Sugar

By 1961 the situation had become reversed. The fibre consumption of the highest income groups relative to that of the lowest increased steadily during this period. When compared to the lowest two social classes the highest two with the higher overall fibre intake emerged with a lower incidence ofCHD over the twenty years.73 Finally, in a prospective secondary prevention study, Daan Kromhout and his colleagues obtained a dietary history with respect to fibre intake in a group of 871 men who were followed for six to twelve months. The twenty-seven men who died from CHD during the period under review had an average daily fibre intake of 27.2 + 8.1 g per day, appreciably less than the 30.8 + 9.7 g per day of the survivors. When corrected for other factors by multivariate analysis, the difference approached conventional levels of significance, the P value being 0.06.7 In conclusion, the fibre intake of the English middle and upper classes declined during the Georgian era. Recent studies have shown that a low fibre intake affects the lipid profile and incidence of coronary heart disease adversely. The decline in oat fibre intake, in particular, during the eighteenth century could therefore be considered a contributory cause for angina pectoris then becoming manifest in England as a disease of the affluent and increasingly common thereafter.