The Great "China Study" Debate

[Chicharronita]

I don't know if you've seen the posts on the Veg. forum about Dr. T. Colin Campbell's The China Study. It has become very heated, and people have expressed the desire to have the discussion move over here. I don't know if there's ever been a thread posted about it on this forum; feel free to let me know if it has, as I'd like to read more.

Here's my first post about it:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...0&postcount=27

For those of you who haven't heard about this book, it is touted as the definitive tome on the superiority of a plant-based diet from a vegan doctor.

I checked it out from the library after someone on another board hysterically claimed that it PROVES that eating meat causes cancer. Well, of course, it proves no such thing. Studies showed that rats fed casein got cancer. So Dr. Campbell extrapolates this to ALL proteins cause cancer, which is a stretch.

While I'm glad that I read through some of it (I skipped the long-winded dietary admonitions since they were not directly related to the findings of the study that the book gets its name from), most of you probably would not relish reading it.

Thank goodness, there's been three great reviews online about it that you can read, which IMO is better than getting the actual book, since it devotes so few pages to the actual study itself. Here they are (sorry, I'm not well-versed in the proper usage of HTML on the MDC boards yet):

"The Truth About the China Study"
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html

This is written by WAPF Chapter Leader Chris Masterjohn, who also edits the excellent Cholesterol-and-health.com site. If you like this thorough review of the book, I highly recommend his other reviews from his site and on WAP.org (He's got a long and detailed article called, "Does Vitamin A Cause Osteoporosis?" The short answer is, no, not if it's balanced with vitamin D in the diet).

"Is wheat killing us?"

http://bradmarshall.blogspot.com/200...ion-maybe.html

Snippet:

"The main dietary predictor of heart disease rates in China is the TYPE of grain you eat.

Rice eaters seem protected from heart attacks while wheat, corn and millet eaters are much more prone (the corn link is debatable). Meat, dairy and vegetable consumption play no obvious role. Blood cholesterol plays no role."

The following is from a review by Anthony Colpo. Article formerly from TheOmnivore.com, now available at: http://tinyurl.com/zmrp3 It is under the review by JayY. I have read Colpo's new book, The Great Cholesterol Con. Now here's a writer who's not asleep at the wheel, nor trying to pull the wool over our eyes about nutrition.

Snippets:

"According to Campbell, the China Study data showed that: "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."[p. 7]

In reality, the China Study showed nothing of the sort.

[...]

Cancer

Neither total protein (+12%), animal protein (+3%), fish protein (+7%), plant protein (+12%), meat intake (-20%), saturated fat (+2%), fat calories (-17%), eggs (+19%), nor milk (+6%) demonstrated any statistically significant association with mortality from all cancers. Rice (-26%, p=0.05) and green vegetables (-28%, p=0.05) were statistically associated with reduced cancer mortality, as were the use of alcohol (-27%, p=0.05), home-made cigarettes (-32%, p=0.01), and total tobacco use (-25%, p=0.05).

(Readers can now see why clinical research is superior to epidemiological research--if we were to treat the findings of the China Study proactively, then we would all go out and start drinking and smoking cigarettes in order to improve our odds against cancer! Despite his obvious enthrallment with the results of the China Study, Campbell for some reason doesn't recommend this...)."

If there are other good reviews you know of, please let me know.

[Panserbjorne]

I felt that this was a very flawed study (and I read it when I was consuming NO animal products at all.) IT proved nothing to me. I feel that our diets are meant to be plant based. I don't believe that meat causes cancer, unless you are eating conventional meat, and then you have a different story. I don't believe that the people in china were healthy because of soy, I feel that they are healthy in SPITE of their soy consumption. I don't know. It's worth reading, but not a definitive work on anything.

[hanno]

From what I understand, many of the results are derived from animal studies, so I haven't read it. I don't need to prove the benefits of veganism to myself or anyone else. People will always believe what they eat is the best for them, regardless of any proof otherwise. My personal 'proof' is that after changing to a diet that is vegan and organic, I am able to hold a fetus for 14 weeks where I never made it past 6 before.

[melissa17s]

Much of the book The China Study is presented as a literature review, and is not the actual study. He is reviewing what has been already put out in the field by other studies, and using it as a starting point for his study, which was done on humans. The book then highlights some of his findings, but is not the study itself- more like conclusions of a study. He also explains alot about the industry and special interests that domimate animal science, nutrician, and such academic groups.

It has been a while since I read it. He does not necessarily advocate a vegan diet. Instead he presents the value of whole foods in a diet and how over consumption of animal products can have an adverse effect. Don't worry Chicharronita, you can still get your folic acid from liver, if you so desire.

I have not looked closely at the links or compared them to my copy of the book, but on a general level the first seemed to misstate simple generalizations... but I will have to brush up some before I go into more detail.

[newcastlemama]

I have read a lot about the book, and other works that cite it, but never read it myself. I think the question should be, if you want to eat animal products, how much is a good amount to get the benefits of those but still getting enough plants in for their benefits (phytochemicals, fiber).

I also think that one can be a healthy vegan, veggie or omni. Any diet where you move from processed to whole foods will give an improvement over SAD. Like I wrote in another post, I was an "Eat to Live" vegan (eat lots of fruits, veggies, beans) and felt great for a while. Then I started to feel like muscle endurance decreased a lot. That is when I found NT and added meat in there (I am sensitive to eggs and dairy at this point). I added meat for health. I have been vegetarian leaning my entire life and feel like if I could have eaten raw milk and eggs instead, I would have. (I am already starting to have meat/meat cooking aversions again and I have only been eating it again for 6 months. I am not sure why that happens to me!)

I feel like those who are vegans for health reasons see animal food as poison. The WAP Foundation gives the impression that one must eat a ton of animal products to be healthy. Both sides have interpreteded at least some of their info in creative ways, IMO.

I wish there was more info on whole food omni diets. I also think that isolating casien for tests is weird. The only thing that can be extrapolated from that is: don't eat isolated casein! Also, from what I have read, when animal products are maligned by vegetarian proponents, they are the unnatural animal products (confined, homog, soy fed, pasturized ect). It's like testing pestcide-treated canned green beans and telling people that green beans are bad for them. They are not even close to the original food!

Maybe I will check the book out.
Jennifer

[Sharondio]

Updated link

http://bradmarshall.blogspot.com/200...ion-maybe.html

The other link didn't work.