Why is the China Study important for me?
This is study that gives us scientific information on which foods are healthy to eat and which are not. It does so by means of a well designed scientific study done on large number of people over many decades.
It is the most comprehensive study on diet, lifestyle and disease ever done with humans in the history of biomedical research. This study was jointly arranged by Cornell University, Oxford University, and Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine.
What is the main finding of the China Study?
People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease. People who ate the most plant based food were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.
This study is very important for those who suffer from chronic diseases. It also points to the danger of excessive animal protien in our diet.
Another significant finding of the study is that diet and health are closely correlated and that food can and should be viewed as medicine.
What are the most extraordinary claims in the book called The China Study?
Change to a plant based diet can reverse or suspend heart disease, cancer, and MS.
Most Diabetics can get off insulin by changing diet.
Countries with least amount of dairy consumption have the least incidence of osteoporosis.
Why China?
This study sought to take advantage of vastly different eating habits and lifestyle in different regions of China and yet remaining within a population pool that is substantially genitically similar.
Nowhere else could researchers afford to hire hundreds of trained workers to collect blood and urine samples and spend three days in each household gathering exact information on what and how much people eat, then analyzing the food samples for nutrient content. The total cost in U.S. dollars of this project – $2.3 million plus 600 person-years of labor contributed by the Chinese Government – is a mere fraction of what it would have cost to do the same study in the West.
In 1970 China undertook a phenomenal survey of death rates for 12 different kinds of cancer for more than 880 Million Chinese. The survey involved 650,000 workers who spread throughout the country to get the information. The result of the survey showed that cancer rates were 100 times higher is some regions than other regions. Why was the difference so large? To answer this question the “China Study” was launched.
When was it started and how many people participated?
The study was started in 1983 with 6500 Chinese in different regions of China being selected to be part of the study. The China Study is so large and comprehensive that it will continue to generate findings over the next 40 to 50 years. But what it has already found is quite significant and is subject of the book “The China Study” by T. Colin Campbell.
Is the study any good?
Dr. Mark Hegsted, emeritus professor of nutrition at Harvard University and former administrator of human nutrition for the United States Department of Agriculture, said: ”This is a very, very important study – unique and well done. Even if you could pay for it, you couldn’t do this study in the United States because the population is too homogeneous. You get a lot more meaningful data when the differences in diet and disease are as great as they are in the various parts of China.”
Who are the people behind the China Study?
The leading force behind the China Study is T. Colin Campbell. He is a leading Cornell University scientist with large number of published papers in leading peer-reviewed scientific publications. He specializes in the study of cancer and its links with nutrition. The China Study was done with a world class team and besides T. Colin Campbell, it consisted of Dr. Chen who was the deputy director of the most significant government diet and health research laboratory of China. In addition there was Dr. Junyao Li, one of the original authors of the cancer survey done in 1970 of 850 Million Chinese. The final member of the team was Professor Sir Richard Peto of Oxford University. He is considered as one of the worlds leading epidemiologists in the world who has been knighted and given many awards for cancer research.
Where can I find out more about this?
T. Collin Campbell Talk with Roberta Russell.
Nutrition advice from The China Study- A NY Times article.
Credits:This has been written by Raj Shah and edited by Ketna Shah.