Day 269 - 25 Jun 96 - Page 84
1 comparison with us, what is the explanation for the fact
2 that they are running as low as that compared with us?
3 A. I think that you have to look at the data where people
4 have actually studied the contrasts within these countries
5 between those people that have the high saturated fat
6 intakes and those people that have the low saturated fat
7 intakes because we are looking at so many cultural
8 differences and so many behavourial differences that could
9 impinge on this data, together with the historical
10 influences which are not recorded here. This is a snapshot
11 in time, and I think when people do these studies such as
12 was done in Belgium; such as has been done in France, such
13 as has been done comparing Sweden and Scotland. When
14 people do these studies they consistently come up with the
15 fact that the people that within a country of country
16 comparisons that have the high saturated fat intakes, are
17 the ones that have the high risk factors for cardiovascular
18 disease and the same applies to trans-isomers. There is a
19 paper by Kattan for Holland showing very similar kinds of
20 principles. So I think one can look at this disappearance
21 data as an interesting exercise. I think the reality is so
22 far as trying to identify it in terms of its relationship
23 to the real mortality problem, you have actually got to go
24 further than beyond this. This is the sort of data that we
25 had, you know, at the beginning of the fifties and we no
26 now gone beyond that to looking at the intimate
27 relationships between the whole range of dietary factors,
28 including the long chain Omega 3 factors which come from
29 fish and marine oils. The Omega 3 factors which come from
30 pulses and legumes which you more or less dismissed.
31
32 Q. No, I did not dismiss them. I said it was not significant
33 for this exercise since we, the French and the Germans, eat
34 roughly the same?
35 A. Yes I mean but if one wants to compare for example
36 Portugal and Greece which I think are also very good
37 comparisons to make then these become significant. But the
38 point I am making really is that this crude data,
39 disappearance data, is really nothing like as strong as the
40 studies that have been done within countries where they
41 have compared mortality and where they have looked at
42 individual risk factors in different sectors of the
43 population within a single country. So that you have the
44 same criteria for assessment of mortality or assessment of
45 risk factors and the similar sort of genetic pool of the
46 population. So when you look that the data it is very
47 hard. When you look at this data it is very soft, but then
48 data starts off being very soft.
49
50 Q. We do not know these are disappearance foods.
51 A. I was merely taking your word for it, Mr. Rampton.
52
53 MS. STEEL: It says at the top "consumption estimates based on
54 food supplies for E C countries, USA and Australia?
55 A. Food supplies?
56
57 Q. Yes?
58 A. So that is disappearance probably. Well, food
59 supplies; not necessarily even disappearance data.
60
