The China Study
August 16, 2010 by dr. lam
I first heard about The China Study from a colleague of mine in the Entrepreneur’s Organization at a recent event. He said he had become a complete vegetarian because of it. Mentally, I sort of scoffed at it. A month later I did a hair transplant on a patient who had lost 137 pounds over the past 15 months and attributed his change of lifestyle to this book, The China Study. He underwent his hair transplant procedure on his birthday but instead of receiving a gift he gave me a gift of this book, which over the course of the past two months I have finally finished reading. It has changed my view on a ton of things in life.
For those who followed my blog last year realized that the book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan was a game changer for me. I have lost 35 pounds over the past year and a half owing a lot to Pollan’s writings. The China Study for me is the next phase in my journey, one that I have not entirely embraced because the message is utterly radical and difficult to digest, pun intended.
The author, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, was raised on a farm in which he drank a quart of milk each day and chowed down on steak or at least hearty meat almost daily. He has since over his life completely abandoned all animal proteins including dairy products (yes that means poultry and fish too) because of the findings he made in one of the largest if not the largest epidemiological study in history, the China Study.
I will not be able to summarize all of the findings in this book but encourage anyone and everyone to read this book even if you do not intend to be vegetarian. At least get the opinion of what is written so that you can make smart choices for yourself and for your family. What is interesting is that many people may assume that Campbell is a vegetarian because of animal rights. That is far from the truth. He got his PhD from Cornell University where he was studying how to maximize feeding of animals but he conducted animal studies to find out how to do so. He says that he had no way of getting around these animal studies to find his remarkable results that he did. Whether you agree or disagree with animal studies is not the point here.
What he found was that rats given a 20% animal-protein diet versus a 5% animal-protein diet and then exposed to a common mold fungus aflatoxin had 100% cancer rate in the former group and 0% in the latter. He argues that these were not extreme examples as you would find in the saccharine research done on lab rats where the equivalent in humans would be similar to ingesting pounds of saccharine every day for years, which would probably give anyone cancer. By the way, I have given up any artificial sweeteners last year because I think they are terrible for the body but that does not really matter for the purpose of this blog.
From this initial finding, he went on to evaluate the population in China, which he asserts is a relatively homogenous population, especially compared to the diverse genetic stock of the United States. He isolated out rural populations and standardized for multiple factors like sedentary lifestyle, job type, etc. He found that the populations that digested a higher proportion of animal proteins (which by the way is far lower than what we Americans eat) had a considerably higher incidence of cancer and heart disease than the sector that did not. In short, animal-protein digestion whether in dairy or in its native form is one of the principal causes of heart disease and cancer. So those on the Atkins Diet think twice. Campbell argues you can lose weight if you restrict your calorie intake even if you are eating cardboard and worms but that does not mean that it is healthy for you, i.e., the Atkins Diet yields weight loss through calorie restriction eating terrible stuff for your body. That is how it works.
He argues against moderation stating that the American Heart Association advocates a blood cholesterol level of below 200. He asserts that 35% of heart attacks occur in those individuals whose cholesterol falls between 150 to 200. He says that most of America is beholden to special-interest food groups who have made it okay to eat bad food and to get away with it. He finds that cancer rates are caused almost entirely by diet and only reflects a genetic predisposition of 2 to 3%. Only 2 to 3% of cancers are genetically related??? Difficult to believe.
Heart disease begins early. He cites the examples of young GIs who were killed during the Korean War and whose hearts in their early twenties were opened up. They were already fully clotted with plaques and arterial disease. He says that cancers are not only caused by diet, they are greatly accelerated by it. Eating a whole foods, plant-based diet not only slows down cancer, it can reverse it. Eating an animal-rich, protein-heavy diet can cause and accelerate cancer.
He believes that a strict vegetarian diet can reverse many of the trends in heart disease and cancer that plague Americans today. He does state that unfortunately many vegetarians are not that healthy because they eat fried foods rather than a “whole foods”, plant-based diet, which he sternly warns should be the diet for everyone. Unfortunately, we physicians charge for pills and are beholden to major pharmaceutical companies for our education so we are “pill this” and “pill that” instead of seeing that the fundamental change lies in diet, diet, diet.
Another interesting finding in the book is that cow’s milk is dreadful for you, and I don’t care if you are taking unpasteurized, raw milk. He argues the casein protein is a major cause of problems for cancer and heart disease. In fact, he says that babies under the age of 2 who have a familial predisposition toward Type I diabetes should not be fed cow’s milk because there is a virus in it that attacks the pancreatic islet cells and can make a child permanently insulin dependent.
I honestly believe that the reason why men’s lifespans are shorter than women’s is that we simply do not care about diet as much as women do. I have certainly been a culprit of this. Am I a strict vegetarian? No, not at all. Not yet at least. I still eat meat, etc. I have changed almost all my breakfast and lunches though to vegetarian and half of my dinners. I think it is a good start. If you asked me a year ago if I would become a vegetarian I would have laughed violently. Now I am not that certain. I want to live a long, healthy life free of “diseases of affluence”. For those who do not buy these ideas, I encourage you to read this book. It might change your brain as much as it has mine. I realize how controversial this topic is for many of you out there, but I felt a burden to my readership to publish this information even if I am assailed for doing so.
Comments
6 Responses to “The China Study”
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Hi!
I doubt I will get ahold of the book (I can not find it in our stores, here in my country, looking online). I have mixed feelings over reading it, anyway. Not because of not believing that part or a large part of what is said there is true… I suspect it is, but because I am afraid I’d get paranoid and obsessed with what I eat… and I believe that cancer and other diseases are caused *too* by how we eat (calmly, enjoying the food, and not feeling paranoid about every single chemical or component of it), and in general, by stress.
The main reason why I would get paranoid is that, I don’t know there, but here, eating organic and vegetables only is a way more expensive diet than one that mixes meats. I usually do not eat red meat, mostly chicken and fish. But to be honest, not even much of those meats either. Yet, sometimes I “must” end up eating foods with meat or eating meat because
a) I can’t afford a better diet (I really wish I could!),
b) when I live with other people, at times it gets impossible to say “no” to what other cooked for me (especially if I had not had the time to cook, if the person prepared food for two or many, etc.). With my parents (I am living back and forth with my parents and boyfriend because things with my bf are not good), it becomes a whole drama whenever I say no to meat. They take it too personally. They start feeling bad and worrying about my being malnourished. I am of an Italian descent: have you seen the cliche of the Italian family where everyone screams and exaggerates? (of course it is a cliche, but cliches are cliches because they certainly apply often enough to reality as to be created) Well, the kitchen table becomes a zone of war. It has happened (no kidding) that my refusal to eat a certain meal that I considered harmful created such strong reactions in my family that they’ve said things that left me crying.
Also, I find myself in a lot of awkward situations in social settings, when saying no to meat.-based gatherings (barbecues, etc.) Even if I state it nicely, people start worrying or disagreeing and it gets really awkward with people you are not close enough as to be able to speak your mind and aks them to leave you alone.
My not smoking nor drinking (plain and simple do not like alcohol, I do not find a problem with drinking wine, say, but I just don’t like any alcohol) makes for some situations where, unless I have the chance to interact and show that I am friendly and extorverted, people tend to assume that my “no’s” are refusals to their offers, lack of gratitude or shyness.
So it is not easy to go vegetarian, in my case at least, due to the whole social and familiar pressures around it, and above all, my budget. If my budget was one that I could go anywhere with good food that would be vegetarian, or was wealthy to eat calmly elsewhere other than with my family or usual company for eating, THEN, I could have a way easier way to tell them “to mind their business” and not be affected by it.
This might sound crazy to you all… but due to budget rasons, my refusal to eat meat or some particular meals (fries, chips, etc.) has REALLY made me go to bed without anything in my stomach. So I must bargain and find some in between situation. It makes me feel bad and powerless, because I feel like I am not eating the way I want to eat. I try visualization and activities that aim to make me be in a better position in the future, so that I can really pick what I want to eat.
So I guess that reading this book would reaffirm my suspicions or ideas, but leave me feeling more powerless over the limited actual food choices I can make
I was puzzled to hear about milk, though. Maybe the casein issue is right on… but milk also contains key elements for our health…. I wonder if he refers to the *excess* of it? or of drinking more than x amount per day? can you clarify for me?
Also, what does he say about bread and pasta?
This matter is one of true interest and concern to me, because in my case, unless the author, what’s behind my motivation is both health and my personal ethics. To me, eating meat IS an ethical issue. Actually, eating vegetables to a point is too, since they were living beings before they got to my table! In an ideal world, I’d live (and not suffer in my health for that decision) on fruits and grains and milk and (unfertilized) eggs. Things coming from living beings but not killing the living being.
Anyway, you have brought up an interesting matter, one that concerns me and it is a reminder of having to work harder at finding the way to modify my diet without “social dramas” nor budget drama or bankruptcy.
On a sidenote… to make matters more complex, I weigh 108lbs, and yet I have a mighty appetite. If I eat all I eat and yet have a tendency to lose weight, that diet would have me become too, too thin. Not healthy either. So I feel in many ways stuck in between a sword and a wall, so to speak.
If you mind sharing some of his thoughts on the foods we should eat aside vegetables… or made with vegetable byproducts.. like pasta, say…. ? and about eggs?
Does any of my “conundrums” make any sense to you? (By the way, what is the correct English way of saying that? Do any ___ make? or Does any …. make”, in other words, “any” is considered for the syntax as something followed by the verb in the plural way or not?
i personally still eat meat. However, the book raises a lot of good ideas to be healthier. We as Americans (I know you are not American) tend to spend less and less of our disposable incomes on food. We are just plain used to spending almost nothing on our food choices. Ideas of vegetables and fruits do not need to be expensive, but they seem expensive because we are used to paying for processed food, which plain costs less. He does not have so much of an issue with starches in moderation just animal based products including milk. There are enough vitamins etc. outside of milk that we do not need the milk. Further, he believes that the reason why we have a higher incidence of osteoporosis in women in our society is simply because of milk consumption, which goes against the grain of what we think about milk and how it can help with calcium. It actually can shut down calcium production and absorption in our body. Another hopefully inexpensive but painfully difficult option is gardening even if you have a small terrace. Just my thoughts.
Woooooow, how interesting! imagine if he is right concerning milk and osteoporosis!!!
It is true that we can get the benefits of the milk in other ways…
I do not have a terrace, just windows, but you reminded me of trying to learn this method of growing plants in water… it has a specific name… hydroponia … I knew someone who grew tomatoes and a few other vegetables in that manner.. in the wall of his kitchen!!
cool, sounds interesting too!
amazing rebuke of the China Study. very long, only 1/4 way through it. but to be honest about everything, here is a link: http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/
Thank you for the excellent review Dr. Lam. Another book I recommend is ” THE PLEASURE TRAP: Mastering The Hidden Force That Undermines Health and Happiness” by Douglas Lisle, Ph.D., and Alan Goldhamer, D.C.
It is a good follow up to the China Study because it helps people embrace a new lifestyle.
I could list many more books, but the Pleasure Trap is a good fit after a person has been awakened by Dr. Campbell.