Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 14, 1994 TAG: 9404140331
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO LENGTH: Medium
Dr. John Richie, a biochemist at the American Health Foundation in Valhalla, N.Y., has found that a disproportionate number of blacks have a less efficient enzyme for detoxifying NKK, a particularly virulent cancer-causing chemical in tobacco smoke.
Smokers with the sluggish enzyme end up with more of a cancer-causing metabolite in their bodies than those who have a more aggressive enzyme system.
Richie presented his findings this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in San Francisco. ``This is the first evidence that there may be metabolic differences which are consistent with cancer risk differences,'' Richie said.
Dr. Gail Shaw, an expert on cancer and metabolism at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., said the ``study is very provocative.''
``The potential exists for different metabolism of carcinogens in different races,'' Shaw said. But, she continued, the new study has not proved that this is the case.
Blacks and whites could have alternate pathways for detoxifying carcinogens, she said, and blacks could have a system that has not yet been identified.
The new study stems from growing research on enzymes and diet and how people clear toxins from their bodies. Scientists are finding wide differences between individuals and between ethnic groups in the ability to detoxify chemicals, either man-made or those found in natural foods.
by CNB