Day 040 - 21 Oct 94 - Page 24
1 degraded Carrageenan had any effect on these six patients,
2 were there?
3 A. That is correct. For those six patients with
4 malignancies in their colon who received it for 10 days in
5 that study, yes.
6
7 Q. I read on: "Comments: Carrageenan is a high molecular
8 weight sulfated galactan derived from a number of species
9 of red seaweeds of the class Rhodophyceae.
10
11 The Carrageenan used in food has a high molecular weight",
12 I will leave out the numbers, "and has useful thickening
13 and gelling properties at concentrations as low as 0.01 per
14 cent.
15
16 Degraded Carrageenan has a very low molecular weight",
17 again I leave the numbers, "and has no gelling properties
18 whatsoever, even at very high concentrations of 10 per cent
19 or more.
20
21 Most of the degradation takes place in the stomach and that
22 limited degradation has no effect on the gut wall.
23 In vitro experiments with kappa and lambda mixture showed
24 that in three hours the breakdown of glycosidic linkages
25 was less than 0.1 per cent. Carrageenan is resistant to
26 attack by bacteria and degradation by human intestinal
27 bacteria is very rare". Do you know anything to contradict
28 what is there written so far?
29 A. Well, my interpretation of, if I may turn to my text,
30 my interpretation of the work conducted in Denmark by
31 Ekstrom, Ekstrom and his colleague, was that in their more
32 recent attempts to simulate in a laboratory the conditions
33 in the human digestive tract, they did find far higher
34 rates of degradation than had previously been reported.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What was the name again?
37 A. Ekstrom, E-K-S-T-R-O-M.
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: On page 283.
40 A. Yes, the 83 study is cited there, but not the 85. May
41 I just seek to find in this report how JECFA have referred
42 to and commented on Ekstrom's work? Yes. It is referred
43 to on page 1919 of -----
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you give us the -----
46 A. 269. In the first complete paragraph on the right-hand
47 column of 269, or page 19 of the original: "Ekstrom and
48 Kuivinen recently reported a breakdown for kappa
49 Carrageenan that was about 15 times greater". They
50 characterised the condition there as rather drastic and
51 unlikely to occur normally in the stomach. But that is
52 certainly not a view which Ekstrom has endorsed.
53
54 MR. RAMPTON: No. Do you know what on average the pH is in a
55 forestomach?
56 A. Well ----
57
58 Q. It depends what you have eaten, I suppose?
59 A. It certainly depends what you have eaten and, moreover,
60 what you have drunk. So, that if, for instance, you were
