The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted And the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, And Long-term Health
Americans spend far more, per capita, on health care than any other society in the world and yet two-thirds of Americans are overweight. As trendy diets and weight-loss frenzy sweep the nation, more than 15 million Americans have diabetes and our children are increasingly falling prey to a form of diabetes that used to be seen only in adults. If we’re obsessed with being thin more so than ever before, why are Americans stricken with chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, as much as we were 30 years ago?
It all comes down to three things: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
In The China Study, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, details the connection between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Recognized as the most comprehensive nutritional study ever conducted on the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease, The China Study cuts through the haze of misinformation and examines the source of nutritional confusion produced by government entities, lobbies, and opportunistic scientists.
The China Study, a national bestseller co-authored by Dr. Campbell and his son, Thomas M. Campbell, MD, has sold more than 1 million copies since it was first published in 2005. It is the foundation upon which a nationwide plant-based diet movement is based. The China Study presents a clear and concise message of hope as it dispels a multitude of health myths and misinformation.
The science is clear. If you want to be healthy, change your diet.
Contents
Introduction
Part I: The China Study
1. Problems We Face, Solutions We Need
2. A House of Proteins
3. Turning Off Cancer
4. Lessons from China
Part II: Diseases of Affluence
5. Broken Hearts
6. Obesity
7. Diabetes
8. Common Cancers: Breast, Prostate, Large Bowel (Colon And Rectal)
9. Autoimmune Diseases
10. Wide-Ranging Effects: Bone, Kidney, Eye and Brain Diseases
Part III: The Good Nutrition Guide
11. Eating Right: Eight Principles of Food and Health
12. How to Eat
Part IV: Why Haven't You Heard This Before?
13. Science―The Dark Side
14. Scientific Reductionism
15. The "Science" of Industry
16. Government: Is It for the People?
17. Big Medicine: Whose Health Are They Protecting?
18. Repeating Histories
Appendix A. Q&A: Protein Effect in Experimental Rat Studies
Appendix B. Experimental Design of the China Study
Appendix C. The "Vitamin" D Connection
References
Index
About the Authors
Eight principles of food and health
The authors describe their eight principles of food and health:
- Nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
- Vitamin supplements are not a panacea for good health.
- There are virtually no nutrients in animal-based foods that are not better provided by plants.
- Genes do not determine disease on their own. Genes function only by being activated, or expressed, and nutrition plays a critical role in determining which genes, good and bad, are expressed.
- Nutrition can substantially control the adverse effects of noxious chemicals.
- The same nutrition that prevents disease in its early stages can also halt or reverse it in its later stages.
- Nutrition that is truly beneficial for one chronic disease will support health across the board.
- Good nutrition creates health in all areas of our existence. All parts are interconnected.
Alleged misinformation about nutrition
The authors argue that "most, but not all, of the confusion about nutrition is created in legal, fully disclosed ways and is disseminated by unsuspecting, well-intentioned people, whether they are researchers, politicians or journalists," and that there are powerful industries that stand to lose a lot if Americans shift to a plant-based diet. They write that those industries "do everything in their power to protect their profits and their shareholders."
They argue that earlier studies of nutrition (particularly the well-known Nurses' Health Study, which began in 1976) were flawed because they focused on the effects of varying amounts of individual nutrients among people who were consuming a uniformly carnivorous (animal-based) diet. They write that "hardly any study has done more damage to the nutritional landscape than the Nurses' Health Study," and that it should "serve as a warning for the rest of science for what not to do."
The study included a comparison of the prevalence of Western diseases (coronary heart disease, diabetes, leukemia, and cancers of the colon, lung, breast, brain, stomach and liver) in each county, using 1973–75 death rates. The study collected diet and lifestyle variables (ignoring all other factors) from inhabitants of the same counties approximately 10 years later, and found that, asblood cholesterol levels rose, so did the prevalence of "Western" diseases recorded in those counties in 1973–75.
The study linked lower blood cholesterol levels to lower rates of heart disease and cancer. As blood cholesterol levels decreased from 170 mg/dl to 90 mg/dl, the authors write that cancers of the liver, rectum, colon, lung, breast, childhood and adult leukemia, brain, stomach and esophagus (throat) decreased. Rates for some cancers varied by a factor of 100 from those counties with the highest rates to the counties with the lowest rates.
The authors write that "as blood cholesterol levels in rural China rose in certain counties the incidence of 'Western' diseases also increased. What made this so surprising was that Chinese levels were far lower than we had expected. The average level of blood cholesterol was only 127 mg/dl, which is almost 100 points less than the American average (215 mg/dl). ...Some counties had average levels as low as 94 mg/dl. ...For two groups of about twenty-five women in the inner part of China, average blood cholesterol was at the amazingly low level of 80 mg/dl."
The authors write that "several studies have now shown, in both experimental animals and in humans, that consuming animal-based protein increases blood cholesterol levels. Saturated fat and dietary cholesterol also raise blood cholesterol, although these nutrients are not as effective at doing this as is animal protein. In contrast, plant-based foods contain no cholesterol and, in various other ways, help to decrease the amount of cholesterol made by the body." They write that "these disease associations with blood cholesterol were remarkable, because blood cholesterol and animal-based food consumption both were so low by American standards. In rural China, animal protein intake (for the same individual) averages only 7.1 grams per day whereas Americans average 70 grams per day."
They conclude that "the findings from the China Study indicate that the lower the percentage of animal-based foods that are consumed, the greater the health benefits—even when that percentage declines from 10% to 0% of calories. So it's not unreasonable to assume that the optimum percentage of animal-based products is zero, at least for anyone with a predisposition for a degenerative disease."
Mechanisms of action
Plants protect the body from disease, they argue, because many of them contain both a large concentration of and a large variety of antioxidants, which protect the body from damage caused byfree radicals. Western diseases are correlated with growth, which is associated with the increased risk of initiation, promotion and progression of disease, and that growth is correlated with a diet high in animal protein. They argue that the consumption of animal protein increases the acidity of blood and tissues and that to neutralize this acid, calcium (a very effective base) is pulled from the bones. They also state that higher concentrations of calcium in the blood inhibit the process by which the body activates vitamin D in the kidneys to calcitriol, a form that helps regulate the immune system.
Review
"The most important book on health, diet and nutrition ever written. Its impact will only grow over time and it will ultimately improve the health and longevity of tens of millions of people around the world." —John Mackey, CEO, Whole Foods
About the Author
For more than 40 years, T. Colin Campbell, PhD, has been at the forefront of nutrition research. His legacy, the China Study, is the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted. Dr. Campbell is the co-author of the bestselling book, The China Study, and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University. He has received more than 70 grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding and authored more than 300 research papers. The China Study was the culmination of a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine.
A 1999 graduate of Cornell University and recipient of a medical degree in 2010, Thomas M. Campbell, MD, is a writer, actor and five-time marathon runner.
See also
- Neal D. Barnard
- Caldwell Esselstyn
- Michael Greger
- John A. McDougall
- Dean Ornish
- Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
- Vegan cuisine
- Vegetarian cuisine
- Vegetarian nutrition
- Vegetarianism in China
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