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
