[The significance of dietary fat and fiber for the aetiology of colon cancer (author's transl)].

Dietary habits of 49 patients with colorectal carcinoma or precancerous adematous polyps were investigated and compared with age- and sex matched, healthy controls. The dietary fiber intake of the tumor group was not significantly lower than control. Tumour patients were found to eat more animal fat than controls, the difference not reaching statistical significance. By contrast, we found a highly significant difference in the ratio of daily dietary fat/fiber intake (p less than 0.001). The ratio was 19.1 +/- 1.1 in tumour patients and 14.5 +/- 0.6 in controls. It is concluded that in the genesis of colorectal carcinoma, the relation of dietary fat to fiber might be more important than the intake of these two dietary constituents in absolute terms.