Day 034 - 11 Oct 94 - Page 18
1 find a relationship, one did not find any relationship
2 between dietary fibre and colon cancer, but all five of
3 the other studies did find a relationship, an inverse
4 relationship: The more fibre in the diet the less the
5 rate of colon cancer.
6
7 Two studies looked specifically at vegetables and both
8 found an inverse relationship. In the metabolic
9 correlation studies and time-trend correlation studies,
10 again the relationships for total fibre were inverse and
11 for cereals were inverse; vegetables were not looked at in
12 those and neither was high fibre/low fat diets in
13 combination.
14
15 In all of these studies on this page there was no study
16 that found that fibre increased the risk of colon cancer,
17 and in virtually all the ones that examined the
18 relationship a protective effect was found.
19
20 In the case-control studies, there are quite a number of
21 studies here -----
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is only when we get to case-control
24 studies that there is any study, and then only one, which
25 appears to have looked at high fibre/low fat?
26 A. That is correct.
27
28 Q. We do not have a column for high fibre/high fat at all, do
29 we?
30 A. That is right.
31
32 MR. MORRIS: Is a high fibre/high fat diet something that may
33 be very small in number?
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Maybe because it would be such an unusual
36 diet, but -----
37
38 MR. MORRIS: Is that correct?
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is unfortunate for the enquiry we are
41 carrying out that, since the comment which you have made
42 in relation to fibre, to some extent anyway, depends upon
43 the hypothesis that the more fat you have in your diet the
44 less fibre, and the less fat you have in your diet the
45 more fibre, we have only got one investigation which looks
46 at high fibre/low fat?
47 A. That is right. It is very, very unusual to find diets
48 that are both low fat and low fibre or high fat and high
49 fibre. For the most part, these are inverse and the
50 reason, of course, is that nearly all vegetables are
51 extremely low in fat and all vegetables, legumes, grains
52 and fruits contain fibre. So, a diet that is rich in
53 vegetables, grains, legumes and fruits will be high in
54 fibre and will be quite low in fat.
55
56 To put some numbers to this, as I mentioned yesterday:
57 Beans are four per cent fat, at least most variety of
58 beans; spinach is about seven per cent as a percentage of
59 calories; broccoli is about eight; rice is one to five.
60 All of these are quite high in fibre unless refining has
