Book Review: A Review of The China Study

by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II (Benbella, 2006)

—by Steve Anthony

In the early 1970s Frances Moore Lappe’s Diet for a Small Planet challenged the “sacred cows” of prevailing nutritional orthodoxy—that we can’t get adequate protein without regular consumption of meat and dairy products. In his landmark book, The China Study, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a renowned authority in the field of nutritional science, stands the old shibboleth completely on its head by making the case that, far from leading to good health, our high level of animal protein consumption is implicated in virtually all the major “killer” diseases in the West—from various cancers to heart disease to diabetes—as well as a number of other chronic diseases such as osteoporosis, obesity, and Alzheimer’s.

Coming from a two-quarts-of-milk-per- day farm-boy background, Campbell’s career has led him to the conviction that a plant-based diet easily provides all the nutrients we need while protecting us from a broad range of diseases. At the heart of the book is the China Study itself, which capitalized on a massive data base of mortality statistics compiled in China in the late 1970s at the behest of Chou En-Lai and known as the China Cancer Atlas.

At the time, Campbell’s lab studies on rats with induced cancer showed dramatic differences between animal and plant protein diets, the former promoting tumor development and the latter having a protective effect. With a genetically homogeneous population, a large rural population that tended to not move around, and a diet in rural areas that was still mainly plant-based, Campbell recognized in the Atlas an ideal opportunity for an epidemiological study of diet and disease.

Specially trained teams of field workers gathered data on 6500 adults across the country in an attempt to relate geographical variations in the Atlas to diet, lifestyle, and environmental factors. The resulting data produced over 8,000 statistically significant correlations.

This study is widely recognized as the “Grand Prix” of epidemiological studies related to nutrition and health and is the first to look at plant-based diets. The patterns revealed in its correlations lead to relentless and sobering conclusions: virtually every condition that fits under the rubric of “diseases of affluence” was linked to a diet based on animal protein.

Campbell also provides an extensive review of the recent scientific literature on each of these diseases and their relation to diet. To give one example, while the connection between cholesterol and heart disease is well recognised, it is not well known that eating animal protein raises cholesterol while plant protein can actually lower it more effectively than can controlling intake. The China Study provides a convincing rationale for a plant-based diet on nutritional grounds, which adds to the compelling environmental and humane arguments against animal-based diets.

It is, of course, not by accident that we persist in believing the messages we’ve all been raised on such as that cow’s milk is a proper food for anyone other than heifers or that it’s essential as a source of calcium. Campbell gives an insider’s report on the powerful influence of the meat and dairy lobbies, politics within the food and nutrition sciences, the pervasive distortion of research priorities, and the many ways misinformation is delivered to the public.

I don’t believe, however, that the central message of this book is that we all should become vegans. Those with major diseases such as heart disease, obesity, or diabetes which have been demonstrated to be controlled or even reversed by a plant-based diet, might seriously consider this option. For the rest of us, though, this book tells us that while any move away from an animal protein diet is a move toward better health (processed food excepted), the more important thing is to seek moderation in our use of meat and dairy products, limiting them to less than 10% of total calories.

The good news about a plant-based diet as advocated by Dr. Campbell (see the book review) is the opportunity it presents to venture into new gastronomic territory. I have been enjoying two vegan cookbooks: re-Fresh, by Ruth Tal, who runs the Fresh restaurants in Toronto, and the curiously titled Veganomicon, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.

Recipe: Tamarind Lentils

Recipe: Fresh Burger Mix

[A more extensive review of this book is available by contacting the reviewer: rsantho@yahoo.com]