The China Study

The China Study, a book by T.Colin Campbell, PhD, and his son Tom, tells just about everything one needs to know about what is wrong with the American-style diet. It does so by tying Dr. Campbell's 45-year career as a cancer researcher and health policy maven with the groundbreaking dietary study comparing the health result with the diets of people across rural and urban China and Taiwan.

The product of a twenty-year study conducted by Oxford University, Cornell University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine showed, in the words of Dr. Campbell, “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. These results could not be ignored."

It is interesting that Dr. Campbell began his career with the belief that the developing nations' major dietary problem was that they were not getting enough protein, especially animal-based protein, in their diet. As the son of an American farmer, his view was that finding ways to put more meat into the diets of the people of the Philippines, India, and China would correct any health problems they had.

One particular research project, described in The China Study, Dr. Campbell tells how he was startled to find that it was the wealthier children in the Philippines -- who ate the most protein -- who got the most liver cancer.

In another study he conducted, he found that he could turn the growth of cancer cells off and on by adjusting the levels of protein in the diets of laboratory animals. Especially interesting is the fact that it was the animal-based protein from milk that stimulated cancer growth when provided as 20% of the calories fed the animals. Vegetable protein did not stimulate the cancer tumor growth.

I write this because I notice that many of my readers lately are Chinese. This may or may not be something they want to hear. I include it because reading The China Study made a big impression on me and I feel it important to warn others of the terrible effects that people of my country have suffered over the past sixty years.

I hope the Chinese people can learn from our(American) dietary mistakes. McDonald's and KFC franchise restaurants are, I know, eagerly moving in to provide the Chinese people all their exciting and habit-forming foods -- but look at the negative health results we are suffering in the USA, with high rates of obesity, heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's Disease, and many more!

We spend outrageous amounts of money to keep our citizens alive and out of pain, in part because our people ar sick and fat from what they eat. Our environment, too, pays a heavy cost by growing 20 pounds of healthy vegetable protein, feeding it to cows, only to get one pound of beef for every twenty pounds of corn and soy protein. Then, we have huge manure piles left over, which seep into our water supplies!

I am aware that the Chinese people are eager to "improve" their diet by eating more meat. I understand the lure of wanting what we think are the "good things in life" when we become more prosperous. Nevertheless, I just want to caution my readers, whether they are Chinese, German, French, or American, that the widely-advertised American diet of fast foods, milk products, and junk snack foods and sodas will surely be as destructive to you as it has been for us.

Read The China Study to get a clear understanding of what you are getting into, if you're considering enjoying more meat protein in your diet.

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More about The China Study can be found here: