Table 1 gives details of the study population including the number of men according to cancer site and the mean age of the men at the time of entry into the BUPA study and gives the medians and interquartile ranges for IGF-1, IGF-2 and IGFBP-3 according to case–control status and, as has been observed in other studies, IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 were moderately correlated (r=0.5) and both declined with age (r=−0.18 for IGF-1 and age and r=−0.12 for IGFBP-3 and age). This evidence concerns the gene IGFBP3 and cancer.