Day 033 - 10 Oct 94 - Page 33
1 on lipo proteins, which vegetarians tend to have lower
2 levels of in their blood. These are speculations. The
3 association is real and yet these are -----
4
5 Q. The mechanisms are ----
6 A. The mechanisms, yes, these mechanisms are
7 speculations.
8
9 Q. If we move on to hypertension. I think we only need to
10 deal with it briefly because the Plaintiffs have admitted
11 links between, is it a diet high in fat and salt and
12 hypertension? Correct me if I am wrong -- am I?
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What it is, in fact, is an admission of the
15 third paragraph in the justification as set out in the
16 extract: "A considerable amount of evidence of the
17 relationship between a diet high in fat, sugar and sodium
18 and low in fibre and diseases such as obesity, high blood
19 pressure, heart disease and some forms of cancer".
20
21 So, if you are batting for more than a considerable amount
22 of evidence of a relationship between those two matters,
23 I think you should ask Dr. Barnard about it.
24
25 MR. MORRIS: Yes. (To the witness): Dr. Barnard, just for the
26 record, the links between a diet high in fat and sodium,
27 would you say the link between that and heart disease is a
28 causal link?
29 A. Yes.
30
31 Q. With obesity, would you say that kind of diet -- did the
32 admission include sugar as well? It does not. Do you
33 think that the relationship between a diet high in fat and
34 obesity is a causal relationship?
35 A. Yes, I think there is no question about that, yes.
36
37 Q. Would you say that a diet -- what is the link between diet
38 and hypertension and is it a causal link?
39 A. Yes. There is, quite clearly, a causal link between
40 diets that are high in fat and sodium and hypertension.
41 One quite obvious and well accepted causal link is that a
42 diet high in fat makes obesity more likely. It increases
43 body weight, partly because a diet that is high in fat is
44 high in calories.
45
46 However, that is not the only reason. Dietary fats
47 require almost no chemical conversion in order to be added
48 to the body fat unlike carbohydrates, which require very
49 extensive biochemical change, if you will, within the
50 body, if their calories are going to be stored as body
51 fat.
52
53 In other words, if two individuals are consuming precisely
54 the same number of calories but one is getting those
55 calories predominantly from carbohydrates and the other is
56 getting their calories from fat, the one who gets the
57 calories from fat will have a greater tendency towards
58 obesity and a higher body weight than the one who is
59 getting precisely the same number of calories but is
60 getting them from carbohydrate; 23 per cent of the
