The China Study
Curious what the largest epidemiological study ever conducted has to say about the connection between diet and disease? Then The China Study is pretty much required reading. Over 8,000 (!) statistically significant correlations were discovered in the study and in this Note, we’ll explore some of their implications—from diseases of affluence vs. diseases of poverty to the #1 dietary factor in turning cancer on or off (hint: it’s animal protein). Powerful.
Big Ideas
- America’s HealthIs failing.
- Diseases of Affluencevs. Diseases of poverty.
- Creating CancerThe #1 dietary factor.
- Health WisdomIn a sentence.
- 100% Is Often EasierIf you had a friend who smokes...
- There Is Enough EvidenceThat we should ALL know this!!
- Meet Dr. AtkinsAn obese man w/heart disease.
- Don’t AssumeYour Dr. understands nutrition.
“I went on to direct the most comprehensive study of diet, lifestyle and disease ever done with humans in the history of biomedical research. It was a massive undertaking jointly arranged through Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. The New York Times called it the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” This project surveyed a vast range of diseases and diet and lifestyle factors in rural China, and more recently, in Taiwan. More commonly known as the China Study, this project eventually produced more than 8,000 statistically significant associations between various dietary factors and disease!
What made this project especially remarkable is that, among the many associations relevant to diet and disease, so many pointed to the same finding: people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease. Even relatively small intakes of animal-based food were associated with adverse effects. People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease. These results could not be ignored. From the initial experimental animal studies on animal protein effects to this massive human study on dietary patterns, the findings proved to be consistent. The health implications of consuming either animal or plant-based nutrients were remarkably different.”
~ T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell from The China Study
The China Study.
It’s easily the largest epidemiological study *ever* conducted. Imagine 650,000 workers cataloguing the death rates for 880 million (!!!) Chinese citizens—96% of China’s population.
That’s beyond huge. And this book thoroughly outlines the significant findings from that study.
It’s PACKED with goodness. My book is highlighted with “WOW!”s everywhere. If you take your health seriously and value science over seductive get-skinny-quick schemes, I highly recommend you check it out.
In this Note, we’ll barely scratch the surface of all the wisdom from the book, but I’m excited to share some of my favorite Big Ideas. I hope to inspire you to take some positive steps that we *scientifically know* can add life to your years and years to your life—and to your loved ones.
So, let’s jump in!
P.S. If you only get one thing out of this Note, know this: “people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease… People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.”
In short, if you want to suffer from less chronic disease, eat less animal-based foods and more whole, plant-based foods. If, on the other hand, you like to watch your loved ones suffer, keep enjoying your bacon, chicken, burgers, milk, cheese and pizzas and stay away from the produce section! ;)
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Download PDFHe who does not know food, how can he understand the diseases of man?
Get the BookAmerica’s Health is Failing
“By any number of measures, America’s health is failing. We spend far more, per capita, on health care than any society in the world, and yet two thirds of Americans are overweight, and over 15 million Americans have diabetes, a number that has been rising rapidly. We fall prey to heart disease as often as we did thirty years ago, and the War on Cancer, launched in the 1970s, has been a miserable failure. Half of Americans have a health problem that requires taking a prescription drug every week, and over 100 million Americans have high cholesterol.
To make matters worse, we are leading our youth down a path of disease earlier and earlier in their lives. One third of the young people in this country are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. Increasingly, they are falling prey to a form of diabetes that used to be seen only in adults, and these young people now take more prescription drugs than ever before.
These issues all come down to three things: breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
We’ve got some bad news and good news. Then some more bad news and good news.
First, the bad news: Our health (not just here in the U.S. but pretty much globally) sucks. 66+% of American adults are overweight, half take a prescription medication for an illness and our youth are becoming as unhealthy as we are. YIKES!!!
Now, the good news: We know WHY we’re so sick. As Campbell says, it comes down to three things: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Change the way we eat and we can reverse the horrific health trends we’re facing. It’s NOT that complicated!!!
And, more bad news: Few people actually pay attention to the fact that the answer to our health challenges rests in proactive lifestyle choices; they prefer to “race for the cure”—looking for reactive pharmaceutical solutions when the cure is already right in front of their eyes.
The ultimate good news is that WE CAN DO SOMETHING TO CHANGE!! Little by little as we each make more healthful changes, we can change the world.
Diseases of Affluence
“Here in America, we are affluent, and we die certain deaths because of it. We eat like feasting kings and queens every day of the week, and it kills us. You probably know people who suffer from heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s, obesity or diabetes. There’s a good chance that you yourself suffer from one of these problems, or that one of these diseases runs in your family. As we have seen, these diseases are relatively unknown in rural China. But these ailments arrive when a traditional culture starts accumulating wealth and starts eating more and more meat, dairy and refined plant products (like crackers, cookies and soda).”
Campbell differentiates what he calls “diseases of poverty” from “diseases of affluence.”
John Robbins describes the difference in his great book Healthy at 100 (see Notes): ““Diseases of poverty” include infectious diseases like pneumonia, tuberculosis, diarrhea, respiratory illnesses, and measles… The China Study made clear that the underlying causes of “diseases of poverty” are actually nutritional inadequacy and poor sanitation. In fact, since it is not poverty itself that causes these diseases, but the lack of clean water and adequate food, it would be more precise to call them “diseases of nutritional inadequacy and poor sanitation.”
Similarly, the China Study demonstrated that the underlying cause of most “diseases of affluence”—including diabetes, coronary heart disease, obesity, and many forms of cancer—in not affluence itself, but rather the nutritional excess that typically accompanies this affluence. In fact, so tightly are “diseases of affluence” linked in the China Study data that Dr. T. Colin Campbell, the project’s director, has said that it would be more accurate to cease referring to “diseases of affluence” and instead adopt the term “diseases of nutritional extravagance.””
So, we have “diseases of nutritional inadequacy and poor sanitation” on one hand and we have “diseases of nutritional extravagance” on the other. Got it.
Campbell’s comments that we “eat like feasting kings and queens every day” reminds me of some wisdom from Dr. John McDougall who tells us that modern Americans look like old-school kings and queens: fat and unhealthy.
It’s because we celebrate Easter for breakfast, Thanksgiving for lunch, Christmas for dinner and our birthday for dessert.
EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
The #1 Dietary Factor in the Creation of Cancer
“But just likes seeds in the soil, the initial cancer cells will not grow and multiply unless the right conditions are met. The seeds in the soil, for example, need a healthy amount of water, sunlight and other nutrients before they make a full lawn. If any of these factors are denied or are missing, the seeds will not grow. If any of these factors are missing after the growth starts, the new seedlings will become dormant, while awaiting further supply of the missing factors. This is one of the most profound features of promotion. Promotion is reversible, depending on whether the early cancer growth is given the right conditions in which to grow. This is where certain dietary factors become so important. These dietary factors, called anti-promoters, slow cancer growth. Cancer growth flourishes when there are more promoters than anti-promoters; when anti-promoters prevail cancer growth slows or stops. It is a push-pull process. The profound importance of this reversibility cannot be overemphasized.”
In a chapter called “Turning Cancer Off,” Campbell describes the process through which cancer develops: initiation, promotion and progression.
Referencing extensive scientific research done on the subject, he tells us that THE #1 variable in turning cancer on or off is protein consumption. In fact, he says: “dietary protein proved to be so powerful in its effect that we could turn on and turn off cancer growth simply by changing the level consumed.”
But, for the record, “plant protein did not promote cancer growth, even at the higher levels of intake.”
What did? The animal protein.
Health Wisdom in a Sentence
“One of the most fortunate findings from the mountain of nutritional research I’ve encountered is that good food and good health is simple. The biology of the relationship of food and health is exceptionally complex, but the message is still simple. The recommendations coming from the published literature are so simple that I can share them in one sentence: eat a whole foods, plant-based diet, while minimizing the consumption of refined foods, added salt and added fats.”
Let’s repeat that: “The recommendations coming from the published literature are so simple that I can share them in one sentence: eat a whole foods, plant-based diet, while minimizing the consumption of refined foods, added salt and added fats.”
And, one more time: “The recommendations coming from the published literature are so simple that I can share them in one sentence: eat a whole foods, plant-based diet, while minimizing the consumption of refined foods, added salt and added fats.”
It’s NOT COMPLICATED.
We don’t need to get seduced by the latest gimmicky diet plan out there. Why don’t we just look at what the overwhelming scientific evidence tells us and go with that?
Joshua Rosenthal puts it this way in Integrative Nutrition (see Notes): “In spite of the enormous amount of confusing and contradictory information that regularly floods the world of nutrition, the basics are simple. Most people would be much better off consuming less meat, milk, sugar, chemicalized, artificial junk food, alcohol, caffeine and tobacco and increasing their consumption of water, whole grains and vegetables, especially dark leafy greens.”
We ALL know this stuff.
As always, the question is: When will we actually start living it?
100% Is Often Easier
“While I recommend that you not worry about small quantities of animal products in your food, I am not suggesting that you deliberately plan to incorporate small portions of meat into your daily diet. My recommendation is that you try to avoid all animal-based products.
There are three excellent reasons to go all the way. First, following this diet requires a radical shift in your thinking about food. It’s more work to just do it halfway. If you plan for animal-based products, you’ll eat them—and you’ll almost certainly eat more than you should. Second, you’ll feel deprived. Instead of viewing your new food habit as being able to eat all the plant-based food you want, you’ll be seeing it in terms of having to limit yourself, which is not conducive to staying on the diet long-term.
If your friend had been a smoker all of his or her life and looked to you for advice, would you tell them to cut down to only two cigarettes a day, or would you tell them to quit smoking all together? It’s in this way that I’m telling you that moderation, even with the best intentions, sometimes makes it more difficult for you to succeed in this.”
What’s that mean?
It means that if you almost-totally commit to something that little whiney part of your brain is always going to be looking for an excuse to make *today* the day you get to take off.
So, for example, if you’re 99% committed to your meditation practice, you’ve always got a part of your brain that’s like, “Hey! Let’s take this morning off! We deserve a little more sleep!”
The problem with that is YOU’RE ALWAYS looking for the exception. And, it’s almost impossible to get real traction because that day off turns into failing to install a new habit.
I’ve experienced the reality of this in many different aspects of my life. Perhaps the most powerful is with my commitment to go 100% vegan. And, specifically, to NEVER go to McDonald’s again. Back in the day, I used to *live* on Micky D’s, Pizza Hut and Burger King. To put it in perspective, in college I’d buy one medium pizza and get another for free—eating one for dinner and one for breakfast. :)
When I started cleaning up my diet and going to fast-food places less often, EVERY time I’d drive by a McDonald’s (which, in LA is quite often), I’d have to discipline myself to say, “Not this time!” But, that didn’t really work too well. I’d fall off the bandwagon way more often than I’d like. 99% was a bitch.
Then I got to a point where it was 100% clear: I wasn’t going thru the drive thru. Period. It made it SOOO much easier. And, now (years later), it’s almost weird that I used to be so addicted.
That’s pretty much what Campbell is saying here: It’s often a LOT easier to just go all the way.
99% is a bitch. 100% is a breeze.
And, his scientific research shows that consuming even a small amount of animal-based food is strongly correlated to an increase in chronic disease. Hence, his brilliant comparison to your friend who comes to you for advice about quitting smoking: “would you tell them to cut down to only two cigarettes a day, or would you tell them to quit smoking all together? It’s in this way that I’m telling you that moderation, even with the best intentions, sometimes makes it more difficult for you to succeed in this.”
There is Enough Evidence
“There is enough evidence now that doctors should be discussing the option of pursuing dietary change as a potential path to cancer prevention and treatment. There is enough evidence now that the U.S. government should be discussing the idea that the toxicity of our diet is the single biggest cause of cancer. There is enough evidence now that local breast cancer alliances, and prostate and colon cancer institutions, should be discussing the possibility of providing information to Americans everywhere on how a whole foods, plant-based diet may be an incredibly effective anti-cancer medicine.
If these discussions were to happen, it is possible that, next year, fewer than 500,000 people would go to the doctor’s office and be told they have cancer of the breast, prostate or large bowel. The year after that, even fewer friends, coworkers and family members would be given the most dreaded of all diagnoses. And the following year, even fewer.
The possibility that this future could be our reality is real, and as long as this future holds such promise for the health of people everywhere, it is a future worth working for.”
There’s enough evidence that it’s actually *shocking* that this data isn’t shared from every institution supposedly committed to combatting chronic illness.
Unfortunately, there’s too much money in the pharmaceutical approach combined with a get-it-quick-without-having-to-change-my-terrible-behaviors mentality combined with, as Dr. Walter Bortz tells us in Dare to Be 100(see Notes): “Too much faith in the power of technology to cure has seduced us into unsound health practices.”
Atkins: An Obese Man w/Heart Disease
“Perhaps it is a testament to the power of modern marketing savvy that an obese man with heart disease and high blood pressure became one of the richest snake oil salesman ever to live, selling a diet that promises to help you lose weight, to keep your heart healthy and to normalize your blood pressure.”
Campbell isn’t a fan of Atkins.
Let’s think about it for a moment. Don’t you find it a bit odd that an obese man with heart disease could become so successful selling a diet plan?
Alas, welcome to the dark side of capitalism where snake oil salesman with sophisticated marketing that hooks people looking for a quick fix can become so successful.
As Campbell says: “I have heard one doctor call high-protein, high fat, low-carbohydrate diets “make-yourself-sick” diets, and I think that’s an appropriate moniker. You can also lose weight by undergoing chemotherapy or starting a heroine addiction, but I wouldn’t recommend those, either.”
Hah. That’s one way to put it, eh?
Bottom line: Quit looking for get-skinny quick schemes and start looking at living with more virtue as you create a lifestyle that sustainably supports your optimal health!!
Don’t Assume your Doctor Understands Nutrition
“You should not assume that your doctor has any more knowledge about food and its relation to health than your neighbors and coworkers. It’s a situation in which nutritionally untrained doctors prescribe milk and sugar-based meal-replacement shakes for overweight diabetics, high-meat, high-fat diets for patients who ask how to lose weight and extra milk for patients who have osteoporosis. The health damage that results from doctors’ ignorance of nutrition is astounding.”
Campbell spends the last part of the book looking at “Big Medicine: Whose Health Are They Protecting?” where he gives us a glimpse at the politics of medical treatment and the incredible lack of nutritional training among physicians.
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