If you have not already read The China Study and are even remotely interested in your health – you must read it! According to the New York Times, this book is based on “..findings from the most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease.”
Author Dr T. Colin Campbell, presents a clear and very easy to read message about the relationship between what we eat and our health. His message is simple – Eat a plant-based diet and you can prevent and even reverse the diseases that are killing most people in the western world.
This is a book for the people who question the benefits of a vegan diet and who require some scientific evidence that demonstrates the importance of this diet for optimal health. It is based on scientific findings and includes over 750 references, the vast majority of them being primary sources of information.
The interesting thing about this book is the story behind Dr. Campbell and his journey, which led to writing this book. He was raised on a dairy farm and spent his early research career on a trail to promote better health by advocating the need for more meat, milk and eggs. His Ph.D research focussed on findings ways to make cows and sheep grow faster in an attempt to improve on our ability to produce animal protein, the cornerstone of what he believed to be ‘good nutrition.’
He then headed up a team to go to the Phillipines to help malnourished children with a high prevalence of liver cancer. Based on the belief in the scientific world at that time, their main goal was to close the ‘protein gap’ in the developing country. However, he discovered that the children who were getting liver cancer were the ones with the highest protein intake.
This led him to pursue researching the role between nutrition, especially protein, in the development of cancer. The findings were a huge surprise to him – “dietary protein proved to be so powerful in its effect that we could turn on and off cancer growth, simply by changing the level consumed.” This then led to the most comprehensive study of diet, lifestyle and disease ever done with humans in the history of biomedical research – a 27-year study commonly referred to as The China Study.
The China Study surveyed a range of diet, lifestyle factors and diseases in rural China and was a joint undertaking through Cornell University, Oxford University and The China Academy of Preventative Medicine. He found that the people who ate the most animal-based food got the most chronic diseases, while people who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.
This book puts all of his research together, explaining the relationship between diet and the most common diseases, including chapters on heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune diseases and other diseases. It also presents a Good Nutrition Guide, which highlights 8 principles of food and health. The last part of the book investigates why we haven’t heard all of this important information before. It explores the workings of government, the medical industry and who is in control of what information is presented to the public.
It is truly an eye-opening book and a page-turner. From now on when someone questions me about health-related issues with regards to my decision for being vegan, I will point them to this book. It blows all of the protein hype out of the water, once and for all!
