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To the Editor: The EPIC study by Dr van Gils and colleagues¹ suggested that the consumption of vegetables and fruits is not associated with the risk of breast cancer. The authors emphasized that one advantage of their study is the "wide range" of vegetable intake in the various northern and southern European countries. However, this may not be accurate.

The mean total vegetable intake was 112 g/d in the first quintile and 246 g/d in the 5th quintile. This corresponds to consumption of about 3 servings of vegetables daily in the highest category. In comparison, the average individual intake of vegetables in Germany, which has one of the lowest intake levels within the EPIC Study countries (about 170 g/d in the EPIC cohort² and about 200 g/d in the German Nutrition Survey³), is in the range of the 3rd and 4th quintile. The average vegetable intake in several . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Bernhard Watzl, PhD
bernhard.watzl@bfe.uka.de
Institute of Nutritional Physiology
Federal Research Centre for Nutrition and Food
Karlsruhe, Germany

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