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14
The year cannot be regarded as abnormal. A peak occurred however
at the beginning of the year, and during the middle part the
graph line ran at or slightly over the maximum for the previous eleven
years. Though remaining steady towards the end of the year it was
considerably below past peaks of that period, except for the 50th week
when it reached a high point.
Coronary disease
The dietary factor seems to loom ever larger as more is understood
about coronary disease, and advice on this has been given in the last
three annual reports. It can be summarised as follows : eat sparingly,
cut down fats particularly, look askance at foodstuffs with a high
cholesterol content—brains, egg yolk, kidneys, butter—prefer vegetable
and fish oil to animal fat, and take regular exercise. This is simple
advice, easy to follow, and unlikely to do any harm ; and it is advice
which quite possibly might do a lot of good. There are, almost inevitably
,"savings" and "provisos" even to these simple rules but the
only one of note here is in relation to vegetable fat : coconut oil is under
some suspicion, while peanut oil is probably advantageous. For cooking
and frying purposes there are now excellent vegetable oils on the market
and there are also evaporated milks where the butter fat has been replaced
by vegetable fat. The table below shows an increase of over
50 per cent in coronary mortality in the age group 45-65 in only ten
years ; in the age group 25-45 for males it is even more.

I means figure not available. *R.G. Code Nos. 19 and 20. †R.G. Code No. 21.