Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 31


     
     1        lifestyle you would need to look at all the things; you
     2        need to look at exercise, alcohol, pollution, smoking.
     3        Diet would be a very important part of that and also if you
     4        had a poor diet then it would make a considerable
     5        difference to your health.
     6
     7   Q.   I think we agree, do we not, you and I, Miss Brophy, when
     8        you are looking at the etiology, the causes of degenerative
     9        disease in the western society, we have to have regard to a
    10        wide range of possible causative factors, including things
    11        which have nothing to do with diet at all?
    12        A.  Yes, that is true, but it is also true, if you take an
    13        example which might help to take a look at the way the
    14        factors interact.  For example, if you take people
    15        smoking.  Smoking is known to be a strong cause of certain
    16        cancers.  Smokers who have a poor diet have an even greater
    17        chance of, significantly greater chance of, suffering those
    18        cancers like lung cancer, cancer of the oesophagus etc.  A
    19        poor diet can make their risk factors even higher.  There
    20        is evidence that if you smoke and have a healthy diet that
    21        has plenty of the antioxidant nutrients, the protective
    22        nutrients, it is high in fibre, etc. that you have a lower
    23        risk of suffering from lung cancer from the effects of
    24        smoking than if you had a poor diet and also smoked.  So,
    25        yes, they do interact, and the diet is an important factor
    26        whether you have other factors or not.  It is still is a
    27        considerable cause of disease.
    28
    29   Q.   Good.  Well, that means I can pass on.  I have only got two
    30        more things I want to deal with, Miss Brophy.  The first
    31        thing I want to deal with is salt, and only in a very
    32        limited way.  The conclusions of the intersalt report is
    33        essentially, as far as your role in educating society about
    34        health is concerned, or your particular community about
    35        health, the conclusion is, is it not, that a reduction of a
    36        hundred minimols of sodium a day would have a beneficial
    37        effect in reducing hypotension?
    38        A.   You are referring to the--
    39
    40   Q.   To the BMJ?
    41        A.   To the British Medical Association.
    42
    43   Q.   Yes?
    44        A.   Whilst I am familiar with the overall results of that,
    45        I am not familiar with the exact figures because my role is
    46        to have an overview of the research and put that in terms
    47        that people understand, but if you are asking me to sort of
    48        compare this blood pressure and that amount of minimols, it
    49        is--
    50
    51   Q.   All right.  I am not going do the blood pressure stage.  I
    52        can leave that until later.  Am I right that 100 minimols 
    53        of sodium translate into 5.8 grammes of salt?   That is to
    54        say, in chloride, per day or per any occasion.
    55
    56   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  5.5?
    57
    58   MR. RAMPTON:  5.8, my Lord.  There are, I think, 23 milligrammes
    59        of sodium in one minimol.  Is that true?
    60        A.   Where are you looking?

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