Measurement of nicotine in building air as an indicator of tobacco smoke levels.

The authors reviewed the growth-promoting and carcinogenic effects of raw soya flour in rats and found that if raw soya flour-containing diets are fed for more than one year, almost 10% of animals develop pancreatic cancer. In addition, by eating raw soya flour they markedly potentiate the action of subthreshold amounts of pancreatic carcinogens. Therefore, they consider the raw soya flour a potent promoter as well as a weak carcinogen. To explain these phenomena, the authors focus their attention on the trypsin inhibitor contained in raw soya bean food and they strongly urge the appropriate national regulatory authorities to test the carcinogenic and promoter effects of soybean food products. I wish to mention that soybeans are a very important food in Oriental countries, especially in China (soybean is also called Chinese bean). If we admit that the soybean food diet is an important factor in inducing pancreatic carcinoma, how can we explain the lower incidence of pancreatic cancer in China as compared to America (Robert W. Miller, Epidemiology. In: Cancer in China [Henry S. Kaplan and Patricia Jones Tsuchitani, Eds.], Alan R. Liss Inc., New York, 1978, pp. 3957)? In fact, trypsin inhibitors are also present in cow's milk. Fortunately, both in soya bean and in milk most of these inhibitors are destroyed by various means of heating and cooking.