Day 022 - 12 Sep 94 - Page 48
1 cancer, with a diet of 25 per cent fat and 25 grammes
2 fibre recommended. Comprehensive school health education
3 should be used to modify the nutritional habits of
4 children."
5
6 So his conclusion is it plays a key role. That would not
7 be your position or it would be your position?
8 A. No.
9
10 Q. Stronger than your position?
11 A. It is certainly stronger than my position because
12 I have utilised an article like this to show that, in
13 fact, there are some articles which do show or do present
14 the argument that fat and bowel cancer are related but
15 there are equally good articles that do not.
16
17 Q. It is not -----
18 A. And I have said all the time, when one is trying to
19 advocate that there is a relationship between a certain
20 factor and an end result, it has to be reproducible and it
21 has to be consistent. This is the problem at the moment
22 is the lack of consistency and also the lack of
23 reproducibility.
24
25 Q. But a position such as his -- OK. If we look at the back
26 page, 497, in file No. 497, that is the last page of the
27 report, I believe, or the one before the references, can
28 I just read this out? I apologise to the court for this,
29 but this is a particularly clear exposition of that kind
30 of position.
31
32 "We recommend dietary changes, not only for those with
33 established polyps and a family history of colon cancer,
34 but also for the high risk populatins in most Western
35 countries. Our suggested diet is relatively low in fat
36 and high in fibre. Specifically, we recommend a daily
37 diet containing 25 per cent (or less) of calories from fat
38 and 25 grammes (or more) of fibre". This 25 per cent,
39 Dr. Arnott, that is lower than the official governmental
40 guidelines?
41 A. It is.
42
43 Q. But are the governmental guidelines tending to move in a
44 downwards direction where governments have made these
45 guidelines over the last, say, 10 years?
46 A. I am not sure that we know that. I think governments
47 are only just beginning to think about what they should
48 recommend as a goal or an achievable goal. I think most
49 people have settled on 30 per cent. But this is certainly
50 lower than most people would recommend.
51
52 Q. Right. "The former should be distributed equally between
53 saturated mono-unsaturated, monounsaturated, and
54 polyunsaturated fats. The latter should consist equally
55 of soluble and insoluble fibres. The key to preventative
56 oncology" -- what is "preventative oncology"?
57 A. Oncology is the study of cancer. It is just like
58 cardiology is the study of heart disease. So, it is the
59 aspect of cancer work which is dealing with trying to
60 prevent cancer developing.
