Day 254 - 22 May 96 - Page 26
1 I am aware of all the other criticisms of population
2 studies, but that criticism does not apply to them. Is
3 that right or not?
4 A. The criticism of the?
5
6 Q. The criticism that you are only looking at what happens,
7 i.e. what the diet is, and whether they suffer a
8 degenerative disease within a relatively short scale of
9 their life, a period of their life which tends to be in the
10 middle or towards the end of their life rather than in the
11 early years of their life.
12 A. That is correct, whereas the population studies are
13 looking at the overall incidence of the disease in the
14 population.
15
16 Q. Yes.
17
18 MS. STEEL: The other thing is that the location of the
19 studies, the diets in those countries would be fairly
20 homogenous would not they?
21 A. It is likely to be, but as you will notice they have
22 actually got a proportion of women who have derived less
23 than 20 per cent of their calories from fat and have been
24 able to look at these women in comparison with the other
25 groups of women in the study and have not been able to find
26 a correlation or even a trend between fat intake and breast
27 cancers.
28
29 Q. I am going to come on to that. I am trying to go through
30 this in the same order of the page otherwise I am going to
31 get really confused.
32 A. OK.
33
34 Q. On page 358, the table there, the quintiles, do you know
35 where you find an explanation as to what the quintiles are?
36 A. Yes. Quintile No. 1 is considered to be the base line.
37
38 Q. Yes.
39 A. I am trying to find the point in the text.
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There is a sword against that and a note
42 underneath the table.
43 A. Yes, quintile 1 values are the reference.
44
45 MS. STEEL: Which is the base line?
46 A. Yes.
47
48 Q. But I cannot find where we are given the figures for the
49 energy adjusted nutrients intake for each of the quintiles.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are we given it at all?
52 A. We are not.
53
54 Q. Or have they just taken the energy adjusted nutrients
55 intake across the board and divided them into fifths?
56 A. They have, yes.
57
58 MS. STEEL: So you cannot see anything. I mean, I cannot see
59 anything which indicates what the differences are between
60 those and, you know, to what extent there was a difference
