An interview with Jim and Wendy Foster
Jim and Wendy Foster, keen gardeners, travellers, bird watchers, walkers and, between them, gym member, model builder, water colour painter, yoga and Pilates practitioner, local paper editor and tap dancer. And volunteers in HNR dietary intervention studies.
The first study I took part in looked at whether eating sugary foods increased the risk of diabetes. I came home and Jim had torn an ad for volunteers out of the paper. It got me interested as I wanted to lose a bit of weight and some people on the study had to diet so I thought, ‘what the heck’, and signed up for it.
Since then, Wendy Foster has taken part in several dietary studies: living on only milk and supplements for three months; taking fish oil capsules; having her bones scanned; and being hooked up to a calorimeter that precisely measures energy intake and output.
When he retired in 2004, Jim joined Wendy in one of these studies, known as Whole Heart. “I’ve been very lucky, health wise. But my father, who looked the same as me and had an identical temperament, died of his third heart attack at the age of 73,” said Jim. “So by acting as a guinea pig for something that’s fairly innocuous, like changing from white bread, rice and pasta to wholegrain versions, I hoped that the results might help others, but might also help me.”
Jim and Wendy, who will have been married 40 years in August, squabble affectionately and chatter over the top of each other in their enthusiasm to talk about the part they have played in the studies.
In 2006 they were both involved in Dr Susan Jebb’s RISCK study, in which participants were assigned to one of five regimes of dietary fat and carbohydrate. In their case, they were banned from eating potatoes for six months and had all their bread, rice, pasta, cereal, fat and oil supplied by the scientists.
“The annoying thing was, I’d grown spuds in the garden for the first time that year and had to give them all to a neighbour,” said Jim.
The study was all about the effect of different types of fat and carbohydrate on a cluster of symptoms linked to heart disease and diabetes. Jim and Wendy had to go into the unit a number of times for tests of insulin sensitivity, an indicator of diabetes risk and cholesterol levels . “The knowledge I took away from the experience was that my cholesterol levels were fine,” said Jim. “And that you really, really don’t like living without potatoes,” interjected Wendy.
Do they ever cheat? “No way! We get annoyed by people who sign up for something and then they slip up, saying ‘I had a piece of Easter egg, I couldn’t resist’. And if you go out for a meal but have been asked not to eat potatoes, you just don’t order potatoes.” But they concede that the RISCK study was easier to stick to than other studies they’ve done, because they were both following the same regime.
Through her participation in these studies, doctors discovered that Wendy has high blood pressure, which she now takes medication for, and intercepted what could have been a nasty case of anaemia.
“We do it because it costs us nothing, we have the time, we give something back and, at the end of the day, it benefits us as well.“
Reducing diabetes RISCK
In one of the largest ever studies that’s had tight control over people’s diets for an extended period of time, researchers have shown unequivocally that reductions in saturated fat are linked to significant improvements in cholesterol levels. There are two types of cholesterol: high density lipoprotein (HDL) and low density lipoprotein (LDL), sometimes referred to as good and bad cholesterol. The RISCK study funded by the Food Standands Agency, showed that reducing the intake of saturated fat cut levels of LDL cholesterol. Replacing saturated fat with monounsaturated fat lessened the reduction in HDL, or good, cholesterol. Saturated fat is found in foods like butter, red meat and dairy products, while foods such as nuts, avocados and olive oil contain monounsaturated fats. People following the low fat diet tended to lose weight. Even small decreases in weight were linked to improvements in insulin sensitivity. The scientists found no differences in blood pressure between volunteers on different diets. Dr Jebb said: “The overall results show that reductions in saturated fat are a key dietary strategy to lower cholesterol, while weight control is critical to reducing the risk of developing diabetes. Achieving these goals will significantly decrease the risk of heart disease.”