Day 256 - 04 Jun 96 - Page 66


     
     1        cancer."
     2
     3        The recommendation was for a maximum of 35 per cent to be
     4        derived from fat, 35 per cent of energy to be derived from
     5        fat in the diet.  That is 1991.
     6
     7        Do you propose that that is too timid, that conclusion?
     8        A.  Very much so.  In fact, it is probably the most timid
     9        statement of any country I know in the world.
    10
    11   Q.   I will not take time debating that.  You think that is much
    12        too timid, do you?
    13        A.  Yes, I do.
    14
    15   Q.   At any rate, the people that produced that conclusion are
    16        not part of your consensus, are they; that is quite clear
    17        -- or at least were not in 1991?
    18        A.  Well, can I comment on the first paragraph that you
    19        read, the dietary fat in the aetiology of cancer?
    20
    21   Q.   Yes.
    22        A.  That statement, we would get in some real
    23        technicalities here.  But there is a number of ways in
    24        which one can present information of this sort.  They have
    25        chosen to do it one way, to basically defend their rather
    26        conservative views.  Let me just illustrate one point.
    27        This is sometimes often found in the literature, to present
    28        the notion that there is a lot of confusion in literature.
    29        Let me read this one sentence here:
    30
    31        "Hormones, particularly oestrogens, are known to be
    32        important promoters of both animal and human breast cancer
    33        but there are conflicting reports on the effect of fat on
    34        circulating levels of oestrogen."
    35
    36        I want to focus just on that clause:  "There are
    37        conflicting reports on the effect of fat on circulating
    38        levels of oestrogen".  By that kind of statement they tend
    39        to dismiss therefore, or at least bring into question, the
    40        relationship between dietary fat and oestrogen because
    41        there are these so-called conflicting reports and often
    42        times that kind of statement is actually made about the
    43        conflict in the literature.
    44
    45        The problem with that statement is that people will take a
    46        bunch of studies where, for example, let us say, fat and
    47        breast cancer, they will find some will show a high risk
    48        for breast cancer with higher intakes of fat.  Some studies
    49        will show basically no significant relationship, almost no
    50        studies show the opposite, so the person who is actually 
    51        doing the review is saying there are conflicting reports 
    52        when in actual fact these are not in conflict.  That is to 
    53        say, we have 3 possible outcomes in a relationship like.
    54        We either have a correct relationship, no significant
    55        relationship or an inverse relationship.
    56
    57        In virtually all of these studies is a mixture of let us
    58        say a positive significant relationship or some studies
    59        show no significant relationship, but virtually none the
    60        opposite. To me, that is not a conflict.

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