Full Report - Food, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Cancer

C H A P T E R 4
Foods and drinks
This chapter, with the following chapters in Part
Two, forms the basis for the population goals and
personal recommendations in Part Three.
The Panel decided that the evidence on food,
nutrition, and cancer is generally most persuasive
for foods rather than for specific nutrients or other
food constituents; and that the evidence from
epidemiological and experimental studies in this
field, usually undertaken to address questions
about cancers of specific or related sites, is most
usefully synthesised in terms of foods and drinks.
The detailed evidence on foods and drinks is
presented in this chapter, and that on physical
activity and on body composition in the following
two chapters. These three chapters include
summaries of the evidence, including meta-analyses
presented in graphic form, as well as the Panel’s
judgements. Chapter 7 presents the evidence on
cancer sites in more summarised form.
In this chapter, whenever possible and
appropriate, the evidence on dietary constituents,
and on food production, preservation, processing,
and preparation (including cooking), is integrated
with the evidence on foods and drinks. So here, for
example, the evidence on carotenoids is considered
together with the evidence on vegetables and
fruits; the evidence on methods of cooking meats is
considered with the evidence on red meat and on
processed meats; and the evidence on ethanol is
considered with alcoholic drinks.
The result is not perfect. There is no single, ideal
way of categorising the evidence on food and
nutrition. But an approach emphasising foods and
drinks is consistent with the generally accepted
view that food-based dietary guidelines and
recommendations are particularly valuable as a
foundation for policies designed to improve public
health.
The first two sections of this chapter summarise
and judge the evidence on plant foods; the next
two sections that on animal foods; and the
following two sections that on fats and oils, and
sugars and salt. The next two sections concern
drinks, the second of which covers alcoholic drinks.
These are followed by sections concerned with
those aspects of dietary constituents, and with food
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PART 2 • EVIDENCE AND JUDGEMENTS
production, preservation, processing, and
preparation (including cooking), that have not been
incorporated in previous sections. The final section
summarises evidence on dietary patterns, including
being breastfed.
The pattern that emerges, though different in
some important respects, is largely similar to that
based on the evidence gathered in the mid-1990s,
although the confidence with which various
exposures are judged to cause or protect from
cancer has sometimes changed.