Can nutrition explain the pattern of international epidemiology of hormone-dependent cancers?

International data on the distribution of hormone-dependent cancers suggest that they are cancers of affluence. Their occurrence parallels that of bowel cancer fairly closely in population and less closely with regard to individual patient risk. The most plausible hypothesis, although based on extremely incomplete knowledge, is that some components of the Western high-protein, high-fat diet acting in early life make individuals prone to develop these cancers.