The China Study

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The China Study (ISBN 1-932100-38-5) is a book by T. Colin Campbell and his son, Thomas M. Campbell II, that was published in 2005.

The book examines the relationship between the consumption of animal products and diseases such as cancer, diabetes, coronary heart disease, and others related to the bones, kidneys, and eyes. The "China study" referred to in the title is the China Project, a "survey of death rates for twelve different kinds of cancer for more than 2,400 counties and 880 million (96%) of their citizens" conducted jointly by Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine over the course of twenty years.

Notwithstanding the title, the authors do not exactly present the findings of a single study conducted in China. Rather, they introduce a large number of previous but less-exhaustive scientific studies which have correlated animal-based diets with disease. Interleaving the findings of the China Study with an analysis of the previous scientific literature in this way, the authors provide a comprehensive historical context and show how the China Study findings are not only consistent with a wide range of peer-reviewed scientific studies but provide more conclusive support for the view that both animal fat and animal protein (such as casein in bovine milk) are strongly linked to diseases such as heart disease, cancer and Type 1 diabetes. They also critically examine past studies which have found no apparent link. A notable feature of the book is that the authors describe the likely nutritional mechanisms through which animal-based diets can promote disease, as in the case of Type 1 diabetes.

The authors are at pains to warn readers that their findings are certain to be controversial because they stand to impact the interests of many in the meat and dairy industries as well as the medical community.

The book advocates a whole foods, plant-based diet (a type of vegan diet which also restricts refined carbohydrates and highly processed foods) as a means to minimize and/or reverse the development of chronic disease.

External links

• The China Study (Authorized Website)
• China-Cornell-Oxford Project
• The China Study
• The China Study: Critical Book Review (The Weston A. Price Foundation)