Day 017 - 25 Jul 94 - Page 44
1
MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you just pause a moment? The incourt
2 tape has broken. We still have the master tape, but my
own experience of that is although it is relatively
3 efficient, the time factor involved is considerable. It
will only take about five or ten minutes to replace. So
4 I am going to rise now.
5 (Short Adjournment)
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Rampton, I think the tape actually broke
after we had started, but out of circumspection perhaps it
7 would be as well to go through what you had already done.
They were the questions in relation to the reduction in
8 fat intake but rise in cancer of the breast in the United
States, and you went on to cancer of the colon and rectum.
9
MR. RAMPTON: Yes. That is right, at reference 25, which is
10 Reddy and others, including Wynder, in what looks like the
journal of the American Cancer Society in 1978. I think
11 I have read the whole of the abstract. If your Lordship
thinks it right to do so, I will read it again.
12
MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. We have read it before in any event.
13
MR. RAMPTON: The first question I asked you, Dr. Arnott, to
14 which you just started to give a reply was whether, as at
July 1994, the proposition that fecal bile acids have a
15 promoting activity in carcinogenesis is still accepted in
that unvarnished form?
16 A. In animal experiments, and I mentioned the criticisms
that one has to have about animal experiments, their
17 limitations, this morning. It has been shown that bile
acids when applied to tumours induced by another chemical
18 will actually promote the development of that tumour, but
whether that actually applies to the human situation is
19 unknown. It is a theory, and of course, as I said this
morning, the concentration of the chemicals as applied in
20 the animal situation is far greater than one would expect
in the human situation. It is a theory and no more than
21 that.
22 Q. So rewritten for 1994 might one have to put that
concluding part of the abstract in this way? Thus
23 diluting bile acids which may have promoting activity?
A. Yes.
24
Q. The other question I have about this paper, given that it
25 seemed to suggest that a diet high in fibre but
nonetheless high in fat, was productive of a low incidence
26 of large bowel cancer, what conclusions might one draw,
not "ought to draw", might one draw from this piece of
27 work?
A. The question of fibre in the diet is a long standing
28 one and Denis Birkett(?) was probably the first person to
look at this particular problem when he looked at the
29 Bantu Africans and people in this country. He measured
stool; he compared the low incidence of colon cancer in
30 the Bantus compared with people in this country, and
suggested there might be a diluting effect of the fibre
