Day 298 - 11 Nov 96 - Page 06


     
     1        association of causality."  He went on to say that the
     2        diseases that we were referring to are very prevalent, both
     3        death rates from these diseases as well as the occurrence
     4        of the disease, the morbidity is very high, both in the UK
     5        and other western countries.
     6
     7        This is with reference to the point that was being made
     8        last week about exactly who is at risk.  He agreed with the
     9        summary from the World Health Organisation -- this was the
    10        executive summary, in fact -- that said that the report was
    11        explicit in its insistence on the need for a
    12        population-wide as opposed to individualised approach to
    13        the prevention of diet related chronic diseases, arguing
    14        that the entire population of most affluent countries shows
    15        a high risk profile.  That is page 12, lines 21 to 33.  If
    16        I could ask you to read all of that page; I mean, pay
    17        particular attention to that page.
    18
    19   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    20
    21   MS. STEEL:   And from over the page to line 9.  I mean,
    22        obviously, we would like you to read all of it, we think it
    23        is all in our favour, but just particular reference to
    24        sections where he talks about who has a high risk profile.
    25        He does say that something in the neighbourhood of 60 to 75
    26        percent of deaths occurring in countries such as the UK and
    27        US, that is premature deaths, were from those kind of
    28        diseases.  So that was a very large proportion of the total
    29        population, and that these were the kind of diseases that
    30        responded to diet.
    31
    32        At the bottom of page 13, from line 60 he expressed his
    33        concerns with eating a high fat low fibre meal twice a
    34        week.  He was asked about twice a week, and he said he
    35        would say that that definitely raises risk, particularly
    36        for those individuals who are most vulnerable, and he went
    37        on to say, "So there was a definite risk there for doing
    38        that, to say nothing of the fact that eating such food,
    39        even rather modestly, tends to encourage people over the
    40        course of time to consume still more of it."
    41
    42        On page 16, he starts with an explanation of how the China
    43        survey was carried out and what was found.  He said that
    44        some findings -- sorry, that the dietary patterns in China
    45        were strikingly different from western countries, the major
    46        difference between the consumption of foods of animal
    47        origin.  He said that animal proteins, for example --
    48        sorry, he said that animal protein intake, for example, is
    49        tenfold greater on average in the US than in China.
    50
    51        He said that -- and I think this point is an important
    52        point about whether or not we have to be breaking down the
    53        individual components or whether we are looking at the type
    54        of diet as a whole which is what is referred to in the
    55        leaflet -- it describes the type of diet and the risks of
    56        that type of diet.  He said that although the biology of
    57        the diet and disease relationship is infinitely complex and
    58        is easily misunderstood when interpreted in a reductional
    59        manner, the main nutritional conclusion from this study is
    60        the finding that the greater the consumption of a variety

Prev Next Index