Day 033 - 10 Oct 94 - Page 15
1 Also within country research I might mention Toniolo's
2 study, which I described in my statement, which was done
3 in Italy. There were two groups who had very similar
4 diets in relation to olive oil consumption and
5 carbohydrate consumption. However, when cancer patients
6 -- the diets of cancer patients were examined, they had
7 more meat, more cheese, more butter, more milk and more
8 fat, and the risk of breast cancer was believed to be
9 about three times that of other people; three times that
10 for people who are consuming more animal products.
11
12 There are several other lines of research that are
13 relevant in response to your question, though. When one
14 looks at people who already have cancer -- by that I mean
15 cancer that has been diagnosed, so it has been initiated,
16 it has been promoted; the cancer cell, the growth of the
17 cancer has been promoted and it is progressing -- when one
18 looks at these individuals, many research studies have
19 shown that the more fat there is in their diet the more
20 likely they are to have cancer aggressively growing and
21 spreading.
22
23 Perhaps, in response to your earlier question, your Honour
24 -- this is, I guess, another link -- when people have
25 cancer, their prognosis is much worse if they are on high
26 diets. A researcher named Gregorio at the State
27 University of New York in Buffalo quantified the link that
28 for every thousand grammes of fat in the diet per month
29 (this is simply total fat) the risk of death at any point
30 in time for a woman with metastatic breast cancer (that is
31 cancer which has already spread to another part of the
32 body) increases by 40 per cent. That is a very
33 substantial rise.
34
35 An additional line of evidence linking fat and breast
36 cancer is the fact that there is very clear cut evidence
37 of mechanisms by which fat influences cancer risk. Fat, a
38 high fat diet and, I may say also, a diet that is low in
39 fibre, because the two tend to vary inversely -- a diet
40 that is high in fat is quite often a diet that is low in
41 fibre, because animal products tend to be high in fat and
42 contain no fibre -- a diet that is high in fat and low in
43 fibre increases oestrogen levels in a woman's body.
44 Oestrogen levels that are higher are clearly and
45 unquestionably linked to a higher rate of breast cancer.
46 The breast cells are responsive to oestrogens. So, when a
47 high fat diet elevates oestrogen levels, this is believed
48 to be at least one important mechanism for increasing the
49 risk of breast cancer.
50
51 The National Cancer Institute in books on cancer states
52 that if fat intake were dropped from 40 per cent of
53 calories, or not -- let me correct myself; from the
54 current American average, which is about 37, nearly 40,
55 per cent of calories -- if it were dropped to 20 per cent,
56 that could be expected to lead to a 17 per cent reduction
57 in oestrogen levels, and that is believed to be at least
58 one mechanism by which a low fat diet can be protective
59 against breast cancer.
60
