Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 20
1 salt at the table has quite a small effect but to reduce
2 peoples's salt you would need to look at their whole diet
3 and, you know, you would need to get the few manufacturers
4 who are making the processed foods to get them to reduce
5 the salt as well to make these changes in peoples' health.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, pause there please.
8
9 Q. Yes?
10 A. So, to finish, as I was saying--
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: I am sorry. As it is five to one I will say
13 something. I am baffled why we are having this evidence
14 about salt. I am. We have spent 20 minutes on it now.
15
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am quite prepared to have ten minutes on it
17 if it underlines a matter. I know you have made an
18 admission about it. It is not, as far as I can see, going
19 to go on very long, and let me hear it.
20
21 MS STEEL: You were just about to finish?
22 A. Yes. I was just going say, the type of diet that
23 people would have to eat to have the sort of salt
24 recommendations that are now being recommended you would
25 have to eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, cooked
26 yourself. You would have to eat pulses and grains. Going
27 back to the thinking about the cooking skills, in order to
28 create that type of diet people would have to use those
29 sort of fresh foods that the conclusions were saying there.
30
31 Q. Right. This might seem like an obvious question, but if
32 those reductions in salt were made and people's salt intake
33 was reduced is that expected to have any, or a, substantial
34 effect on mortality an incidence of heart disease and
35 stroke and -- sorry, and high blood pressure?
36 A. The evidence is that, yes, it would coupled with -- on
37 its own it would make a substantial difference and couple
38 with the other dietary recommendations I have talked about
39 earlier you would have big differences in mortality from
40 coronary heart disease, stroke and the cancers.
41
42 Q. Right. I just want to ask you now about the--
43
44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. Just pause a moment. What are you
45 going to ask about now?
46
47 MS. STEEL: About the meaning.
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. We will do that at 2 o'clock.
50
51 MR. RAMPTON: Before your Lordship rises. I am sorry, in view
52 of what has happened in relation to salt I was not going to
53 ask any questions. I was told yesterday that some
54 reference might be made to it by Miss Brophy so this
55 morning I obtained a scientific paper, which is the first I
56 knew the defendant's witness was going deal with the
57 question of salt, if it needed dealing with, which I did
58 not think it did, but apparently I am wrong about that.
59
60 I have just obtained this morning a paper from the
