Graham MacGregor on tackling the demons in our diet

The Life Scientific

BBC

Technology, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2017

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

The food we eat is the greatest cause of death and illness worldwide. The main culprits - salt, sugar and fat - are now so embedded in our diet, in the form of processed foods, that most of us consume far too much. Yet Professor Graham MacGregor doesn't believe it's up to us to reverse this situation. It's up to the food industry, he says, who manufacture the processed foods, to take the 'rubbish' out. Now Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Wolfson Institute of Preventative Medicine, Graham MacGregor has spent much of his career campaigning tirelessly to persuade the food industry to do just that - to reduce these demons in our diet - firstly salt, and now sugar. And he's had remarkable success. As a nation we now eat thirty thousand tonnes less salt each year than we did fifteen years ago, saving the NHS a staggering �1.5 billion per year. Blood pressure lies at the heart of this huge saving and, as Graham explains to Jim al-Khalili, blood pressure is not a natural consequence of ageing. High blood pressure is simply a consequence of too much salt. Producer: Beth Eastwood.

Transcript

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0:40.0	This is the BBC.
0:42.0	Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Life Scientific.
0:46.0	First broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
0:48.0	I'm Jemalke Lili and my mission is to interview the most fascinating and important scientists alive today,
0:55.8	and to find out what makes them tick.
0:58.4	My guest today has saved more lives than most doctors would ever hope to. Yet most aren't actually his patients. In fact, we're all
1:06.1	his patients in some respect. And there are simply too many of us eating our way into early graves.
1:12.2	The food we eat is now the greatest cause of death
1:15.2	and illness worldwide and the main culprits, salt, sugar and fat are so embedded in our
1:20.8	diet that half the time we don't even know they're there, like the low-fat
1:24.6	flavored yogurt brimming with sugar, or a serving of one brand of hot chocolate that
1:29.2	contains more salt than a bag of crisps. It takes a keen eye and dogged determination to
1:35.0	keep track of what we eat and cut down. But luckily for us it's an attribute
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