The China Study: Connecting Nutrition and Disease
An Interview with Dr. T. Colin Campbell by Barbara Ferguson Kennedy

“The United States is in the midst of a medical crisis. It has the highest per capita health care cost in any country in the world, but ranks number 37 in terms of quality of health care. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and more than 15 million Americans have diabetes. Half of all Americans have a health problem that requires taking a prescription drug every week, and more than 100 million Americans have high cholesterol.”

Dr. Campbell

T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., is the Project Director of the China Study and Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University. He has spent 30 years examining how nutrition is corrupted by special interests and industries and largely ignored by the health establishment, despite the fact that proper nutrition can, he says, correct many troubling health trends.

Dr. Campbell, with his son Thomas, is the author of the recently published book The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health. The New York Times called the study the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology,” and the “most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease.” 

In The China Study, Dr. Campbell details the connection between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, and also its ability to reduce or reverse the risk or effects of these deadly illnesses. His book also examines the source of nutritional confusion produced by powerful lobbies, government entities, and the food industry. 

The China Study is not a diet book. Campbell says consumers are bombarded with conflicting messages regarding health and nutrition because the market is flooded with popular fad diet books like The Atkins Diet and The South Beach Diet. 

Instead, his book delivers an insightful message to anyone living with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and those concerned with the effects of aging. Additionally, he challenges the validity of these low-carb fad diets.

“After a long career in research and policy-making, I have decided to step ‘out of the system.’ I have decided to disclose why Americans are so confused,” said Campbell. “As a taxpayer who foots the bill for research and health policy in America, you deserve to know that many of the common notions you have been told about food, health and disease are wrong.”

“I propose to do nothing less than redefine what we think of as good nutrition. You need to know the truth about food, and why eating the right way can save your life.”

As a researcher with MIT and Virginia Tech, Campbell worked to promote better health. It was a sharp departure from his upbringing on a dairy farm and his time at Cornell University “to do doctoral research on how to grow cows more efficiently. Both personally and professionally, I had a typical attitude that almost everyone else has.”

Now Campbell has made a complete career reversal: Animal foods “tend to promote the initiation and progression of these serious diseases, whereas plant food tends to prevent these diseases.”

Campbell, who granted this telephone interview to Health Science during his nationwide book tour, said his interest in health and nutrition peaked while working in the Philippines to develop a program to feed malnourished children.

During this project, Campbell said he uncovered “a dark secret.” Children who ate the highest-protein diets were the ones most likely to get liver cancer. He began to review other reports from around the world that reflected the findings of his research in the Philippines.

Although it was “heretical to say that protein wasn’t healthy,” he started an in-depth study into the role of nutrition, especially protein, in the cause of cancer.

“I saw this dichotomy emerging between animal protein and plant protein- based foods,” said Campbell. “In the China Study, we surveyed a very large population across the entire country and measured many different things. We had the opportunity to compare the relative effects of animal and plant-based foods on cancer, heart disease, blood cholesterol, etc.” 

What made the China Study particularly unique, he said, “is that we focused on several things at once, such as blood, urine and food on all different kinds of diseases.”

Two major surveys were made in China in 1983 and in 1989-90, because Campbell thought cancers and various other diseases would vary with geographic localization. He said it made sense to examine these local regions to determine the responsible dietary and lifestyle factors. 

In the 1983 survey, 367 items of information were collected on how people lived and how they died in 138 rural Chinese villages; 6,500 adults and their families were surveyed. In the 1989-90 survey, more than 1,000 items of information were collected in 170 villages in rural China and Taiwan, involving 10,200 adults and their families. This new data, including a large number of socioeconomic characteristics, was combined with his new survey on causes of death for a population of 100 million (1.4 million death certificates for the years, 1986-88). Campbell has continued to gather data from these combined surveys for 20+ years.

“The results we got indicated that relatively small intakes in animal-based foods were problematic, as they tended to be associated with the kind of diseases that are common in developed countries. This was also consistent with the patterns that emerged over time in different societies when people change their native diet over to one that was rich in animal foods,” he said.

The research project, and now his book, culminates a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine regarding diseases and lifestyle factors in rural China and Taiwan. Called the China Study, the project eventually produced more than 8000 statistically significant associations between various dietary factors and disease.

The findings? “People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease. People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease,” said Campbell.

He also discovered that small amounts of animal-based foods could be harmful. “We discovered that relatively small intakes of animal food could create a negative effect. Whole, plant-based foods had the best health advantage, specifically whole-grain cereals, rice and the like, with a minimum of salt, sugar and fat, and the minimal consumption of animal- based food, which is the major message we were relayed in the study.”

Campbell regrets that his research, and similar findings by others, continues to be largely ignored by the medical community. “Cancer, heart disease, and other problems would substantially be reduced by people who know of the enormous power of plant-based food to maintain health and to prevent disease. Similar work has been done by physicians that was entirely consistent with what I found, but their work has not been widely acknowledged, and other physicians have not taken kindly to it.”

Campbell cites the example of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, a surgeon at Cleveland Clinic, a leading coronary hospital in the U.S. “He took on 18 seriously ill heart patients who, between them, had had 49 serious coronary heart problems over the previous 8 years. Those 18 people, who were not expected to live that much longer, went from 49 coronary events in that last 8 years to zero coronary events over the next 20 years.”

“Dr. Esselstyn showed that he could use a whole, plant- food diet to treat a serious disease such as heart disease, reverse it, and cure it. Most people would think that’s impossible, but that is what he did,” said Campbell, adding that his medical accomplishment gained little recognition. “Compare this to a drug that was only 1/10 as good as this dietary effect, and it would make headlines in all the national papers.”

“I’ve learned of other physicians who similarly treated patients for various types of ailments, such as rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and respiratory problems and, to some extent, cancer, diabetes, and obviously, obesity. Some of these ailments are usually fatal, others are morbid, and they cause a lot of problems. When these doctors treated their patients the same way, with a plant-based diet, they were able to cure them of their problems.”

“The results they were getting were entirely consistent with what I had found in my research,” said Campbell.
 

© Copyright 2005. All Rights Reserved. Health Science is the publication of the National Health Association. This article reprinted from the Spring 2005 issue.

FROM PERFECT HEALTH TO DEADLY CANCER
The Seven Stages of Disease
Understanding and breaking the disease cycle for vibrant health NOW!

Australians are in deep trouble. We are witnessing, right now, a total disintegration of health in the Australian populace that spans every age, economic, religious and political group. This is not a grim prediction of a future possibility; it is a present, horrific reality. Approximately 35% of our population will get cancer in their lifetime. This is a staggering 7.5 million people! Heart disease is rampant and out of control, as are diabetes, arthritis, asthma, allergies, and obesity. The state of Australians’ mental health is as bad if not worse with ever-increasing incidences of depression, schizophrenia, domestic violence and ADDH. Despite the billions of dollars pumped into our health care system, there appears to be very little progress in alleviating this tidal wave of suffering of millions of Australians. Something is terribly wrong!

What could be the possible cause? A definition of insanity that I like is: repeating the same pattern of behaviour over and over again but expecting a different outcome each time! If something is not working we need to make changes! 

I believe there is one root cause of all this suffering- IGNORANCE. Webster’s dictionary defines ignorance as: a condition of not being informed, lack of knowledge. How we lost this knowledge is a subject too vast for this article. Let’s look at reclaiming some knowledge that will be vital for our well-being.

Our starting point has to be the miracle of creation called The Human Body. This body has been created perfectly as a self-healing, self-repairing and self-maintaining organism. Its trillions of cells function in perfect harmony, twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week, week in-week out- year after year. Our body is always striving for the very highest level of health possible; always! Health is the normal, natural state of the body; disease is abnormal and unnatural. Included in this miracle of creation is a built-in mechanism that warns us when our health is in danger; much like a red warning light coming on in our car. We wouldn’t put a piece of duct-tape over the red light and drive around hoping for the best, yet this is exactly what millions of Australians do with their bodies! Let’s look at the different ways our body uses to try and get our attention in order to stop our harmful behaviour. You will be familiar with them all. A point to remember is: the more critical the problem the more intense the warning. These warnings must NOT be ignored or masked with drugs. This would allow a normal corrective procedure to become life threatening.

The Seven Stages of Disease

1. ENERVATION
Enervation is a condition in which the body is not generating enough energy for the tasks it must perform. This lack of energy impairs ALL systems of the body. The major symptoms are: fatigue, loss of appetite and poor sleep patterns. This is your body’s first warning that all is not well!

2. TOXAEMIA
This occurs when the body cannot eliminate toxins faster than they build up. These toxins accumulate in the cells, blood, lymph nodes, tissues and organs. Toxaemia is the root cause of all disease. The most noticeable warning from the body is fever. The most harmful toxins are: animal products, alcohol, tobacco, sugar and artificial sweeteners, chemicals (insecticides, pesticides, hormones, all food additives etc), medications (over-the counter, prescription (listed scheduled poisons), chemotherapy), personal body care products and a vast host of others. We are drowning in a lethal chemical cesspool!

3. IRRITATION
This stage of disease is designed to make you aware of the rising level of toxins in your body. Irritation is the sensory signal from our nervous system telling us that our cells are starting to be damaged by toxic materials. Symptoms include: itchy skin, queasiness, unease, emotional/mental irritation, anxiety, headaches, body odours, dark circles under eyes etc.
If these symptoms are ignored or suppressed, the next stage inevitably results.

4. INFLAMMATION
Inflammation is the body’s most intense effort to cleanse and restore itself. With this stage, you can no longer ignore the warning signal-PAIN! This is not an arbitrary pain; this pain has purpose. It’s the body’s way of saying,
“STOP!!!” Pain is your friend. Of course it’s not pleasant or comfortable, but that’s the whole idea. It gets your attention. We don’t need to like pain, just understand it. This is the only way we can act to stop our destructive behaviour and progressing on to the more dangerous stages of disease. Any condition ending in “itis” means, “ inflammation of.” This takes a lot of confusion out of disease. We know that tonsillitis means inflammation of the tonsils, appendicitis- inflammation of the appendix, hepatitis- inflammation of the liver, arthritis-inflammation of the joints, colitis- inflammation of the colon, etc, etc. (dermatitis, sinusitis, conjunctivitis, cystitis, bursitis, nephritis, pancreatitis.) They all mean the same thing- inflammation (pain) from accumulating toxicity. 

***IMPORTANT: Stage 4 is a pivotal point. If you take no action to correct (not suppress) the underlying cause of the pain/inflammation you will fall deeper into the disease state!

5. ULCERATION
This stage means that the body has been under assault for such a long time that staggering amounts of cells and tissue are being destroyed. This stage is often intensely painful because there are exposed nerves. Lesions and ulcers can occur inside or outside the body (stomach ulcers, leg ulcers). The body will use ulcers as an outlet for relieving extraordinary toxic build-ups.

6. INDURATION
This is the encapsulation of toxic materials (benign tumour, cyst) that threaten the body’s health. This is an intelligent way for the body to quarantine dangerous poisons in one place so that they will not spread freely throughout the body. Induration is the last stage during which the body is still in control of its cells! If the destructive practices that brought matters to this stage are allowed to continue, cells will start to “go crazy.” Their genetic encoding will become damaged due to the toxins and they will become wild and disorganised. We call this condition…

7. CANCER
This is the end point in the long evolution of disease, and if the causes that brought it about are continued, it is usually fatal. Although in the best of circumstances, with a healthy regimen, cancer can be arrested and reversed, it would take a concentrated, focused effort. The purpose of this article is to show you how to prevent this final stage from ever occurring. Even at this final stage of disease, your very, very best friend, your body, is still doing everything it can to deal with this condition.

Your body is a self-healing, self-repairing miracle of creation, which, even in our advanced technological age, is nowhere near being fully understood by modern medicine. All the parts of the body are inter-connected; none function in isolation. One organ is just as important and receives just as much healing attention as any other part, be it the breasts, prostate, heart, lungs, intestines etc. 

Throughout the first six stages of disease, the body uses discomfort to send us warnings. If the warnings are understood and corrective measures are taken, the warnings stop, the discomfort goes away, and the disease progression is stopped. If the warnings are not understood or are masked with drugs, and the individual persists in the same habits, disease is inevitable because the toxic overload has not been dealt with.

You have been given new knowledge about the seven stages of disease. Do you now understand that disease, at any stage, just doesn’t happen? WE pollute our bodies. WE ignore all the warning signals. In effect, WE CREATE OUR DISEASE! Wisdom is applying this knowledge in your daily life and reaping the rewards of life-long vibrant health. Choose to listen to your body, choose health, choose LIFE!

Gary Samer has been a leading natural health educator, writer and consultant for over 26 years and has lectured in17 countries. As part of his humanitarian work Gary offers free consultations to the public. Please contact him toll free on: 1300 665 909.

This article is for educational purposes only. It does not claim to be a diagnosis or treatment of disease. Always consult your health care professional if you experience any of the above symptoms.