Day 017 - 25 Jul 94 - Page 39


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Can I just interrupt?  Mr. Rampton asked you
              about whether you were convinced by the association with
     2        coronary heart disease.  Are you equally convinced of the
              association with obesity and animal fat?
     3        A.  Sorry?
 
     4   Q.   If you look at the first sentence:   "There are well
              founded reasons concerning obesity, 1, and coronary heart
     5        disease, 2, for reducing consumption of animal fat"?
              A.  Well, certainly fat intake is not the only cause of
     6        people being obese.  I think that needs, I would have
              said, a little bit more clarification, because it may be a
     7        reflection of other aspects of their diet, like
              carbohydrate intake, alcohol intake, for example, and so
     8        on.
 
     9        I would say that there is a good relationship between
              coronary artery disease and fat intake but, obviously, it
    10        is a factor in obesity but it is not the only factor in
              obesity.
    11
         MR. RAMPTON:  Can I explore that just a little further?  It
    12        used to be thought at any rate when I was a bit younger
              than I am now -- I do not know whether it is still the
    13        case -- that a high consumption, for example, of beer made
              people put on weight?
    14        A.  That is correct.
 
    15   Q.   Is that still good science?
              A.  Yes, it is.  I think when people put on weight, it is
    16        a balance.  Everything in life is a balance.  It is a
              balance between the number of calories that you take in
    17        against the number of calories that you expend.  If you
              take in more calories than you expend, you put on weight.
    18        Those calories can come from a multiple sources -- not
              only fat.  Certainly beer, which has a high number of
    19        calories -- for example, a pint of beer has something like
              700 calories and it is very easy to drink several pints of
    20        beer; well, some people find it quite easy to drink
              several pints of beer -- so you can have, say, 3,000
    21        calories quite easily from a few pints of beer as an
              excess number calories that are ingesting. Unless you are
    22        indulging in very active physical work, it is very
              difficult to burn off that number of calories.
    23
         Q.   Does the overburden of body weight put a strain on the
    24        heart?
              A.  Yes, undoubtedly.  Obesity causes many problems, for
    25        example, mechanical problems related to hips and knees and
              so on because of weight bearings and so on. 
    26 
         MR. JUSTICE BELL:  And less likely to take physical activity, I 
    27        suppose?
              A.  It is a vicious circle, that the more obese you
    28        become, the less likely you are to take physical
              activity.  That in turn is also bad for the heart.
    29
         MR. RAMPTON:  Whereas with heart disease itself -- correct me
    30        if I am wrong, or say if you do not know but I do not
              expect that you will not know -- is it believed that

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