title: Ancestral susceptibility to colorectal cancer.
abstract: Every year, approximately 1 million new colorectal cancer (CRC) cases are diagnosed and about half a million people worldwide die due to this cancer. Known differences in CRC incidence rates are mainly attributed to differences in diet and other environmental factors represented, among others, by nutrition-related complex diseases (e.g. obesity and diabetes mellitus type II). Within the last years, it has become evident that environmental risk factors can be complemented by a genetic component when considering the risk of CRC. For example, a number of polymorphisms are known to be associated with an increased risk of obesity and obesity is a risk factor for CRC. Several studies have shown that the 'ancestral-susceptibility model' can be reasonably applied to nutrition-related complex diseases such as obesity. The work in hand shortly discusses whether the ancestral-susceptibility model can also be applied to CRC as a nutrition-related complex disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Genetic Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Im Neuenheimer Feld 580, 69121 Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Huhn
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pardini
authors.forename: Alessio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Naccarati
authors.forename: Pavel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vodicka
authors.forename: Kari
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hemminki
authors.forename: Asta
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Försti
mesh_terms: D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology*; D048909:Diabetes Complications / Q000209:etiology*; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004032:Diet / Q000009:adverse effects*; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006801:Humans; D009765:Obesity / Q000150:complications* / Q000235:genetics; D012307:Risk Factors