Rationale for nutrition-oriented epidemiological study of breast cancer in Indonesia

Japan-Indonesia Joint Study on Etiology and Clinicopathology of Breast Cancer, which officially started in 1989, was extended in 1992 as Japan-Indonesia Joint Study on Nutritional Epidemiology of Breast Cancer. In this paper, the rationale for extending and concluding a nutrition-oriented epidemiological study of breast cancer in Indonesia female population was discussed in the light of dietary findings that emerged from a case-control study of our first-batch studies conducted at Jakarta in 1989-1991, and of the dietary risk factors for cancer, which were now well-established and known from numerous epidemiological investigations in the world. Finally, the dietary guidelines now suggested for preventing the occurrence of such major maladies in adulthood as cancers and cardio- and cerebro-vascular diseases among Japanese population, were described, emphasizing the necessity of formulating Indonesian/ethnic-specific dietary guidelines for reducing cancer incidence in Indonesia.