ARTICLES Esophageal Cancer Prevention in Zinc-Deficient Rats: Rapid Induction of Apoptosis by Replenishing Zinc

esophageal cell proliferation and the incidence of N-nitroso-methylbenzylamine (NMBA)-induced esophageal tumors. Replenishing zinc with a zinc-sufficient diet reduces these effects in zinc-deficient (ZD) rats. We investigated whether apoptosis was involved in the reduction of NMBA-induced esophageal tumors when ZD rats consumed a zinc-sufficient diet. Methods: Weanling rats were fed a ZD diet (zinc at 3–4 ppm) for 5 weeks to establish esophageal cell proliferation, then treated once with NMBA (2 mg/kg body weight), and divided into the following five groups (47–100 per group). One ZD group was fed the ZD diet, and four zinc-replen-ished (ZR) groups, ZR1, ZR24, ZR72, and ZR432, were fed a zinc-sufficient diet (zinc at 74–75 ppm) beginning 1, 24, 72, and 432 hours, respectively, after NMBA treatment. From 24 hours to 2 weeks after beginning a zinc-sufficient diet