Re: Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Risk of Major Chronic Disease

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Abstract
We read the results on the associations between fruit and vegetable intake and risk of chronic diseases in the Journal ( 1 ) with great interest. The results were astonishing: Increased intake had no statistically significant association with cancer risk and had a small, statistically significant association with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. An editorial in the same issue ( 2 ) questioned the accuracy of the intake data as well as the analysis of the multivariate measurement errors and especially the correlations between measurement errors of different variables. Many previous epidemiologic studies on fruit and vegetable intake have reported on their associations with cancer ( 3 ) and cardiovascular disease. Many of these studies have shown statistically significant reductions in disease risk, others have shown reductions in disease risk that were not statistically significant, and only a few have shown increased disease risk.