I’m going to keep this EXTREMELY brief, and very simplified. If it’s too simplified for people’s liking let me know, but I don’t want to bog people down with information. Comment with thoughts, suggestions, other studies you’d like to know about, or more areas to read about the china study.
What is The China Study?
When discussing an all meat diet, I’ve heard The China Study brought up numerous times. I wouldn’t say all of the science in it is bad, but the author makes conclusions you can’t make, generalizes, and leads readers to the WRONG conclusion.
The China Study: Revised and Expanded Edition: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health
Where did it go wrong?
- Campbell links “animal protein” to cancer and autoimmune disorder’s. The studies in the book linking “animal protein” to disease, are done based on casein (a protein in cow’s milk). He generalizes and instead of being clear “casein causes…..” he writes that “animal protein causes….” This is wrong. Casein and meat are NOT the same AT ALL. He discusses casein causing Type 1 diabetes but doesn’t talk about gluten’s role in Type 1 diabetes, or fructose’s role in insulin resistance, or sugars role for that matter. The main mistake he makes, that caused God knows how much suffering, is lumping casein and meat together.
- Campbell doesn’t look into carb consumption or sugar consumption. He omitted information in order to get the result he wanted. This book could easily have been just as popular if he didn’t omit key information, and was specific that he was talking about casein (not animal protein in general).
- He suggests limiting cholesterol food to ZERO. We’re slowly finding out that cholesterol actually isn’t bad for you, and suggesting people eat zero of it is ridiculous. We need cholesterol to form our steroid hormones, process vitamin D, and form cell membranes.
Where did it go right?
Casein is linked to cancer and autoimmune disorders. I suggest avoiding dairy almost as much as I suggest avoiding gluten. But lumping dairy in with meat is a huge mistake. They are not the same.
What we can take away from it:
Be careful what you read. Most studies on diet are done badly and lead people to the wrong conclusions. Casein (dairy) should be avoided.
Further reading on The China Study:
Chris Kresser wrote a blog post about it, and it’s really worth reading. It covers way more than this oversimplified post.
Some readers have mentioned Michael Greger and nutritionfacts.org. This is one of the (many) reasons I think that doctor is a crook. He’s looking for anything that supports what he believes instead of looking for the truth. Compare what he writes to what Chris Kresser writes about The China Study and see for yourself. He lists The China Study as some of the evidence of plant-based diet without actually looking into the science behind it.
I couldn’t find any scientific studies that actually show a causal effect of dairy protein on cancers, (lots of scare mongering assumptions that profit from the generation of fear of certain foods (orthorexia), but no hard evidence cited) but I did find this summary of how milk can lower cancer risk. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1541-4337.12011
China Study was the largest which has ever been performed.
It showed a clear pattern of Cancer rates and types of cancer, based on the diet of the people.
The dozens of cities and districts tested had a clear and provable pattern. It is likely the best Scientific Data ever recorded.
You are either not sincere, or did not read the study. Otherwise, you would not make such statements.
– Read the study and make up your own mind –
Here’s a summary that shows an association of dairy and cancer in prostate but not other cancers, from nutrition journal https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12937-016-0210-9#Abs1
China Study was the largest which has ever been performed.
It showed a clear pattern of Cancer rates and types of cancer, based on the diet of the people.
The dozens of cities and districts tested had a clear and provable pattern. It is likely the best Scientific Data ever recorded.
You are either not sincere, or did not read the study. Otherwise, you would not make such statements.
– Read the study and make up your own mind –
Ni Mike.
So what do you think about conflating casein protein with animal protein? (You did read Mikhaila’s post, didn’t you?) Do you think that substituting animal protein for casein protein in the China Study is useful?
Here’s a summary that shows an association of dairy and cancer in prostate but not other cancers, from nutrition journal
Dairy products intake and cancer mortality risk: a meta-analysis of 11 population-based cohort studies
Wei Lu†, Hanwen Chen†, Yuequn Niu, Han Wu, Dajing XiaEmail author and Yihua WuEmail author
†Contributed equally
Nutrition Journal201615:91
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12937-016-0210-9© The Author(s). 2016
Received: 20 May 2016Accepted: 12 October 2016Published: 21 October 2016
Ms Peterson. I think you oversimplify the thesis of Doctor Campbell. First he goes beyond just linking animal protein to casein. He explains that Animal protein is an (efficient) protein. That is that it is very competent and potent in being a building block for cell replication. To the contrary, vegetable protein is not that efficient. There is a reason why body builders and athletes use animal protein like whey and creatine to repair muscle. It is highly efficient.
When you introduce a carcinogen into the body, you introduce a sort of virus that starts to help replicate bad cell or over replicates. That same animal protein that’s so efficient in building positive healthy cells is not discriminatory and in this regard neither is the vegetable protein. But it’s the animal protein that will speed up the cancer growth rate.
As far as mentioning Michael Gregor being a quack that’s unfortunate. You should consider his awesome work, and if you’re still a meat eating enthusiast, that’s fine. You mentioned auto immune diseases that you and Dr Peterson share, and he had an interesting video on yeast and it’s role in Celiac, Hidradentitis Suppurative and Arthritis. Check it out! ‘
Hi Juan Dominguez
I think we all need to understand how our bodies work, and what they need to work optimally, rather than becoming emotionally committed to one point of view from an ‘expert’. I invite us to explore biochemistry, even quantum biology, in order to improve our understanding of what our bodies need. This can be quite difficult if one comes across information that appears to contradict our beliefs, and we have to make a decision then whether to be open to new information, or not. My point of view is that being open to new information increases my understanding, and a better understanding is a better life.
Looks like eggs are indeed toxic according to IgG tests, for most people at least… I haven’t heard of a person who those test and eggs did not show up.
I tiny proportion of the population is lactose intolerant, most of them are self-diagnoses. Cheese, cream and butter have been unfairly demonised.
Our bodies are our labs, by trying different foods we can see how we feel and how the body responds to it.
I suffered from sinusitis for years until I started a LCHF diet and in 10 days all symptoms vanished. And the diet was/is high in cheese, cream and butter.
75% of the Earth is a small amount?
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/04/03/over-75-of-earths-population-is-lactose-intolerant-for-a-reason-dairy-is-harmful/
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