Graham MacGregor obituary | Health

“Useless prospects don’t store.” That was the bald enterprise case Graham MacGregor deployed to steer meals producers to cut back the salt and sugar content material of their merchandise. Combining a rigorous regard for proof with a present for persuasion and a refusal to take no for a solution, MacGregor, who has died aged 84, was a key determine in advocating for trade agreements that will minimize coronary heart assaults, strokes and weight problems by getting us all to devour much less salt and sugar.In 1994, the federal government’s committee on medical facets of meals and diet coverage (Coma) revealed a report on dietary facets of heart problems. It included proof that blood stress rose with salt consumption, and that the impact elevated with age. Hypertension is a number one reason for dying from coronary heart assaults and strokes. The Coma report advisable a gradual discount in salt consumption from 9g to 6g per day.On the time MacGregor was professor of cardiovascular drugs and director of the blood stress analysis unit at St George’s Hospital Medical College in London. To his fury, the chief medical officer for England, Kenneth Calman, who chaired Coma, rejected the thought of decrease targets for salt consumption. It subsequently emerged that meals trade lobbyists had opposed the targets.MacGregor responded by founding Consensus Motion on Salt and Well being (Money, later renamed Motion on Salt), a analysis and advocacy charity. In 1998 the brand new Labour authorities made salt discount a key goal, and it turned a precedence for the Meals Requirements Company, arrange in 2000 in response to the BSE disaster. The FSA set voluntary salt discount targets and a “title and disgrace” strategy for the meals trade, whereas its public campaigns sought to steer individuals so as to add much less salt to meals at house.MacGregor was a key participant, sitting in on conferences with trade representatives, giving media interviews, and maintaining the stress for change. In 2009 he moved to the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medication at Queen Mary, College of London, as professor of cardiovascular drugs, with Motion on Salt as a analysis and advocacy arm of his blood stress analysis unit.“Many individuals suppose he was an adversary to the meals trade,” stated Katharine Jenner, chief government of the Weight problems Well being Alliance, who was director of Motion on Salt from 2009 till 2022, “however he had some nice relationships with individuals within the trade who had been making an attempt to make the enterprise and financial case for salt discount.” Motion on Salt is grounded in proof, however MacGregor was equally dedicated to coaching individuals in advocacy, studying about efficient communication from his trade contacts.By 2014, the salt content material of many meals had been decreased, and folks had minimize their salt consumption by 15% since 2003 when the programme began (although it was nonetheless properly above the 6g goal). One examine estimated this to have prevented 20,000 strokes and coronary heart assaults per yr, 8,500 of which might be deadly, whereas one other prompt that the salt discount programme had already saved the NHS £1.5bn.MacGregor and his colleagues took the message to different nations, founding World Motion on Salt and Well being (now World Motion on Salt, Sugar and Well being) in 2005 and dealing with the World Well being Group. He labored instantly with researchers and advocates in nations together with China and Australia who had been adopting a mannequin that mixed voluntary or obligatory targets, clear labelling and public schooling.Between 2014 and 2018, the imply sugar content material of 83 mushy drink manufacturers had decreased by 42percentIn 2014 MacGregor expanded the work of his group to concentrate on the worldwide downside of weight problems, founding Motion on Sugar and submitting a proposal that fashioned the idea of the federal government’s childhood weight problems plan. This included the mushy drinks trade levy and the sugar discount programme. Motion on Sugar’s analysis confirmed that between 2014 and 2018 the imply sugar content material of 83 mushy drink manufacturers had decreased by 42%. MacGregor argued that this discount might stop one million adults from turning into overweight, and cut back instances of diabetes by 300,000 within the subsequent twenty years. It was Motion on Sugar’s marketing campaign that led to the current ban on vitality drinks for under-16s within the UK, due to their excessive sugar content material.Born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, Graham was the son of of Sybil (nee Hawkey), a botanist, and Alexander MacGregor, a maxillofacial surgeon. The household, which included Graham’s elder sister, Frances, lived in varied locations, together with Hertford and Edgbaston, Birmingham, as Alexander moved from one hospital to a different. Graham went to high school at Marlborough school in Wiltshire earlier than selecting a medical profession and coaching at Trinity Corridor, Cambridge, and the Middlesex Hospital Medical College.When his father died of a coronary heart assault aged solely 55, whereas MacGregor was simply ending his medical research, he made it his mission to specialize in cardiovascular and preventive drugs. In 1979 he joined the blood stress and metabolic unit at Charing Cross and Westminster Medical College, and labored with Hugh de Wardener, a famend kidney specialist who launched dialysis to the UK and confirmed that salt raised blood stress. MacGregor cited De Wardener’s instance of compassion and persistence as a profound affect on his personal profession. The 2 of them later revealed a guide, Salt, Food regimen and Well being (1998), which the British Medical Journal’s reviewer referred to as “one of the crucial informative and entertaining books that I’ve learn”.MacGregor held the chair in cardiovascular drugs at St George’s Hospital Medical College from 1989 to 2009, when he moved to Queen Mary, College of London. In 2001 he based the Blood Stress Affiliation (now BPUK), a patient-focused organisation that urged everybody to “know their numbers” – systolic and diastolic blood stress – in the identical means they know their peak or weight, and attempt to obtain a wholesome blood stress via weight loss program and train.Progress on salt had stuttered since 2014, however, Jenner stated, he didn’t let it get him down: “He knew it was a protracted recreation, and was in it for the lengthy haul.” He was made CBE in 2020.Exterior work he loved sensible actions similar to gardening and DIY, in addition to comedian novels and opera.MacGregor met Christiane Bourquin after they had been each college students at Cambridge, and so they married in 1968, the yr he certified as a health care provider. Collectively they revealed The Low Salt Food regimen Ebook (1991), a set of wholesome recipes.Christiane survives him, as do their kids, Annabelle, Vanessa and Christopher, and three grandchildren. Graham Alexander MacGregor, physician and public well being campaigner, born 1 April 1941; died 1 September 2025