Day 034 - 11 Oct 94 - Page 07
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But that is under "international
2 correlation", is it?
3 A. That is correct.
4
5 Q. Does that mean, for instance, that in the within country
6 correlation Enig in 1978 and Nomura in the same year did
7 find a correlation according to the amount of vegetable
8 fat?
9 A. Yes.
10
11 Q. But Lea and Hislop in case-control studies found some
12 factors -- there was a positive relationship and some an
13 inverse relationship for different carriers of fat. We
14 can see the note. I just want to make sure I have
15 understood them. I take the point about what "0" means.
16
17 MR. MORRIS: Maybe if you do the within country correlations
18 next and explain what that table finds?
19 A. Yes. The reason, if I may say so first, that
20 researchers do different kinds of correlations is that if
21 one looks across different countries, it is possible that
22 countries may differ in ways aside simply from diet. If
23 one looks within a country one has a much more homogeneous
24 population, both genetically and environmentally, and it
25 allows you to hone in and build a stronger case for
26 causation, although the within country correlations are
27 not, again, the only line of research that one would rely
28 on, but they build in a separate way upon the
29 international correlations. They are used intentionally
30 for that purpose to provide an additional and different
31 type of data.
32
33 In the within country correlations we have, I believe,
34 seven studies. Four of the seven found a positive
35 relationship with total fat intake.
36
37 Q. Could I interrupt again? Of the four that looked at -- is
38 it correct to say that of the four that actually looked at
39 total fat they all found a positive correlation?
40 A. Yes, that is right. None of them found a negative or
41 -- neither of them found an inverse or a neutral
42 association, if I may say that.
43
44 Q. So, because I am trying to clarify in my own mind that the
45 blanks mean that they did not look at that?
46 A. That is correct. There were no -----
47
48 Q. It is not that they found nothing?
49 A. There were no studies that failed to find an
50 association with total fat. All four of the studies that
51 looked at total fat, indeed, did find a direct
52 correlation, which was precisely the same thing that had
53 happened in the international correlations. Every time it
54 was looked at indeed it was found, and found to be
55 statistically significant.
56
57 Then when one gets into specific types and sources of fat,
58 this is what the Surgeon General was mentioning earlier in
59 the introductory paragraphs, saying that more work needs
60 to be done on finding exactly which type of fat is the
