Day 023 - 13 Sep 94 - Page 16
1 A. It does not mean more than that.
2
3 Q. There was some kind of distortion, whether in an objective
4 sense it was for the better or the worse, it was some
5 distortion of what their normal diet would have been?
6 A. Yes.
7
8 Q. Does it mean more than that?
9 A. I do not think so. The point about the article is
10 that they are suggesting that the body may be particularly
11 susceptible to certain changes at that particular time;
12 just as when we are looking at other factors involved in
13 breast cancer, having a child has a significant influence
14 on the female body of a hormonal nature. These are just
15 events which are occurring throughout a lifetime of a
16 woman which have an influence on the development of breast
17 cancer.
18
19 Q. So what they are considering is not that it is a purely
20 hormonal cause rather than one which may itself have been
21 caused by a change in diet rather than the actual intake
22 of food directly leading to ----
23 A. I think what they are saying is that the reduced
24 intake of food is perhaps delaying the menarche. It is
25 also delaying the development of the person themselves, so
26 that the overall physical stature of the person has
27 changed. We come back to body mass, as it were, as being
28 a factor in the development of breast cancer. We have
29 talked about obesity before.
30
31 MS. STEEL: Could we have the five-minute break now?
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, we will have our break now.
34
35 (Short Adjournment)
36
37 MR. MORRIS: Just a final few points: We have managed to find
38 the World Health Organisation Report and the conclusions
39 of it. There is a copy for you here.
40 (Handed to the witness) Page 157 is the conclusions of
41 the report. For the record, it is the World Health
42 Organisation (technical report series 797), 1990, Study
43 Group on Diet, Nutrition and Prevention of Noncommunicable
44 Diseases or chronic diseases -- I am not sure which. Have
45 you got 157?
46
47 I will just read this out: "Dietary factors are now known
48 to influence the development of a wide range of chronic
49 diseases, e.g., coronary heart disease, various cancers,
50 hypertension, cerebrovascular disease, and diabetes.
51 These conditions are the commonest cause of premature
52 death in developed countries and they impose major burdens
53 on society. On current projections, cardiovascular
54 diseases and cancer will emerge, or be established, as
55 substantial health problems in virtually every country in
56 the world by the year 2000."
57
58 Do they mean there that the dietary factors are being
59 exported to or developing in countries where they are not
60 a problem, or not much of a problem at the moment. Is
