Day 269 - 25 Jun 96 - Page 22


     
     1   Q.   Very well then.  Thank you.
     2
     3   MS. STEEL:  Right.  I cannot remember which page we were on.
     4
     5   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Just pause a minute.  It was 2.2.3 and I
     6        cannot remember whether you read the last sentence in 2.2,
     7        so perhaps read that again, "the table was calculated".
     8
     9   MS. STEEL: "The table was calculated by dietitians currently
    10        providing advice on prevention of low birthweight based on
    11        their own practice in London.
    12
    13        3.0 The national and international recommendations and the
    14        response by the food industry.
    15
    16        Reducing the total fat and particularly the saturated fat
    17        load is indeed the basic thrust of the health
    18        recommendation, 21 of which were quoted in 1978 by the
    19        joint expert consultation of the Food and Agricultural
    20        Organisation and World Health Organisation that people
    21        should do precisely that by moving away from high saturated
    22        fat diets.  That report also requested that meat producing
    23        livestock be reared to provide leaner meat and less fat.
    24
    25        The Royal College of Physicians in 1976 specifically
    26        referred to the need to reduce fatty red meat intake.
    27        Since then there has been a remarkable concordance in the
    28        recommendations by national an international expert
    29        committees on the need to reduce total and particularly
    30        saturated fat intakes.  As I mentioned at the outset new
    31        protective factors such as anti-oxidants and omega 3 acids,
    32        have been brought into the recommendations.
    33
    34        I referred in my original evidence to the problem in
    35        developing countries where McDonald's and other similar
    36        fast-food chains are expanding.  The risks foreseen by a
    37        NATO workshop (1988) and by WHO of the impact on Western
    38        diseases in developing countries was of an increase in
    39        heart disease and western type cancers.  I was in the
    40        Philippines in January and lectured to their cardiac
    41        society and other medical groups on diet and disease.  I
    42        was told that western coronary heart disease was now number
    43        1 killer in Manilla.  Their health statistics which I saw,
    44        confirmed this position and described a twofold increase in
    45        mortality from heart disease between 1970 and 1990.
    46
    47        Whilst many factors will have contributed to this
    48        astonishing rise in mortality, diet will have been one of
    49        them. It is worth remembers that the Philippines were
    50        occupied by the US forces after the last war, a fact which
    51        has left its influence.  That mortality can respond to
    52        dietary changes in a relatively short time is evidenced by
    53        the drop in mortality from heart disease in the UK during
    54        World War II.  At the outbreak of the war, the government
    55        created a Ministry of Food to ensure healthy nutrition at
    56        home and in the fighting forces.  The diet during the war
    57        had a lower fat content and a higher proportion of fresh
    58        vegetables from the "dig for victory" campaign.
    59        Unfortunately, the Ministry was disbanded after the war.
    60

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