Day 036 - 13 Oct 94 - Page 29
1 indeed 33 and the other is 40.
2
3 MR. RAMPTON: I am sorry about that. We will try and get the
4 original.
5 A. It is all right. Secondly, when one looks at
6 carbohydrate, frankly I cannot make out those figures, but
7 it looks like 317 for the Finns, 283 for New York. So, we
8 are talking about a difference of 30, 34 grammes, or
9 whatever it may be there, per day of carbohydrate. In
10 other words, if one holds calorie content constant and
11 holds protein intake constant, if you are going to reduce
12 carbohydrate and you have no choice but to increase fat,
13 that is what is happening there.
14
15 I would not like that to be lost in interpreting this.
16 I do agree with you that there is an important role for
17 fibre. Whether there is a role for calcium or something
18 else in dairy products, I am not in a position to say
19 based on what we have gone through. However, the data on
20 fat there might want to be entered into the discussion.
21
22 Q. I am not suggesting that one can draw any firm conclusions
23 from a report of this kind. You see, as I think I said
24 earlier, I am not presently concerned to prove any kind of
25 positive case at all. I am suggesting that material of
26 this kind, and it has, I believe, this sort of phenomenon,
27 been confirmed or reflected by others in later studies. I
28 might be wrong about that what. What I am suggesting is
29 that this sort of evidence is suggestive of a whole lot of
30 possible reasons for what one might call ecologic
31 correlations, is it not?
32 A. Yes. That is why one responsibly -- well, suggestive
33 of a whole lot. What that would mean to me is that when
34 one responsibly describes the situation, one would say
35 there are links between a diet which is not simply
36 high-in-fat but also high-in-salt and sugar, low-in-fibre
37 and cancers of the colon and of the breast. That would be
38 quite reasonable. That does seem to be what this study
39 does suggest.
40
41 This study also talks about the mechanisms that relate to
42 the bile acids and their carcinogenic effect, which I
43 think is obviously important and something to which I made
44 reference in my statements.
45
46 Q. I know you do. I was not going to take up the question of
47 bile acids in any detail at this stage. I think I will
48 leave that there. We have had evidence about that, and
49 there may be some more. What I was going to say was, or
50 ask you to comment on, is this: From a study like that one
51 could hypothesize, I am not saying one should assert as a
52 fact, one could hypothesize that fat was in a sense
53 irrelevant, because so long as you ate enough fibre, the
54 amount of fat in the diet, up to a certain level
55 obviously, but the amount of fat in the diet was not
56 really the important thing; it was the amount of the fibre
57 that you ate?
58 A. Fibre seems to have a protective effect, perhaps
59 regardless of fat intake, although this study does not
60 establish that because as in nature, as in human diets, in
