Day 252 - 20 May 96 - Page 35
1 in the 55-64 age group in 1990. 8 percent of all male
2 deaths and 2 percent of all female deaths are due to
3 premature death from CHD."
4
5 Are those statistics that you are familiar with?
6 A. Well, I have certainly looked at them before but, yes,
7 I accept these statistics.
8
9 Q. Right. If we go to page 123, in the summary it says:
10
11 "The likelihood of death from coronary heart disease
12 increases with the plasma level of total cholesterol and
13 particularly of low density lipid (LDL) cholesterol.
14
15 Genetic factors play a part in determining a risk of CHD
16 independently of plasma lipid patterns, and may affect
17 individual responsiveness to dietary fat. However, for the
18 vast majority of the population, the quality and quantity
19 of dietary fat are fundamental and modifiable determinants
20 of plasma lipid levels."
21
22 You would with that?
23 A. Yes, I think I quoted that in my own report.
24
25 Q. OK. Just the point about cholesterol, the last but one
26 paragraph says:
27
28 "Dietary cholesterol can raise blood total cholesterol but
29 this effect is less important than that of saturated fatty
30 acids."
31
32 That is confirmation that it is still the case that dietary
33 cholesterol is seen as a determining factor or one of them?
34 A. Well, yes, it very much depends on one's baseline
35 blood cholesterol level. If you take somebody who has a
36 very low intake of saturated fat and cholesterol, because
37 saturated fat, animal fat contains cholesterol, vegetable
38 fat does not. Such people tend to have very low blood
39 cholesterol levels and they respond to dietary cholesterol,
40 whereas somebody who habitually has a high intake of
41 saturated fat and dietary cholesterol, the two going
42 together, tends to be very much less responsive to dietary
43 cholesterol.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause a moment, please..
46
47 MS. STEEL: That is basically because the saturated fat is
48 causing enough of a problem in itself?
49 A. Well, it is more complicated than that. The fact is
50 the body manufactures cholesterol for itself and if the
51 dietary cholesterol input is low, the body manufactures
52 more, and if the input from the diet is high, then the body
53 manufactures less, so there is a balance between the two.
54
55 I think this is actually stated in the paragraph that you
56 read out, that the response to dietary cholesterol depends
57 on the level in the diet; it depends whether there is a lot
58 there or a little, obviously, and on the accompanying
59 lipids. What that means is that somebody with a low blood
60 cholesterol level, because of the nature of their diet,
