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Preventing Disease pp 276–290Cite as

Dietary Fat and Cancers of the Breast, Colon, and Prostate: Evidence of a Causal Relation

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Part of the book series: Frontiers of Primary Care ((PRIMARY))

Abstract

In recent years, guidelines offered to the American public have called for limitation of dietary fats as a means of reducing the risk of cancer. The 1982 report of the Committee on Diet, Nutrition and Cancer of the National Research Council called for limitation of dietary fats to 30% of total calories.1 The American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, and others have launched campaigns to inform the American public of the importance of diets restricted in total fats as personal strategies for reducing cancer risk. In this chapter, we review the evidence in support of such intervention in the clinical practice setting, using the criteria developed by the Canadian Task Force on the Periodic Health Examination and adopted by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.2

The complex genetic and envi-ronmental elements that contribute to oncogene-sis may include dietary factors. A diet cancer relationship is well established for some animal tumors in experimental situations. But most evidence for such linkages in humans is based chiefly on indirect evidence (e.g., population comparisons), and the lack of interventional studies makes it difficult to draw totally convincing conclusions. Assumptions of guilt by association may be tempting but are scientifically unacceptable. The need for future research on this question is clear.

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Authors
  1. William H. Wiese
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  2. Sonja Hutchins
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Izaak Walton Killam Hospital for Children, Dalhousie University, B3J 3G9, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

    Richard B. Goldbloom M.D. (Professor of Pediatrics) (Professor of Pediatrics)

  2. The Cambridge Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 02139, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Robert S. Lawrence M.D. (Charles S. Davidson Associate Professor of Medicine, Chief of Medicine) (Charles S. Davidson Associate Professor of Medicine, Chief of Medicine)

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© 1990 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

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Wiese, W.H., Hutchins, S. (1990). Dietary Fat and Cancers of the Breast, Colon, and Prostate: Evidence of a Causal Relation. In: Goldbloom, R.B., Lawrence, R.S. (eds) Preventing Disease. Frontiers of Primary Care. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3280-3_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3280-3_28

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7948-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-3280-3

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