Day 023 - 13 Sep 94 - Page 09
1 cigarettes a day, their risk of getting lung cancer is
2 40-fold that of somebody who does not smoke, and the
3 chances of somebody getting lung cancer in their lifetime
4 will be no more than about a one in ten chance.
5
6 Q. If they do not smoke?
7 A. If they do not smoke. There are a number of cancers
8 of the lung which are not related to cigarette smoking.
9 There is a chance that people will get some forms of lung
10 cancer.
11
12 Q. Do those include occupational ones with occupational
13 causes?
14 A. Occupational causes are nowadays relatively uncommon
15 because those factors have been appreciated and largely
16 removed.
17
18 Q. They do unhappily still occur?
19 A. They do unfortunately, yes, particularly the asbestos
20 related ones.
21
22 MS. STEEL: In this pamphlet we were looking at yesterday,
23 "Can You Avoid Cancer, A Guide to Reducing your Risks",
24 I will put these figures to you -- I will not ask you to
25 get it out -- and see whether you agree with it. It says
26 in here that, in terms of an individual's risk, the Royal
27 College puts it like this: "Among 1,000 young male adults
28 in England and Wales who smoke cigarettes on average about
29 250 will be killed before their time by tobacco". Do you
30 think that sounds reasonable or you do not know?
31 A. It probably is very reasonable. That is talking about
32 a 25 per cent incidence, but that is a lifetime risk.
33 I am talking about 30,000 people a year dying out of a
34 total population risk of something like 12 or 15 million
35 possibly, so it seems about right.
36
37 Q. Do you know of any studies which have shown causes other
38 than diet -- causes might be, whatever -- do you know of
39 any studies that have shown or linked any causes other
40 than diet to explain why there are higher rates of certain
41 cancers in the so-called developed countries?
42 A. If you look at breast cancer, for example, there are
43 well known risk factors and these include -- we talked
44 about these yesterday -- but they include the age at which
45 you start to menstruate, the age at which you have your
46 first child, the number of children you have and the age
47 at which you have your menopause.
48
49 Now, whilst some of these may be related to diet in the
50 sense of energy that one either has or is restricted from
51 having in childhood, such as the age at which you begin to
52 menstruate, that may be influenced by, for example, energy
53 deprivation as a child and could explain why the menarche
54 or starting to menstruate occurs later in under-developed
55 countries.
56
57 But things like the age at which you have your first child
58 is not something that is going to be influenced by diet.
59 That is a choice that somebody makes. In developed
60 countries there is a tendency to have children older
