The China Study: Fact or Fallacy, a new analysis by Denise Minger

[Mirzam]

Denise Minger, editor of the website Raw Food SOS: Troubleshooting on the Raw Food Diet, has done an exhaustive and detailed analysis of The China Study. She takes on six claims made by T. Colin Campbell and demolishes each one either by showing its falsity or how it is misleading in the way it is presented. Denise uses the raw data and goes about the analysis in a neutral way.

In sum, “The China Study” is a compelling collection of carefully chosen data. Unfortunately for both health seekers and the scientific community, Campbell appears to exclude relevant information when it indicts plant foods as causative of disease, or when it shows potential benefits for animal products. This presents readers with a strongly misleading interpretation of the original China Study data, as well as a slanted perspective of nutritional research from other arenas (including some that Campbell himself conducted).

The analysis is long but well worth reading.

The China Study: Fact or Falacy

[Purple Sage]

I don't have time to read the whole thing right now, but I want to thank you for posting this anyway. It looks interesting!

[Sayward]

Have you read The China Study?

[Mirzam]

Originally Posted by Sayward

Have you read The China Study?

Have you read Denise Minger's analysis of the raw data?

[Purple Sage]

Originally Posted by Sayward

Have you read The China Study?

I've read the book by T. Colin Campbell by that name (in fact, it's sitting on my bookshelf now with many others waiting to be sold), but I haven't read the actual China study in its entirety. After reading some critiques of the book, as well as doing other research, I've come to the conclusion that the book is highly flawed.

[Chicharronita]

Originally Posted by Purple Sage

I've read the book by T. Colin Campbell by that name (in fact, it's sitting on my bookshelf now with many others waiting to be sold), but I haven't read the actual China study in its entirety. After reading some critiques of the book, as well as doing other research, I've come to the conclusion that the book is highly flawed.

Me too. After reading Anthony Colpo, Brad Marshall, and Chris Masterjohn's critiques, I didn't think there was anything more to say. But Denise does an excellent job adding her voice to these others. Be sure to read the other posts; it's a six-part series.

[Chicharronita]

I want to add that Denise went through the trouble of digging up the casein study that Campbell did with rats (which is often touted as "showing" that protein is bad).

On page 59, Campbell says, "So the next logical question was whether plant protein, tested in the same way, has the same effect on cancer promotion as casein. The answer is an astonishing "NO." [...] Gluten, the protein of wheat, did not produce the same result as casein, even when fed at the same 20% level.

However, when lysine was added to the wheat-eating rat diet in Campbell's protein experiment, it had the same effect as casein! Wheat is low in lysine, which is why it's considered a low-quality protein.

So this means that the protein in a plant-diet theoretically could have the same cancer-causing effects as animal protein, if enough of all the amino acids are present.

[happybunny]

Wow! Thank you for posting this, I've always wondered about the China Study and its implications.

[avendesora]

I just finished reading all of Denise's series. Wow! For anyone who's reading this and is curious, her final (and overly simplified) conclusions are that, according to the original data, meat is neither the cause of cancers nor is it protective against it. Campbell missed a major variable tangled in with the meat-disease correlation: parasites. The parasite mentioned has a very strong correlation with cancer, and many of the meat-eating counties were where that parasite was prevalent. Comparing near-vegan counties with meat-eating (but without that parasite nearby) counties showed no different rates of disease.

(It's like that study that showed that men who don't shave die earlier than men who do shave. Is shaving protective? No, it's indicative of men who are more likely to take care of themselves. Correlation does not equal causation!)

The message that I take away from this is: Macronutrient composition is very flexible. We've adapted to a variety of diets, and have managed to be healthy in many of them, except SAD. And, soil quality is paramount. Eat plants grown in good soil, and you'll be fine. Eat animals that are pastured on good soil, and you'll be fine. Eat beef which was fed corn which was farmed with quickly depleting topsoil, relying on chemical fertilizer instead.... you'll more likely have trouble.

Aven

[Chicharronita]

Be sure to read Minger's gracious response to Campbell. If you didn't read her previous posts, I'll summarize them for you: the emperor has no clothes, and has resorted to comments about Minger being a "young girl" to cast aspersions on her critical thinking skills.

[spughy]

If you slog through the comments on the main post, you'll find someone helpfully pointed out some further epidemiological/statistical tools and methods that Minger could and should apply to the data. The problem is, the data is a mix of ecological (simple records from hospitals and health centres) compared against questionnaire data from the same general population, but not the same individuals. While there is considerably less variation in diet between Chinese households from the 1970s than American households of today, there would still be some, and being unable to plot individual dietary data vs. individual health outcomes compromises the statistical validity of the study.

Personally, I think that the usefulness of the China Study data has been overstated. Minger's analysis, which shows, as far as I can tell, that there are very few strong correlations when the data is properly corrected and multiple regressions are used, supports this. The final conclusion ought to be that the China Study was flawed, and its data are interesting but should not be used to inform policy, nutritional counseling, nutrition guidelines or anything affecting public health.

[Chicharronita]

Originally Posted by spughy

If you slog through the comments on the main post, you'll find someone helpfully pointed out some further epidemiological/statistical tools and methods that Minger could and should apply to the data.

Sure, but it appears that Campbell didn't even use any of the analytic methodology that the critic insists Minger should follow.

But she's responded to that point in her latest post:

"

One: My graphs and simple statistical explanations. The graphs I posted were not intended to stand as new hypotheses or conclusions about the data. I apologize if I didn’t make this abundantly clear. Their sole purpose was to demonstrate, to the general layperson, how raw correlations (in the instances Campbell used them) can be misleading—as well as show how dramatically a single confounder can affect a correlation and make a positive trend appear where there may not be one at all."

Personally, I think that the usefulness of the China Study data has been overstated.

You can say that again! But sadly that didn't stop Campbell from using it to write his flawed book. And for lots of people to use the book to push a dietary agenda based on such a shaky foundation.

[Chicharronita]

Science-Based Medicine blog revisits The China Study

Former family doctor and flight surgeon Harriet Hall originally blogged about The China Study last year, and was moved to write a new post based on Minger's brilliant analysis:

The China Study Revisited: New Analysis of Raw Data Doesn’t Support Vegetarian Ideology

"This is a cautionary tale. It shows how complex issues can be over-simplified into meaninglessness, how epidemiologic data can be misinterpreted and mislead us, and how a researcher can approach a problem with preconceptions that allow him to see only what he wants to see."

[CherryBomb]

Thank you for linking this! Excellent analysis.