This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on Web of Science (1)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Dr Holt and colleagues¹ concluded that increasing the daily intake of calcium by up to 1200 mg via low-fat dairy food in subjects at risk for colonic neoplasia reduces proliferative activity of colonic epithelial cells and restores markers of normal cell differentiation.

The epidemiologic situation among sub-Saharan Africans is the converse of that indicated by the study of Holt et al.¹ First, judging by admissions of patients to hospitals, colon cancer is nearly absent in rural populations, and its incidence is low in urban dwellers. For example, in Zimbabwe, according to the Cancer Registry in Harare, the age-adjusted incidence rates for men and women are 6.6 and 3.0 per 100,000.² In South Africa, colon cancer is uncommon and adenomatous polyps are rare. As to level of calcium intake, it is relatively low in almost all African populations, about 300 to 450 mg/d³; moreover, African women experience . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Modulation of Abnormal Colonic Epithelial Cell Proliferation and Differentiation by Low-Fat Dairy Foods: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Peter R. Holt, Evren O. Atillasoy, Jody Gilman, Janet Guss, Steven F. Moss, Harold Newmark, Kunhua Fan, Kan Yang, and Martin Lipkin
JAMA. 1998;280(12):1074-1079.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT