Day 253 - 21 May 96 - Page 13
1 of Health in its surveys of children and adults one sees
2 that as a young man goes from the age of 18 into his early
3 20s there a sudden increase in body weight and this is very
4 clearly the result of consuming alcohol. So weight gain
5 can be quite rapid over a fairly short period of years.
6 But for most people it is an insidious process going
7 through overweight and ultimately becoming obesity.
8
9 Q. OK.
10
11 MS. STEEL: Just a couple of questions. On page 11 of your
12 statement, where you talk about fibre and cardio-vascular
13 disease, is basically what you are saying there that
14 fibre-rich foods such as fruit, vegetable and cereals have
15 a beneficial effect in terms of cardio-vascular disease,
16 but it is not known whether or not it is the fibre or the
17 vitamins that are in them that are providing the beneficial
18 effect?
19 A. Yes, I think it is rather good that we are now
20 beginning to think about foods rather than individual
21 nutrients like fat or sugar or salt, and so on. If one is
22 talking about diets as a whole, a diet that is high in
23 fruits and vegetables appears to be protective, if one is
24 looking at it statistically, protective against heart
25 disease, but again what one is saying there is that the
26 diet which is high in fruit and vegetables and cereals,
27 which are a major source of the fibre, is likely to be a
28 diet that is low in fat because that takes up a substantial
29 proportion of the energy so there is a reduced amount left
30 being made up by fat and this is characteristic of diets
31 that are high in cereals, fruit and vegetables.
32
33 But the problem is what are we really talking about in
34 terms of protection? Is it soluble fibre or insoluble
35 fibre, is it antioxidant fibre or minerals, or a reduced
36 fat intake or the nature of the fat, we simply cannot put
37 our finger on it and say 'this is the cause of
38 cardiovascular disease or the protection against
39 cardio-vascular disease'. So we are talking about food and
40 diets which, in my opinion, is much more useful.
41
42 Q. Right. And the foods and diet recommendations are eating
43 more cereals, fruits, nuts, vegetables and seeds and less
44 things containing saturated fats?
45 A. That is the current recommendation, yes.
46
47 Q. Right. That is the recommendation to reduce the incidence
48 of heart disease, cardio-vascular disease, and so on, all
49 the ones we have been talking about?
50 A. Yes, yes.
51
52 Q. Right. Is it also the case that in terms of fibre a diet
53 that is high in fibre will be less likely to lead to
54 obesity?
55 A. Well, this has seemed to be an idea that some people
56 explored a few years ago, but experimentally in dealing
57 with patients with obesity, or even simply overweight,
58 patients' introduction of more fibre into the diet has
59 unfortunately not been very successful. I think the simple
60 reason is that there was the concept that because fibre is
