Day 022 - 12 Sep 94 - Page 64
1
2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you want to add something?
3 A. No. One of the things that does seem to be coming out
4 from a lot of studies is that the strongest relationship
5 may be with fruits and vegetables and a protective effect,
6 but that is mainly in colorectal cancer because, equally,
7 other studies that have looked at breast cancer have not
8 found a benefit for these foods in breast cancer, so it is
9 a controversial issue.
10
11 MR. MORRIS: One last thing I have to look at is your reference
12 No. 6, which is the epidemiology of breast cancer with
13 special reference to the role of diet, Takeshi Hirayama,
14 published in Preventative Medicine, 1978. I am not sure
15 if this is an actual study or just a look at the ----
16 A. They were looking at statistics.
17
18 Q. The first paragraph is an abstract, is it not?
19 A. Yes.
20
21 Q. "Breast cancer is still relatively infrequent in Japan.
22 However, both mortality and morbidity rates have sharply
23 increased in recent years, especially in ages 45 to 59.
24 The risk was noted to be to 8.5 times higher in women of
25 high socioeconomic strata eating meat daily, compared with
26 women of low socioeconomic strata who do not eat meat
27 daily, when 142,857 women aged 40 years were followed for
28 10 years". This is quite a substantial survey, yes. I am
29 just reading the abstract.
30 A. Yes.
31
32 Q. "A high positive correlation was found between per capita
33 fat intake and adjusted death rates of breast cancer in
34 different districts of Japan. It was estimated that the
35 breast cancer death rate will rise to the U.S. level when
36 Japanese dietary fat intake approaches present day U.S.
37 levels. The close correlation with fat intake was noted
38 to come mainly from the consumption of pork and animal
39 fat. The ratio of recent increase in breast cancer death
40 rates was also found to be under the combined influence of
41 animal fat and AF2, a highly mutagenic food additive
42 widely used in Japan from 1965 to 1975 and shown to
43 produce mammary carcinoma in rats. A series of
44 case-control studies reveals the higher risk of breast
45 cancer with the increase in body size especially in
46 postmenopausal women. The recent breast cancer increase
47 could therefore be a reflection of the fact that women in
48 Japan are becoming heavier, especially after age 30."
49
50 If we just go to the conclusions on page 402 of the file,
51 Discussion and Summary: "Breast cancer frequency is still
52 quite low in Japanese women. However, breast cancer
53 mortality and morbidity rates are on a steady increase in
54 Japan in recent years. Most probably this increase in
55 breast cancer mortality and morbidity rates is the
56 reflection of the increase in the amount of dietary fat
57 intake, especially in the form of pork, in recent years in
58 Japan."
59
60 There cannot be any genetic reason for these dramatic
