Nutrition epidemiologic studies, colon

Wynder and Shigematsu (15) were the first to suggest that nutritional factors in general and specifically differences in fat intake may be responsible for the international variation in colon cancer incidence. Subsequent descriptive epidemiologic studies have found a strong positive association between colon cancer mortality or incidence in different countries and per capita availability in national diets of total fat (4,16) and of animal fat, estimated from food balance sheets. Such international correlations may be supportive of a hypothesis, but they should be interpreted with caution because the dietary data were based not on actual intake information but on food disappearance data. 

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