Day 256 - 04 Jun 96 - Page 55


     
     1        the same sort of diet throughout one's life.  This is the
     2        point
     3
     4   Q.   I follow that.  As you heard at the beginning, I agree with
     5        you, that age of menarche is diet related unlike parity and
     6        age of first birth.
     7
     8        Can I ask you to look at the penultimate page of this
     9        paper, and towards the bottom of the right-hand column.
    10        I think the page number is 1357, there is a paragraph which
    11        begins, "Recent prospective studies of breast cancer". Do
    12        you have that?
    13        A.  Yes.
    14
    15   Q.   "Recent prospective studies of breast cancer have cast
    16        doubt on earlier observations based on case control design
    17        of a positive association between dietary fat and cancer
    18        (Hunter and Willett 1993).
    19
    20        Our data are compatible with the null hypothesis" -- and
    21        this is an explanation of what the null hypothesis is
    22         -- "(None of the dietary fat/breast cancer associations
    23        after adjustment for energy intake and confounding factors
    24        was statistically significant) but could be interpreted to
    25        support a weak positive association between fat intake and
    26        breast cancer within the range of exposure study ranging
    27        from a mean 15 per cent of total calorie intake among
    28        Shanghai women in the lowest quartile category to a mean of
    29        35 per cent among Tianjin women in the highest quartile
    30        group."
    31
    32        I am going to read on, Professor, I am not stopping there,
    33        but I want to ask you a couple of questions there.  Those
    34        findings are more or less in line with what you found or
    35        stated you found in your paper that we just looked at, are
    36        they not?
    37        A.  Yes, they are.
    38
    39   Q.   The fat range is slightly higher than the one you studied?
    40        A.  Yes, quite a bit.
    41
    42   Q.   Do you think it is significantly higher?
    43        A.  Yes.
    44
    45   Q.   15 to 35?
    46        A.  Right because these are cohorts in Shanghai and
    47        Tianjin, which of course are the city areas.  We worked in
    48        the rural areas.  In fact we intentionally excluded
    49        Shanghai and Tianjin, so there are significant differences.
    50 
    51   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But the 15 per cent mean is not a million 
    52        miles away from yours. Was yours a mean or an average, that 
    53        14.8?
    54        A.  That was a mean part. We went down to 6 or so.
    55
    56   Q.   That is about the same.  The Tianjin women is 35 per cent
    57        and you were you asking if that is significant different.
    58
    59   MR. RAMPTON:  There is a difference between, I think 24 was your
    60        top mean, was it not?

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