PDF Summary:The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell

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• Synthetic chemicals are not the primary cause of cancer.
• Your genes are not the most important factor in determining whether you’ll die of the ten leading causes of death.
• Vitamin and mineral supplements do not protect you from disease.
• Your doctor knows little about nutrition and likely doesn’t know how to help you be the healthiest you can be.
• Animal proteins, including low-fat milk and lean meats, are not healthy for you. In fact, they’re linked to numerous diseases (outlined in this book).

What Does the Research Say?

The idea that our favorite meat- and dairy-rich meals could be making us sick is a hard truth to face. The authors acknowledge that their findings are provocative. But they also insist that these findings are not the mere product of personal opinion. The book’s tenets are based on over 800 rigorous, peer-reviewed studies from around the world. Some of their findings include:

• Diet alone can reverse heart disease, and reducing the amount of animal protein you eat is more important than reducing the amount of saturated fat.
• What we eat greatly affects our cancer risk.
• Type 1 diabetes is linked to the type...

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And then there’s heart disease, the biggest killer in the U.S., killing 1 out of every 3 Americans. Perhaps even more so than cancer, whether we get heart disease is largely under our control. Close to 100% of heart disease is preventable (and even reversible) through diet.

These health issues and other diet-related “diseases of affluence” are discussed in Chapters 5 through 10.

Problem #2: Our Healthcare System is Dangerous

Although an increasing number of doctors are learning the value of nutrition and lifestyle changes, the majority still turn to surgery and pills rather than food and holistic treatments to heal their patients.

While these treatments can be effective, they’re not always safe. In fact, medical care is the 3rd leading cause of death in the U.S., although the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refuses to acknowledge it on its list of the top ten causes of death.

Doctor errors, medication errors, and deaths from drugs and surgery kill 225,400 people every year. This is less than the number of people killed by heart disease (710,760) and cancer (553,091), but more than those who die of strokes (167,661) or respiratory diseases...

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Our Infatuation with Animal Protein

If we can get all the protein we need from plants, why do we associate protein with animal foods? The outsize role played by animal proteins in our culture and our understanding of healthy eating has been formed by a little science and even more myths.

Attitudes About Meat

When protein was discovered in the 19th century, people already believed that eating animals increased their endurance and strength. Eating animals also symbolized our dominance over other creatures. Any evidence of the benefits of animal protein was welcome news to a society that took pride in its place at the top of the food chain.

Further, meat was expensive. Consequently, it was a status symbol: Eating meat demonstrated that you were rich and relying on plant foods demonstrated that you were poor. Some upper-class people believed that the lower classes were lazy because they didn’t eat as much meat as those who could afford it.

These attitudes helped make protein synonymous with meat, and we’ve inherited them, whether we realize it or not. Even today, beef is probably the first thing you think of when someone says “protein.” We still believe that...

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Also in this stage, the carcinogen changes into its “active” dangerous form and binds to DNA. Damaged DNA is then passed on to daughter cells. In humans, this stage can be completed within minutes and it can’t be reversed. Once it’s done, it’s done.

Research on Protein in the Initiation Stage

Through various studies, Campbell and his researchers found that low-protein diets can do the following at this stage:

• Allow less of the carcinogen into the cell
• Slow the multiplication of cancer cells
• Reduce enzyme activity in the cell (enzyme activity “activates” the carcinogen, making it more dangerous)

This means that lowering your animal-protein intake can greatly decrease your chances of tumor initiation. In other words, a low-protein diet can decrease the number of seeds (activated carcinogens and damaged cells) in the ground (the body).

Stage 2: Promotion

In this stage, the seeds are getting ready to become small blades of grass, or cancer cells are getting ready to grow and multiply.

During the promotion stage, a cluster of cancer cells grows into a detectable tumor. In humans, this stage progresses over many years.

Just as seeds won’t grow...

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Lessons from the China Study

From the study, researchers learned several lessons that informed the way they viewed America’s various health problems.

Lesson #1: There are diseases of poverty and diseases of affluence.

Researchers had access to mortality rates in China for more than 40 diseases. This gave them the opportunity to study which causes of death were most common, and where.

They found that certain diseases clustered in particular parts of the country, indicating that these diseases shared a cause.

As they compared disease rates, a pattern emerged. There were two groups of diseases:

• Diseases of affluence are diseases common in developed, economically prosperous areas. They’re also known as diseases of “nutritional extravagance” because they’re linked to “rich” diets high in protein and fat. These diseases include coronary heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
• Diseases of poverty are diseases found in poor rural or developing areas. They include parasitic disease, pneumonia, peptic ulcer, rheumatic heart disease, and pulmonary tuberculosis.

Diseases of affluence begin to displace diseases of poverty when a population accumulates...

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This is because thinner layers of plaque have weaker caps. Caps are layers of cells that can separate from the core of the plaque.

Blood surging through the arteries can cause a cap to rupture. When this happens, some of the contents of the plaque mix with the blood, and a clot forms at the rupture site. The clot can get so big that it blocks the whole artery.

Consequently, the heart doesn’t get enough blood (or the oxygen it carries), and cells in the heart start to die. This is a heart attack. One-third of heart attacks are fatal.

Because we can’t know when caps will rupture, heart attacks are hard to predict. But because we know the risk factors of heart disease, Westerners are finally starting to view it as one of the few diseases we have some control over.

The Drawbacks of Technological Advances

As a society, we’ve become savvier about the impact on heart disease of lifestyle choices like smoking and exercise. But lifestyle choices haven’t been the primary focus of scientists and medical centers.

As heart disease has remained the primary killer in America, doctors, researchers, and institutions have devoted huge amounts of time, money, and energy to...

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The Solution to Our Obesity Problem

As we’ve all heard before, diet and exercise are the keys to weight loss. But we may not have tried a WFPB diet.

Diet

Studies show that a plant-based diet is effective for long-term weight loss. For example, vegetarians and vegans weigh five to thirty pounds less than their meat-eating fellows. Additionally, BMI decreases the longer you’ve been a vegetarian or vegan.

Participants in intervention studies who ate low-fat, whole-food, primarily plant-based diets:

• Lost two to five pounds in 12 days.
• Lost ten pounds in three weeks.
• Lost 16 pounds in 12 weeks.
• And lost 24 pounds in a year.

Why a WFPB Diet Will Help You Lose Weight

Reason #1: It’s relatively simple, compared with other diet plans.

You don’t have to count calories. You don’t have to calculate the percentage of carbohydrates, fat, and protein you eat. There aren’t any points. And you can eat as much as you want, as long as the foods are whole and plant-based (Chapters 11 and 12 give more details on the WFPB diet).

Reason #2: You won’t be hungry and therefore tempted to cheat.

Even if your aim is to lose weight, you shouldn’t...

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Problem #2: Consequently, people with diabetes spend their entire lives post-diagnosis taking daily medication.

Problem #3: This is costly. In 2013, the U.S. spent $245 billion a year on diabetes medication.

The Diet-Based Treatment for Diabetes

Multiple studies indicate that a plant-based diet can prevent, treat, and even cure Type 2 diabetes.

Seventh-Day Adventist Studies

We can observe the possible effects of a plant-based diet on diabetes risk by studying Seventh-day Adventists, whose religion advises they avoid meat, fish, and eggs, among other foods and drinks.

Consequently, a relatively high percentage (50%) of Seventh-day Adventists are vegetarians. The other half still eats meat, but less than the average American.

90% of the vegetarian Adventists eat dairy and eggs, and the meat-eating Adventists don’t eat much meat by American standards, so the diets of the two groups are not actually that different.

Still, vegetarian Adventists in these studies had half the rate of diabetes and almost half the rate of obesity.

Controlled Studies—Diet as Cure Rather Than Prevention

The...

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Chinese women in the study didn’t start menstruating until an average age of 17. Due to their low-fat diets, they also started menopause earlier than British women. Also due to their low-fat diets, Chinese women had half the estrogen levels of British women during their reproductive years.

Because the reproductive lives of Chinese women were 75% shorter than those of British women, and because their estrogen levels were lower throughout life, they had 35-40% less exposure to estrogen over their lifetimes. This dovetails with the fact that Chinese women get breast cancer at one-fifth the rate of Western women.

In summary, eating a WFPB diet means you naturally consume less fat. This diet raises the age of a girl’s first period, lowers the age of menopause, decreases female hormone levels, and decreases blood cholesterol. In these ways, the WFPB reduces at least four breast cancer risk factors.

3. Hormone Replacement Therapy

Another risk factor is the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Many women take HRT during menopause to protect their bones, prevent heart disease, and decrease menopause symptoms.

However, HRT has been shown to increase your...

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Commonality #3: Some of these diseases cluster together in individuals. For example, MS and Type 1 diabetes often occur in the same individuals and Parkinson’s and MS are both common in the same geographic areas (and may also affect the same individuals). Numerous other associations like these exist.

Commonality #4: For all these diseases, consumption of animal foods in general, and cow’s milk in particular, has been linked to greater risk. Let’s take a look at how they may be related.

Foreign proteins are called antigens. There’s evidence that antigens that trick our bodies into attacking themselves come from the foods we eat in the form of undigested proteins. The immune system may treat undigested proteins from food as foreign invaders.

Cow’s milk especially has many proteins that mimic those in our bodies. In some people, these antigens confuse the immune system. Instead of attacking undigested milk proteins, it attacks similar-looking body proteins.

Commonality #5: A virus may trigger several autoimmune diseases.

Commonality #6: The “mechanisms of action” of these diseases, or the process of development, are similar. There’s evidence that vitamin D...

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In a normally functioning system, calcitriol determines how much calcium we absorb from food and how that calcium is distributed in the body.

But if we take in too much calcium over long periods of time, calcitriol becomes less effective at managing calcium, and we may excrete more than we absorb.

Dairy contains both animal proteins, which produce acid, and high amounts of calcium, which can disrupt the body’s ability to properly use that calcium. Because of these two factors, eating dairy products may increase rather than decrease your risk of osteoporosis.

Evidence-Based Ways to Minimize Your Risk

• Exercise. Most kinds of physical activity help increase your bone density.
• Get your calcium from plant sources, like beans, leafy vegetables, and non-dairy milks.
• Reduce your salt intake. Studies link high salt intake to osteoporosis risk.

Kidney Stones

Having a kidney stone is one of the most physically painful experiences you can have. It usually requires a trip to the ER and heavy pain killers.

15% of people in the U.S. will have a kidney stone in their lifetimes. Kidney stones are another affliction of affluence, much more common in...

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Vitamin D: While we can usually get the vitamin D we need easily from the sun, some people living in northern climates won’t see enough daylight to meet their needs. Studies on the benefits of vitamin D supplements are inconclusive. Sunlight is still the best way to get your vitamin D.

We’ll discuss supplements in greater depth in Chapter 12.

Principle #3

Almost any nutrient you can find in animal-based foods, you can find in a healthier form in plant-based foods.

Plant foods have more of almost every nutrient, including fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Most animal foods lack these nutrients. In their place, they contain cholesterol and fat.

Animal foods do tend to have a little more protein than plant foods, but plant proteins are healthier.

Possible Exceptions to Principle #3

Nuts and seeds are high in fat. But these fats are healthier than animal fats and are accompanied by antioxidants.

Many dairy products are made low-fat using artificial processes. But this still leaves behind unhealthy proteins.

Many animal foods contain vitamin A, which most plant foods lack. But our bodies can easily make vitamin A from beta-carotene, found in...

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Four Suggestions

Following these suggestions will help ease your transition into WFPB eating.

Suggestion #1: In the beginning, don’t be afraid of spending money. Cutting meat and dairy means cheaper grocery bills in the long run, but at the beginning of your WFPB journey, you may find that the process of trying new foods and figuring out what you like involves spending more money. This is temporary, and it’s worth it.

Suggestion #2: Eat delicious foods. You won’t commit to a WFPB diet if you’re not interested in what you’re eating. Explore different restaurants and try new recipes to find meals that you love. Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants often offer many plant-based options. They also use spices in unique and exciting ways that will make you forget to miss the meat.

Suggestion #3: Don’t go hungry. Even if you’re trying to lose weight, eat enough. On a WFPB diet, you’ll probably lose weight without restricting calories, and being hungry makes you vulnerable to falling back into your old eating patterns.

Suggestion #4: Eat a variety of foods. This is critical both for getting the nutrients you need and staying interested in the diet.

Five...

... Many researchers also receive compensation to conduct research designed to favor certain hypotheses over others. Often, these studies are devised by employees of the company rather than the researchers. Companies can then cherry-pick results, promoting some and burying others.

Problem #3: Personal bias.

Scientists are human and have the same biases as everyone else. For example, many have lost family members to cancer, and they don’t want to explore the idea that the food choices of their loved ones played any part in their illnesses. Many scientists also love eating meat and dairy themselves. This prejudices them against research that would link these food groups to disease.

Problem #4: Greed.

Most scientists are honorable and really do have the best interests of the public at heart. But a few will sell their souls for money and power, such as a researcher who sat across from Tom Brokaw on the morning news and praised the health of McDonald’s hamburgers.

T. Colin Campbell’s Experience as a Researcher

As a researcher for over 40 years, Campbell conducted many studies and was a member of numerous scientific associations and committees. He became disillusioned...

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Example #2: The Failings of the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study

Beginning in 1976, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health followed over 120,000 nurses, collecting data over three decades. The goal of the study was to examine the relationships of diseases with various isolated factors like oral contraceptives, cigarettes, and specific dietary items. For example, one objective was discerning a link between cancer and high-fat diets.

Results:

• Among other conclusions, the Nurses’ Health Study found no correlation between breast cancer and dietary fat, meat consumption, dairy consumption, fiber consumption, or fruit and vegetable consumption.

Problems with the Nurses’ Health Study

This study is considered one of the best of its kind, leading to associations between disease and environmental factors like smoking, obesity, and contraceptives. But the Campbells believe it’s done near-irreparable damage to how we think about nutrition because it suggests no link between breast cancer and diet. They believe these misleading findings are the result of problems with the way the study was conducted. The second...

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As discussed in the previous chapter, researchers often study nutrients out of context. This can result in conflicting findings and confusion. It also makes it easy for industries to find a favorable study result and exploit it, taking the finding out of context. (This is what the supplement industry did with lycopene.)

Problem #4: Industries use shady tactics to prioritize profits over public health.

Campbell says that while he was preparing to publish the results of the China Study, the National Dairy Council and the American Meat Institute employed a committee of researchers to infiltrate scientific councils and boards across the nation and keep tabs on his and others’ work.

The dairy and meat industries wanted to stay ahead of the “competition” (the researchers). They wanted to know what scientists were discovering that might hurt their profits so they could market their own versions of the research.

This might be a smart (if unethical) business move, but it increases the confusion around nutrition research and hurts consumers looking for the truth.

Example #1: The Orange Industry

The orange industry is a powerful industry in the U.S. and provides a good...

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Problem #3: Although government funding bodies devote billions of dollars to research on health topics, they rarely fund nutrition research.

Example, Problem #1: The Government’s Ties with Industry

As we’ll see in this example, the problems discussed in the chapters on science and industry also apply to the government. When the lines between the three start to blur, the public suffers.

The government’s Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee writes the reports that provide the foundation for government dietary recommendations. In 2015, the committee established relatively conservative recommendations.

Committee members looked at the scientific evidence and concluded that the healthiest diets were ones high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy and low in red meat, processed meat, refined grains, and sugar-sweetened foods. They also determined that healthy diets were higher in plant foods and lower in animal foods.

While these recommendations may not sound too controversial, 30 Republican senators and 71 Republican representatives in the House tried to block the report’s publication. They said that the committee’s findings regarding...

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Consequently, many doctors prescribe meal-replacement shakes for diabetics, milk for patients with osteoporosis, and high-fat, high-meat diets for people who want to lose weight. They don’t have the training to know better. There’s also little knowledge among doctors that diseases are reversible.

Problem #5: Traditionally, drug companies paid many of the expenses of medical schools, including education and research.

Although there’s evidence that direct marketing from drug companies in medical schools is decreasing, there are still many doctors who learned from pharmaceutical reps at their schools that there’s a pill for every problem.

Drug companies may influence medical students and schools by:

• Giving students free gifts like paid entertainment and travel expenses.
• Sponsoring “lectures” that are actually advertisements for the company’s products.
• Designing the research conducted in medical schools and retaining the power to bury results they don’t like.
• Using PR firms to write scientific articles, then attaching the names of willing students and doctors.
• Providing the majority of the revenue of medical journals, which depend financially on...

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While employees are vulnerable to the wishes of the administration, these administrators are in turn vulnerable to the wishes of corporations, who pay an increasingly large percentage of universities’ research costs (65% in 2006). If researchers use unconventional methods or explore unconventional topics, they don’t get funding.

Most academics are blameless slaves to this system, but the few who take advantage of it for self-interested reasons and serve corporations rather than the public make it even harder for their colleagues to speak out. Those who happily cooperate with industries may end up with more powerful positions in the university, perpetuating the cycle.

Example: Cornell and Limits to Academic Freedom

Campbell has seen free speech decline firsthand at Cornell, where he spent 40 years of his academic career.

Campbell co-founded Cornell’s toxicology program, which for years was a star of the Division of Nutritional Sciences. Cornell’s communications department spent considerable energy relaying the program’s findings to the media, and articles about Campbell’s research appeared in many popular publications.

**But support from...

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Reason #9: Vegetarianism is less taboo than 20 or 30 years ago, and vegetarian restaurants are popping up all over the country, even beyond big cities. Also, many “traditional” restaurants now include plant-based offerings.

Reason #10: The medical community is slowly becoming more receptive to getting training in nutrition. In recent years, Campbell has given about 200 lectures at medical schools and conferences.

Making dietary changes, especially ones so counter to how our culture tells us to eat, is hard. But as the public becomes aware of how the food and drug industry influences what lands on our plates and as doctors come to view food as a valid treatment option, these changes will feel not only natural but obvious. We may be able to remain an affluent country while defeating our diseases of affluence.