivo.

The Journal of Nutrition Vol. 128 No. 11 November 1998, pp. 1933-1936
Copyright ©1998 by the American Society for Nutritional Sciences

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