Day 252 - 20 May 96 - Page 25
1 So, ideally, if you have two treatments it is a good idea
2 to have them simultaneously and then have a crossover and
3 repeat it again. So that this takes account of secular
4 changes. And this was done in neither of these studies.
5
6 Q. The comments you made about vascular activity, you said
7 that you had no expertise in that area. So what you said
8 was all based on what you had been told?
9 A. No, I could understand exactly what had been done here
10 but I sought advice on what significance it had. To me it
11 seemed a very unphysiological thing to completely cut off
12 the blood flow in a blood vessel for 5 minutes and allow
13 the blood vessel to expand to its maximum extent, because
14 that sort of thing simply does not happen to a blood vessel
15 in everyday life. So I questioned the relevance of that to
16 making comments about diet in relation to everyday life,
17 and the advice I got was that, well, I will not tell you
18 exactly what was said, but it was thought that this work
19 was of no great significance at all and certainly would
20 have to be repeated.
21
22 Q. That is what somebody else said to you?
23 A. Well, I come to much the same conclusion myself
24 because of the unphysiological nature of this test. It is
25 surprising how many physiological tests are
26 unphysiological. I mean, the standard glucose tolerance
27 test for measuring or assessing whether one has or has not
28 diabetes is a terribly unphysiological thing to do but it
29 has been done for 50 years or more.
30
31 Q. In the second study you said that there was not a very
32 -- that the range of fat intake was not very great. There
33 was 40 and 30 percent, so you feel that a wider range would
34 have been more useful for determining any effects?
35 A. Yes. If this was a paper that was actually read at a
36 scientific meeting I would have asked the people who did
37 it, 'How did you monitor for consumption of these two
38 diets, how did you check on whether people were actually
39 doing what they had been told to do'.
40
41 Q. That was not quite what I asked. What I am asking about is
42 in terms of the percentage of--
43 A. Yes, I would agree the contrast was not very great.
44
45 Q. Right?
46 A. If they really did consume 40 percent and 30 percent
47 it is not a very great contrast.
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But is that, for instance, because the
50 difference between 155 and 162 is not very great, you say,
51 and between 94 and 108, for instance, or it is because if
52 you take 155 plus ten, one at least of the NCEP2 group is
53 more than 162, and if you take 162 less 21, one at least of
54 the high fat group is less than 155. Or is it a
55 combination of both those approaches?
56 A. Well, where you see a figure like 155 plus or minus
57 sixteen.
58
59 Q. It is sixteen is it?
60 A. Is it sixteen? It is very difficult to read this.
