Sophisticated Diets and Man’s Health 
Other Diseases of Multiple Causation. Besides ischaemic heart 
disease there are many diseases of multiple and uncertain 
causation which increase in prevalence with advancing levels 
of civilization. Changes in habitual dietary pattern almost 
certainly play some part, perhaps an important part, in their 
causation. Diabetes, peptic ulcer and appendicitis can be 
quoted among many. 
Food Additives and Residues. Perhaps the most potentially 
serious adverse trend in twentieth-century food technology is 
the incorporation of a great variety of additives into commonly 
used foodstuffs. They have been classified as follows:— 
(a) food colours; (b) preservatives: (i) antimicrobial agents, 
(ii) anti-oxidants; (c) emulsifiers. 
Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committees issued a series of 
reports on food additives between 1956 and 1962. 6-10 
There is a further problem created by residues of chemicals 
used by plant or animal breeders and found, therefore, both in 
unprocessed and processed foods. ‘The chemicals include 
antibiotics, arsenicals, oestrogens, coccidiostats, etc. used to 
improve the health or accelerate the growth of animals, birds 
or fish reared for human consumption or for their edible 
products—dairy products and eggs. Other chemicals, which 
include a great variety of pesticides, leave residues which may 
be consumed by man directly in vegetable foods or indirectly 
when contaminated plants are consumed by animals reared 
for use as human food. 
These residues of artificial contaminants (chemical residues) 
are sometimes loosely included under the term additives. It 
would seem less confusing to confine the term “‘ additives ”’ to 
those chemicals which are added in the course of processing for 
storage and distribution. The Joint FAO/WHO Committee 
appears to be following this latter usage in its reports. 
Apart from identifiable acute or subacute toxic effects it is 
possible that consumption of small quantities of these additives 
and residues over long periods of time might affect constitution 
in such a way as to undermine health and resistance to disease. 
These chronic possibilities can be examined under the following 
ley 
