Day 030 - 03 Oct 94 - Page 20
1 one, such as the countries in the UK, everybody is at high
2 risk of these diseases which are caused in some
3 considerable part by the typical industrialised diet such
4 as is eaten in the UK.
5
6 Perhaps I should explain the term "industrialised". It is
7 a loose term, but I think fair. The meaning of that word
8 -- the term "western diet" can also be used -- is that
9 since industrialisation there has been a tendency for
10 diets in western countries and also in what you might call
11 westernized or industrialised parts of developing
12 countries to become higher in fat, saturated fat, sugar,
13 salt, when people drink alcohol; correspondingly low in
14 fibre; generally low in vegetables and fruit. Taken
15 together, and also taken in every individual part, that
16 diet is pathogenic; that is to say, the diet as a whole
17 increases your risk of the diseases that Sir Richard Doll
18 referred to, and also specific aspects of that diet
19 increase the risk of specific diseases.
20
21 Q. If we move on to specifically diet and cancer. You say in
22 your statement that the evidence on diet and cancer is
23 voluminous and has been judged a sufficiently reliable
24 basis for recommendations to various bodies. Can you just
25 expand a little bit on that?
26 A. Well, first of all, there is no doubt that the
27 evidence is voluminous. My own organisation, for example,
28 has been conducting Medline searches on diet and cancer --
29 that is to say, searches using the on-line database which
30 is gathered on medical matters. It is called Medline.
31 There are now published in leading peer review journals
32 something of the order of 300 or 400 papers every year on
33 diet and cancer, and my own organisation has now collected
34 a database of, I think, now approaching 5,000 papers;
35 again leading papers and peer review journals on diet and
36 cancer. That is as far as them being voluminous is
37 concerned.
38
39 Q. Is that your job to monitor those reports?
40 A. Yes.
41
42 Q. You obviously cannot read every one?
43 A. It is the job of the division of which I am the head,
44 yes. Going to your second point, about the evidence being
45 consistent enough as to be a basis for public health
46 recommendations -- is that your question?
47
48 Q. Yes.
49 A. Well, one of the points I make in my statement is that
50 every time an authoritative scientific committee has been
51 commissioned by government or by a relevant scientific or
52 medical body to take a view on diet and cancer since 1982,
53 they have always broadly come to the same conclusion. To
54 put it another way, if the question was: Has there ever
55 been an expert committee commissioned by government or an
56 authoritative scientific or medical body on diet and
57 cancer that has come to the view there is no connection
58 between diet and cancer, or no relevant connection between
59 diet and cancer, the answer to that question is, no;
60 although, again, there are individual scientists who take
