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...reporting now: IS FAT THAT BAD? Everyone knows that a diet low in fat helps the heart and prevents cancer. But what if it doesn't? A $415 million, 12-year U.S. study of 49,000 older women found that a low-fat diet did not significantly reduce breast cancer, colorectal cancer or heart disease. But low-fat advocates say the study didn't distinguish between good fats such as those in olive oil and oily fish and bad ones in meat and dairy products. LOVE YOUR GREENGROCER You can't overdo fruit and veg. Eating more than the usual...
...diet section of the investigation was designed to answer two related questions: 1) Can you get a lot of middle-aged women to adopt a diet that contains no more than 20% of its calories from fat? and 2) Will that low-fat diet protect them against breast or colon cancer? (As an afterthought, the investigators added a question about the diet's effect on heart disease...
...long enough. True, there was no statistically significant benefit when you compared the two large groups. But the women who had the highest fat consumption at the start of the trial and who managed to cut it back the closest to 20% for the longest period developed 22% fewer breast cancers than the women in the control group. That's a statistically significant reduction...
...Women in the low-fat group suffered 9% fewer breast cancers than those in the control group. Although that difference was not statistically significant, it is very suggestive. Given how long it takes for most tumors to grow, it may simply be that the study has not lasted long enough to show a significant effect. In addition, there was a clear benefit for one sub-group of women-those who began the study with the highest total fat consumption and who were able to make and maintain the greatest reduction in the number of fat calories in their diet. This...
...difference significant in the colorectal cancer group but not in the breast cancer group? Welcome to the wild and complex world of statistics. After looking at the variation in the data with various mathematical tools, research statisticians determined that they couldn't rule out the possibility that the 9% difference in breast cancer results was due to chance alone. (It could be chance; it could also be due to the low-fat diet.) On the other hand, after applying those same mathematical tools to the data in the colorectal cancer study, they determined that the 9% difference in the number...