Day 252 - 20 May 96 - Page 17


     
     1        tends to impose an extreme change in the diet, a diet
     2        devoid of a nutrient or a diet containing an amount of the
     3        nutrient which is far more than normal people would ever
     4        consume.  And the purpose of this is, hopefully, to achieve
     5        a level of significance 0.05 and to be able to publish it.
     6
     7        Now, if one uses much more natural conditions in order to
     8        show an effect one would have to use many, many more
     9        subjects and that would cost an awful lot of money.  So
    10        that is why we end up with a paper like this where people
    11        are given 120 grammes of fat in one meal, which is totally
    12        unnatural.
    13
    14   Q.   Then, finally, putting Professor Miller and his work on one
    15        side, Professor Naismith, are there, in any event, quite
    16        good, well-tested reasons not to eat an habitually high fat
    17        diet?
    18        A.   Yes.  I think there is a lot of evidence suggesting
    19        that a high fat diet may be associated with the development
    20        of cardiovascular disease.
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Just take this slowly.
    23        A.   Yes.
    24
    25   Q.   Can you just wait until I give you a green light to carry
    26        on, Professor?
    27        A.   I am sorry, yes.
    28
    29   Q.   Yes.
    30
    31   MR. RAMPTON:   What you said was, I asked you whether there were
    32        not, in any event, quite good reason to avoid an habitually
    33        high fat diet and you said this, and I will read it to you:
    34          "Yes, I think there is a lot of evidence suggesting that
    35        a high fat diet might be associated with the development of
    36        cardiovascular disease?
    37        A.  Yes, I would then have to qualify that by saying that
    38        it is very much the nature of a high fat diet that
    39        matters.  Examples of all of this is appropriate in
    40        relation to this case, to mention it, but one can think of
    41        examples where communities have very high fat intakes and
    42        do not have the experience of cardiovascular disease that
    43        British people have, and their explanation is that we are
    44        not looking at a quantitative effect but we are looking at
    45        an effect of the quality of the dietary fat.
    46
    47   Q.   One thing arising out of that, I expect everybody else has
    48        and I know that you must have done, Professor Naismith, I
    49        have studied tables in that grey book about cardiovascular
    50        disease? 
    51        A.  Yes. 
    52 
    53   Q.   One thing one notices, for example, is that the French
    54        consume significantly more quantities of so-called wicked
    55        substances like butter, cheese, meat and so on than we do,
    56        and yet their mortality rate from heart disease is
    57        something like between a quarter and a third of ours.  Have
    58        you noticed that?
    59        A.  Yes, I have.
    60

Prev Next Index