Day 017 - 25 Jul 94 - Page 41
1 years on?
A. Indeed, yes.
2
Q. It is called Dietary Fat and Fibre in Relation to Risk of
3 Breast Cancer. An eight year Follow-up." Walter Willett
and many others, some of whose names one will recognise
4 from other papers. "Objective - To address the hypotheses"
-- I should say it comes from, what is JAMA?
5 A. It is the Journal of the American Medical Association.
6 Q. October 21st 1992. "Objective - To address the hypotheses
that dietary fat increases and fibre decreases the risk of
7 breast cancer". This is in October 1992." Are those
postulations any more than hypotheses as at 25th July
8 1984?
A. They are purely hypotheses.
9
Q. "Design - prospective cohort study with dietary assessment
10 at baseline, using a validated, self-administered food
frequency questionnaire.
11
Setting/Participants - 89,494 women in the Nurses' Health
12 Study who were 34 through 59 years of age in 1980 and who
were followed up for eight years (not less than 95 per
13 cent complete).
14 Results - 1,439 incident cases of breast cancer were
diagnosed including 774 among postmenopausal women. After
15 adjustment for age, established risk factors, and total
energy intake, we observed no evidence of any positive
16 association between total fat intake and breast cancer
incidence", and then the relative risks are set out in
17 parenthesis". "Among postmenopausal women alone,
corresponding RRs were", it is given first for the whole
18 group, is it not, and then he gives the figures for
menopausal women, does he not?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Then he says -----
A. These figures are for actually increasing amounts of
21 fat. They divided them up into five groups.
22 Q. Yes, which they call quintiles?
A. Quintiles, yes. So the figures relate to increasing
23 quantities of fat eaten in the individual groups. So the
first one is those taking the lowest intake and the last
24 figure is the those taking the highest intake of fat.
25 Q. I see. Following the second parentheses: "A similar
absence of any positive association was observed without
26 adjustment for energy intake; for tumours less than 2
centimetres as well as 2 centimetres or greater in
27 diameter; for saturated, monounsaturated, and
polyunsaturated fat; and after excluding the first 4 years
28 of the follow-up. Also, we found no suggestion of any
positive association when using a more detailed and
29 precise dietary questionnaire completed in 1984 (666
subsequent cases), even when women consuming less than 25
30 per cent per cent of energy for fat were used as the
comparison group. No suggestion of a protective effect of
