Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 17
1 knowledge through the work you do?
2 A. My work is to promote healthy eating. I work in
3 Salford. The population of Salford. It is an inner city
4 area and one of the problems in promoting healthy eating is
5 to enable people to make the right choices about what food
6 they make. So there is a number of levels to the choices
7 they have got.
8
9 First of all, you have got to look at things like
10 whether the shops sell the food, what food is available,
11 and one of the problems in promoting healthy eating is that
12 basic cooking skills are in decline and people are eating
13 more processed food. So if you are asking me in relation
14 to this particular paper in terms of the salt content, it
15 is difficult to reduce peoples's salt content when they are
16 relying more and more on processed food, I would agree with
17 that, yes, and it is part of my role to address the issue
18 of cooking skills being in decline.
19
20 Q. OK. Thank you. There are a couple of references just on
21 page 1252 in the conclusion section. It says: "Data
22 presented here indicate that sodium intake lowers by 17
23 millimols. For example, 70 instead of 170 millimols a day
24 could result in adults (average age 40) in systolic
25 pressure lower by 3.6 millimetres HG and enslope in
26 systolic pressure from aged 25 to aged 55 less by ten
27 millimeters HG. Extensive data from prospective population
28 studies indicated that such improvements in average
29 systolic pressure levels could substantially reduce rates
30 of major cardiovascular diseases and mortality from all
31 causes."
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause a moment. Yes.
34
35 MS. STEEL: On page 1285--
36 A. Were you wanting a comment on those or?
37
38 Q. I was doing another bit at the same time. Maybe I should
39 do them separately. I will just do them together but if
40 you keep your finger there.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Keep a finger in 1252. What is the next
43 one?
44
45 MS. STEEL: On 1285, on the first column just above a kind of
46 graph or chart, whatever you want to call it, the sentence
47 starts:
48
49 "Other evidence shows the importance of a modest change in
50 the average blood pressure. At aged 55 the blood pressure
51 difference for a 100 millimol per 24 hour sodium difference
52 is about ten millimetres HG systolic (or 5 millimetres HG
53 diastolic). This is associated with the 34 per cent
54 difference in mortality from stroke and a 21 per cent
55 difference in mortality from ischemic heart disease.
56 Excess dietary salt is a serious public health hazard."
57
58 Now, you are familiar with this paper, are you?
59 A. Yes, we receive the BMJ in our department, and yes I
60 would certainly read the sort of recommendations and the
