Day 256 - 04 Jun 96 - Page 66
1 cancer."
2
3 The recommendation was for a maximum of 35 per cent to be
4 derived from fat, 35 per cent of energy to be derived from
5 fat in the diet. That is 1991.
6
7 Do you propose that that is too timid, that conclusion?
8 A. Very much so. In fact, it is probably the most timid
9 statement of any country I know in the world.
10
11 Q. I will not take time debating that. You think that is much
12 too timid, do you?
13 A. Yes, I do.
14
15 Q. At any rate, the people that produced that conclusion are
16 not part of your consensus, are they; that is quite clear
17 -- or at least were not in 1991?
18 A. Well, can I comment on the first paragraph that you
19 read, the dietary fat in the aetiology of cancer?
20
21 Q. Yes.
22 A. That statement, we would get in some real
23 technicalities here. But there is a number of ways in
24 which one can present information of this sort. They have
25 chosen to do it one way, to basically defend their rather
26 conservative views. Let me just illustrate one point.
27 This is sometimes often found in the literature, to present
28 the notion that there is a lot of confusion in literature.
29 Let me read this one sentence here:
30
31 "Hormones, particularly oestrogens, are known to be
32 important promoters of both animal and human breast cancer
33 but there are conflicting reports on the effect of fat on
34 circulating levels of oestrogen."
35
36 I want to focus just on that clause: "There are
37 conflicting reports on the effect of fat on circulating
38 levels of oestrogen". By that kind of statement they tend
39 to dismiss therefore, or at least bring into question, the
40 relationship between dietary fat and oestrogen because
41 there are these so-called conflicting reports and often
42 times that kind of statement is actually made about the
43 conflict in the literature.
44
45 The problem with that statement is that people will take a
46 bunch of studies where, for example, let us say, fat and
47 breast cancer, they will find some will show a high risk
48 for breast cancer with higher intakes of fat. Some studies
49 will show basically no significant relationship, almost no
50 studies show the opposite, so the person who is actually
51 doing the review is saying there are conflicting reports
52 when in actual fact these are not in conflict. That is to
53 say, we have 3 possible outcomes in a relationship like.
54 We either have a correct relationship, no significant
55 relationship or an inverse relationship.
56
57 In virtually all of these studies is a mixture of let us
58 say a positive significant relationship or some studies
59 show no significant relationship, but virtually none the
60 opposite. To me, that is not a conflict.
