Protection standards for radon should continue to be based on consideration of the lung cancer risk alone.

Objective.-To assess the risk of invasive breast cancer associated with total and beverage-specific alcohol consumption and to evaluate whether dietary and nondietary factors modify the association. Data Sources.-We included in these analyses 6 prospective studies that had at least 200 incident breast cancer cases, assessed long-term intake of food and nutrients, and used a validated diet assessment instrument. The studies were conducted in Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States. Alcohol intake was estimated by food frequency questionnaires in each study. The studies included a total of 322 647 women evaluated for up to 11 years, including 4335 participants with a diagnosis of incident invasive breast cancer. Data Extraction.-Pooled analysis of primary data using analyses consistent with each study's original design and the random-effects model for the overall pooled analyses. Data Synthesis.-For alcohol intakes less than 60 g/d (reported by Ͼ99% of participants), risk increased linearly with increasing intake; the pooled multivariate relative risk for an increment of 10 g/d of alcohol (about 0.75-1 drink) was 1.09 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04-1.13; P for heterogeneity among studies, .71). The multivariate-adjusted relative risk for total alcohol intakes of 30 to less than 60 g/d (about 2-5 drinks) vs nondrinkers was 1.41 (95% CI, 1.18-1.69). Limited data suggested that alcohol intakes of at least 60 g/d were not associated with further increased risk. The specific type of alcoholic beverage did not strongly influence risk estimates. The association between alcohol intake and breast cancer was not modified by other factors. Conclusions.-Alcohol consumption is associated with a linear increase in breast cancer incidence in women over the range of consumption reported by most women. Among women who consume alcohol regularly, reducing alcohol consumption is a potential means to reduce breast cancer risk.

Of 17 032 women taking part in the Oxford Family Planning Association contraceptive study, 4104 stopped using a birth control method to plan a pregnancy on a total of 6199 occasions. The influence of various factors on fertility in these women was assessed by measuring the time taken to give birth to a child. An appreciable inverse relation was observed between age at stopping contraception and fertility both in nulliparous and parous women, but the effect was much greater in the nulliparous women.The most important finding was a consistent and highly significant trend of decreasing fertility with increasing numbers of cigarettes smoked per day; it was estimated that five years after stopping contraception 10-7% of smokers smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day, but only 54% of non-smokers, remained undelivered. Some relation was found between fertility and social class, age at marriage, and a history of gynaecological disease, but weight, height, and Quetelet's index were without noticeable effect. IntroductionFactors that may affect a woman's fertility, such as her gynaecological and reproductive history, her age, and her smoking habit, are of both biological interest and practical concern. Opportunities to examine associations between such factors and fertility using the epidemiological approach are rare because of the lack of relevant data for adequately sized cohorts of women observed for sufficiently long periods of time during which they are known to be attempting to become pregnant. The Oxford Family Planning Association contraceptive study, which includes data on over 17 000 women of childbearing age observed for an average period of about 11-5 years, provides such an opportunity.' Oral contraceptives, and to a lesser extent intrauterine devices, have previously been reported from this study to impair fertility immediately after their discontinuation, but the effect is relatively short lived.2 Here we describe the effects of various other factors on fertility in this cohort. Here we consider fertility through to October 1983 in the 4104 women who stopped contraception to become pregnant after enrolling in the study. Some of these women stopped contraception to become pregnant more than once; in all, 6199 episodes-that is, periods at risk of becoming pregnant-were included in the analysis. These episodes were treated as if they were all independent, which clearly is not strictly correct. Additional analyses have, however, been undertaken in which only the first episode was considered for each woman; the findings were virtually identical to those reported here.As data were not available on the date of the last menstrual period before a pregnancy occurred we assessed fertility by measuring the time taken to give birth to a child, as had been done in previous analyses.2 3 We did, however, carry out additional analyses using an estimated date of last menstrual period, which also took account of any type of pregnancy outcome-that is, not just live births and still births-and obtained essentially simil...

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A population-based case-control study of diet and pancreatic cancer has been conducted in the Opole Voivodeship region in Poland, using 110 cases and 195 controls. A full diet history was used to estimate the daily intake of calories, fat, protein, carbohydrate, cholesterol, retinol, vitamin C, and fibre. There is a strong positive association with the intake of cholesterol with relative risks of 1.90, 3.77, and 4.31 for the 3 upper quartiles compared with the lowest (p, trend = less than 0.01). An inverse association was seen with vitamin C intake, with corresponding relative risks of 1.10, 0.30, and 0.37 (p, trend = less than 0.01). Weak inverse associations were seen with the intake of retinol and fibre. There is evidence of an inverse association with fat intake, particularly unsaturated fats, and of a positive association with the intake of carbohydrate and to a lesser extent, protein. These results further support the potential importance of dietary factors in the aetiology of cancer of the pancreas.