DHA effect on chemotherapy-induced body weight loss: an exploratory study in a rodent model of mammary tumors.

Body weight loss during the course of cancer disease has been associated with poor prognosis. Beside cancer-associated cachexia, weight loss can also result from chemotherapy. This work explored whether a model of mammary tumors in female Sprague Dawley rats could be appropriate to study the effect of doxorubicin on body weight, described weight change in this model, and assessed the effect of DHA on weight during chemotherapy. After tumor induction, rats were randomly assigned to a control or a DHA-enriched diet, and treated with doxorubicin or placebo twice a week for 2.5 wk (n = 6 in each group). Body weight, food intake, and tumor growth were monitored. Neither the induction of tumors nor their initial development impaired body weight gain. No reduction in food intake was observed. Tumor growth was similar between groups from day 1 to day 11. Although doxorubicin induced body weight loss from day 4 compared to placebo (P< 0.01) in rats fed the control diet, it did not induce body weight loss in rats fed the DHA-enriched diet (P = 0.02), indicating that DHA had a protective effect. These results indicate that doxorubicin can induce body weight loss in this model and that a DHA-enriched diet can prevent this effect.