Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 33


     
     1        currently assumed.  You talk about adult males?
     2
     3   Q.   Yes.
     4        A.  Are you talking about the effect on adult males?
     5
     6   Q.   Yes, I am.
     7        A.  I would expect you would not see the same level of
     8        blood pressure rise that you get in western countries where
     9        they have a much higher salt consumption level.
    10
    11   Q.   No, but might there not be -- and this is what I am driving
    12        at --  if the average consumption in adult males in this
    13        country were as low as 2.7 grammes a day might there not be
    14        a number of people who are actually at risk from so low a
    15        consumption?
    16        A.   I would think that is actually highly unlikely with
    17        the --  it is almost impossible to have a diet too low in
    18        salt.  It would have to be a very bizarre diet to do that.
    19        It would have to be, if you like, a diet produced under
    20        laboratory conditions to make that diet so low in salt
    21        because practically every food we eat has got salt added to
    22        it.  So, I would think, unless it was done under very, very
    23        controlled conditions using specially prepared foods, I
    24        would not say that was, you know, it would be quite
    25        difficult to do that.  But I would not say it is impossible
    26        because I would imagine there are populations around the
    27        world that would have that level of salt.  Perhaps, in
    28        places like rural China where they do not eat a lot of
    29        processed food.  Perhaps they would have that type of diet
    30        naturally.
    31
    32   Q.   Curiously enough, in the intersalt update study we notice,
    33        do we not, that it was in northern China that the intakes
    34        of salt was, I think, sometimes as high as 14 grammes a
    35        day.  Did you notice that when you read the BMJ article?
    36        A.   In China?
    37
    38   Q.   Yes.  Sometimes as high as 14 grammes of salt?
    39        A.   Probably, it depends on which bit of China you are
    40        looking at because there are big variations in Chinese
    41        populations I would imagine.
    42
    43   Q.   Sorry, I did not mean to interrupt.  That was an aside by
    44        me.  Did you have a chance to look briefly at that article
    45        in the journal of the American Medical Association?
    46        A.  Yes, but in places it was quite hard to read, I have to
    47        say and, I mean, obviously I had half-an-hour to buy and
    48        eat lunch so I probably only--
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Do not make any apology for it, you are just
    51        being asked--
    52 
    53   MR. RAMPTON:  I am asking, did you get a chance to glance at
    54        it?
    55        A.  Yes.
    56
    57   Q.   So did you have a chance to glance at the headnote, what
    58        you call the executive summary, at the beginning of it?
    59        A.   Yes.
    60

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