Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 33
1 currently assumed. You talk about adult males?
2
3 Q. Yes.
4 A. Are you talking about the effect on adult males?
5
6 Q. Yes, I am.
7 A. I would expect you would not see the same level of
8 blood pressure rise that you get in western countries where
9 they have a much higher salt consumption level.
10
11 Q. No, but might there not be -- and this is what I am driving
12 at -- if the average consumption in adult males in this
13 country were as low as 2.7 grammes a day might there not be
14 a number of people who are actually at risk from so low a
15 consumption?
16 A. I would think that is actually highly unlikely with
17 the -- it is almost impossible to have a diet too low in
18 salt. It would have to be a very bizarre diet to do that.
19 It would have to be, if you like, a diet produced under
20 laboratory conditions to make that diet so low in salt
21 because practically every food we eat has got salt added to
22 it. So, I would think, unless it was done under very, very
23 controlled conditions using specially prepared foods, I
24 would not say that was, you know, it would be quite
25 difficult to do that. But I would not say it is impossible
26 because I would imagine there are populations around the
27 world that would have that level of salt. Perhaps, in
28 places like rural China where they do not eat a lot of
29 processed food. Perhaps they would have that type of diet
30 naturally.
31
32 Q. Curiously enough, in the intersalt update study we notice,
33 do we not, that it was in northern China that the intakes
34 of salt was, I think, sometimes as high as 14 grammes a
35 day. Did you notice that when you read the BMJ article?
36 A. In China?
37
38 Q. Yes. Sometimes as high as 14 grammes of salt?
39 A. Probably, it depends on which bit of China you are
40 looking at because there are big variations in Chinese
41 populations I would imagine.
42
43 Q. Sorry, I did not mean to interrupt. That was an aside by
44 me. Did you have a chance to look briefly at that article
45 in the journal of the American Medical Association?
46 A. Yes, but in places it was quite hard to read, I have to
47 say and, I mean, obviously I had half-an-hour to buy and
48 eat lunch so I probably only--
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do not make any apology for it, you are just
51 being asked--
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: I am asking, did you get a chance to glance at
54 it?
55 A. Yes.
56
57 Q. So did you have a chance to glance at the headnote, what
58 you call the executive summary, at the beginning of it?
59 A. Yes.
60
