Day 033 - 10 Oct 94 - Page 41
1 studies neuropathy, meaning the nerve side effects,
2 painful nerves and numbness in the nerves, tend to remit
3 in most subjects. In a number of subjects the diabetes,
4 frankly, disappears when the diet is changed.
5
6 So, to summarise, there does seem to be an indisputable
7 link between a high fat diet and diabetes. The link is of
8 a causal nature because the high fat diet clearly
9 encourages obesity. It is not a controversial point and
10 well-supported in literature. Obesity in turn increases
11 the risk of diabetes. Again not a controversial point and
12 it is well-supported.
13
14 However, there is a also a body of evidence suggesting
15 that fat intake alone can also aggravate diabetes and
16 probably make its onset more likely. The reputed
17 mechanism for this is that fat impairs the action of
18 insulin. What we call insulin resistance. The tissues of
19 the body need insulin to escort glucose from the
20 bloodstream into the cells. Insulin is the doorman, if
21 you will, allowing the sugar glucose to pass from the
22 bloodstream through the membrane into the cell. Without
23 glucose (sic) certain tissues of the body cannot get --
24 glucose cannot enter.
25
26 A high fat diet appears to aggravate insulin resistance
27 meaning that in the face of a high fat diet insulin simply
28 cannot do its job effectively.
29
30 Q. On page 15 you refer to the international comparisons?
31 A. Yes.
32
33 Q. Do you want to say something about that?
34 A. As I say in my statement, rather like the research
35 done on cancer, researchers have looked at the prevalence
36 of diabetes across different populations. There are many
37 more studies than I have done there, than I have mentioned
38 here, but a high intake of fat, particularly animal fat
39 but total fat, correlates with a high prevalence of
40 diabetes.
41
42 This has also been demonstrated in cultures of native
43 Americans. American Indians who, historically, had a
44 very, very low incidence of diabetes, when their diet,
45 dietary fat as well as a diet of high in sugar, when that
46 sort of diet became prevalent, their incidence of diabetes
47 or, I should say, prevalence of diabetes, rather,
48 increased quite dramatically.
49
50 There is also a role for fibre separate from the role of
51 fat but also, quite important. Many studies, and I have
52 only cited a few, perhaps one of them here, but there are
53 many, many, many of these, showing that high fibre diets
54 can improve glucose metabolism making diabetes more
55 manageable, such that even a person with a genetic
56 predisposition towards developing diabetes, if their diet
57 is low in fat and is high in fibre, it maybe that that
58 diabetes will never manifest itself. This is, by the way,
59 true whether it is fibre actually used in foods such as
60 beans or in fibre as an additive in either case.
