Day 256 - 04 Jun 96 - Page 85
1 bowel, is one in 1,000?
2 A. I would say so.
3
4 Q. Let me just make a note. Is that the cause or part of a
5 multifactorial basis?
6 A. Could you explain that, please?
7
8 Q. Are you saying that the chance of a high fat diet including
9 animal fat not being causal of cancer is one in 1,000, is
10 that as the sole cause?
11 A. No.
12
13 Q. Elaborate on that, then.
14 A. The high intake of the fat coming from animal products
15 of course tends to displace, of course, the consumption of
16 foods of plant origin. So those kind of foods being
17 displaced are going to allow for an increase in risk, as
18 well.
19
20 Q. I understand that. But it is all diet rather than other
21 factors?
22 A. Right, yes. I am sorry. Right.
23
24 Q. Once you have genetic susceptibility?
25 A. Yes.
26
27 MR. MORRIS: Does everybody have the genetic susceptibility?
28 A. Yes. You raise that question, actually. It turns out
29 that I am absolutely convinced there is going to be a
30 cluster of genes for every single disease that is known to
31 human kind; it is just a matter of time before we discover
32 this; and we are all going to have some genetic
33 susceptibility to some disease. That I will stand on. If
34 there is anything I can stand on, that is it. In turn, it
35 is not the genes that actually establish risk. That is a
36 misperception at the present time. It really is the
37 factors that actually allow the expression of these genes
38 that lead to disease, and those factors are largely dietary
39 in origin. In fact, the data -- I can cite two studies to
40 illustrate this point quite dramatically. One study is the
41 report by Sir Richard Doll and Richard Peto, where they
42 analyse a large number of different studies, and came to
43 the conclusion that not more than two to three per cent of
44 all cancers were genetically based. Another study was done
45 recently, a year ago last spring, the largest study done so
46 far of identical and paternal twins; it was done at the
47 National Cancer Institute in the United States and
48 published in the Cancer Research Journal, a journal of
49 cancer research -- I think that was a journal. Basically,
50 they found in that kind of comparison that whereas one
51 would expect the second member of an identical twin to get
52 the same cancers, more or less, as the first member,
53 because they have the same genes, it turned out not to be
54 the case.
55
56 So, even though we have a genetic susceptibility for
57 getting these diseases, every one of us, some disease, the
58 fact of the matter is, that is not what really leads to
59 disease. What leads to disease is the long the period
60 between the genetic susceptibility and the disease itself;
