The Vitamin B Content of Cancer.

Burrows (1) has been led to believe that cancer may be due to a local excess of vitamin B in the tissue and he and his co-worker Jorstad bring forward some evidence that the Jensen rat sarcoma does actually contain an abnormally great amount of this accessory food substance (2) (3). They fed young rats a basic diet free from vitamin B to which were added ten grams Jensen rat sarcoma and from the growth curves obtained on this diet they conclude that cancerous tissue contains an abnormally great amount of vitamin, B. No normal resting organ was, however, directly contrasted with the malignant tissue, so we are left in doubt as to the exact quantitative differences in vitamin B content between normal and neoplastic tissue. If cancer really be due to, or associated with, an increase of vitamin B, then actively growing neoplastic tissue should, as Burrows claims, contain more of this accessory food factor than normal tissue. Experiments were therefore devised to check the results of Burrows and Jorstad as the matter is not without both theoretical and practical importance. Young white rats were placed on a basic diet containing: