Day 033 - 10 Oct 94 - Page 35
1 Q. You said on page 12 that eliminating meats has also
2 permitted hypertensive patients to eliminate medication
3 use. Do you want to just explain that?
4 A. Yes. This is predicated on many, many studies, most
5 of which took place in Australia using vegetarian diets
6 because of a number of studies showing that vegetarians
7 have lower blood pressures on average, but also a lower
8 incidence of hypertension, and also simply beginning a
9 vegetarian diet within six weeks causes a demonstrable
10 lowering of the blood pressure in hypertensive patients
11 and in normotensive patients. Researchers studied the use
12 of a vegan diet, a pure vegetarian diet, over a year;
13 twenty-six patients, all of whom had hypertension, all of
14 whom were on medication for treatment of hypertension and
15 all of whom then began a vegan diet and were asked to take
16 a daily walk. Their diet was monitored; to my
17 recollection, whether they walked or not was not
18 monitored, but at the end of a year 20 of the 26 subjects
19 had discontinued their use of anti-hypertensive
20 medication; yet the overall group, even though all of them
21 were treated with medication at the beginning and only six
22 of them were treated at the end, the average blood
23 pressure was actually lower than at the beginning,
24 suggesting that dietary changes have a profound influence
25 on blood pressure.
26
27 Now, the precise mechanisms of a vegetarian diet that are
28 responsible for this, the precise components, has also
29 been the subject of investigation. Part of it is the low
30 fat content. There may be other contributors as well.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is that the one year trial which you refer
33 to at the bottom of page 12? As I understand it, it was
34 not just a vegan diet; there was an exercise programme
35 involved as well in combination with it?
36 A. That is correct.
37
38 MR. MORRIS: I think this is a good time to break.
39
40 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, before we do that, again because it is
41 going to save time in the end and may mean that
42 Dr. Barnard can get back to the United States sooner than
43 he might otherwise do and may even avoid a return trip,
44 several of the references -- and this is why I mention it
45 now because it is a convenient moment -- listed to go with
46 his statement are not, at any rate, in my volume. One in
47 particular that may matter -- as your Lordship
48 understands, I am chiefly concerned with cancer of the
49 breast and colon -- one that may be of particular
50 importance, which is not in my volume, is the paper by
51 Paolo Toniolo, which is reference 24 which Dr. Barnard
52 mentioned this morning in his evidence. It is not in my
53 volume.
54
55 MS. STEEL: I am not sure that may be our mistake.
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: When you say reference 24, you have just
58 numbered your references?
59
60 MR. RAMPTON: The Defendants sent us an index, call it what you
