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SCIENTIFIC REDUCTIONISM 279
vestigations of diet and disease associations. Virtually all the subjects
under study consume the very diet that causes diseases of affluence. If
one kind of animal-based food is substituted for another, then the ad-
verse health effects of both foods, when compared to plant-based food,
are easily missed. To make matters worse, these studies often focus on
the consumption of just one nutrient, such as fat. Because of these very
serious flaws, these studies have been a virtual disaster for discovering
the really significant effects of diet on these diseases.THE $1 OO( +) MILLION RESULTS
SO now that you know how I interpret the Nurses' Health Study and its
flaws, we should take a look at its conclusions. After more than $100
million and decades of work, there is no shortage of results. So what are
they? The logical place to start is, of course, the question of whether fat
intake really is linked to breast cancer. Here are some of the findings,
cited verbatim:- "these data provide evidence against both an adverse influence of
fat intake and a protective effect of fiber consumption by middle-
aged women on breast cancer incidence over eight years"23
Translation: The Nurses' Health Study did not detect a relationship
between dietary fat and fiber and breast cancer risk.- "we found no evidence that lower intake of total fat or specific major
types of fat was associated with decreased risk of breast cancer"l0
Translation: The Nurses' Health Study did not detect a relationship
between reducingfat, whether it be total fat or certain kinds of fat, and
breast cancer risk.- "existing data, however, provide little support for the hypothesis
that reduction in dietary fat composition, even to 20% of energy
during adulthood, will lead to a substantial reduction in breast
cancer in Western cultures"24
Translation: The Nurses' Health Study did not detect a breast cancer
association with fat even when women reduced their fat consumption
all the way down to 20% of calories.