BMJ 1996;313:1258-1259 (16 November)

Letters

Population studied was peculiarly healthy and preoccupied with health

EDITOR,--According to Alberto Ascherio and colleagues, saturated fat may not be as dangerous with respect to coronary heart disease as commonly supposed, some of the risk being counteracted by consumption of fibre.1 As might have been expected from the data in their table 1, consumption of saturated fat was positively correlated with cigarette smoking (r = 0.981) and mean body mass index (r = 0.986) and negatively correlated with exercise (r = -0.983), consumption of carotene (r = -0.986) and vitamin E (r = -0.950), and, curiously, alcohol consumption (r = -0.984).

Could it be that the population of male health professionals in the United States is peculiarly healthy and preoccupied with health? As has been noted elsewhere, this could mislead the unwary.2 When figures from the study are compared with targets in the Health of the Nation3 a smaller proportion of the fifth of the population in the study . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Dietary fat and risk of coronary heart disease in men: cohort follow up study in the United States
Alberto Ascherio, Eric B Rimm, Edward L Giovannucci, Donna Spiegelman, Meir Stampfer, and Walter C Willett
BMJ 1996 313: 84-90. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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