Day 035 - 12 Oct 94 - Page 42
1 just have been in that Norwegian paper that what happened
2 was they did not have as much food as they might have
3 liked up until 1945, which was the time up to, including
4 immediately after menarche, and then they got much more
5 food and ended up taller than people who were a little
6 older may have been?
7
8 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I have a feeling but I will come back to
9 it obviously at some stage that -----
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just bear it in mind rather than stop now.
12 I will look at the paper again. I was left with the
13 feeling that the greater height may have been coincidental
14 to the hormonal factors which I have touched on.
15
16 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, that may be right.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: And the height may have had nothing to do
19 with any causal factor at the end of the day.
20
21 MR. RAMPTON: I did not suggest that. I believe that I have
22 seen a number of statements in these papers -- I cannot
23 find the references now -- where height has been
24 identified as one of the factors which is
25 epidemiologically, not causal, associated with a higher
26 incidence of breast cancer, not simply that Norwegian
27 paper.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. I have a vague recollection of
30 Dr. Arnott's answer to you on that, but I cannot remember
31 in detail what it was.
32
33 MR. RAMPTON: One can certainly go back to it. (To the
34 witness): Another factor which has been identified, has it
35 not, Dr. Barnard, as being relevant to the incidence of
36 breast cancer is the age at menopause; the later the
37 menopause, the greater the risk?
38 A. There are any number of -- yes, individuals have
39 talked about that. However, all of these factors are far
40 more controversial, if I may say so, than the ones that
41 have been discussed so far. The role of height, I think,
42 is precisely as your Honour has described it. The role of
43 multiple births is an area that is fraught with
44 controversy. So, yes, people do speculate about such
45 things. What to make of them and what public health
46 information may be useful is another matter.
47
48 Q. Leaving height and age at menopause perhaps on one side
49 for the moment, the age at which a person gets married and
50 the number of children which that woman decides to have no
51 relationship with diet, do they? They are social effects,
52 are they not?
53 A. That is right.
54
55 Q. It is right to say, is it not, that in Western societies
56 -- this is a generalisation -- generally women are
57 tending to get married later and have fewer children than
58 people in what one might call the developing or
59 under-developed countries?
60 A. In some cases that is true.
