Day 256 - 04 Jun 96 - Page 16
1 causes of death for a population of 100 million
2 (1.4 million death certificates for the years 1986-1988)."
3 A. Excuse me. Again, this was written about three years
4 ago, I think, as I recall, when it was our estimate. We
5 ended up with 1.2 million death certificates. So, there is
6 a slight change there, too.
7
8 Q. So, 1.2 million death certificates were looked at?
9 A. Right.
10
11 Q. And noted?
12 A. Yes.
13
14 Q. "There are sufficient data available in these combined
15 surveys to interpret for the next 20 plus years -- at
16 least. The opportunities for exploration of the causes of
17 disease, both specifically and generally, are
18 incalculable. We believe that these data that have the
19 potential to establish a new paradigm for thinking about
20 nutrition and health -- for all countries, rich and poor,
21 East and West, North and South."
22
23 Going over the page:
24
25 "Some findings from the 1983 survey. The dietary patterns
26 in China are strikingly different from Western countries,
27 the major difference being the consumption of foods of
28 animal origin. Animal protein intake, for example, is
29 10-fold greater on average in the US than in China.
30
31 "Although the biology of the diet and disease relationship
32 is infinitely complex and is easily misunderstood when
33 interpreted in a reductionism manner, the main nutritional
34 conclusion from this study is the finding that the greater
35 the consumption of a variety of good quality plant-based
36 foods, the lower the risk of those diseases which are
37 commonly found in Western countries (eg cancers,
38 cardiovascular diseases, diabetes). Based on these and
39 other data, we hypothesize that 80 to 90 per cent of all
40 such diseases could be prevented before age 90 years."
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What do you mean by "when interpreted in a
43 reductionism manner"? Is that when you were looking at
44 specific items of food and trying to draw some causal
45 relationship -- well, not necessarily trying, but trying to
46 see if you can reach a conclusion about some causal
47 relationship or lack of it?
48 A. Yes. This has become quite an issue in science. But,
49 yes, what I do mean by that is that when we study
50 individual components of food or individual chemicals, in
51 particular, as to what they do and do not do; and then, as
52 we go further and look at their so-called mechanisms of
53 action and compare that with specific end points; if we do
54 that kind of research in isolation, and that is all we do,
55 and then try to guess what that might mean in a larger
56 sense, we often make mistakes. So, what we need to do in
57 science more of, and we have not done, is to take all these
58 individual items of information to see how they integrate
59 one with the other, how they interact one with the other,
60 how their effects basically aggregate together or subtract,
