The China Study
Monday, January 25, 2010 11:16 a.m.
If you wish us also to contemplate a city that is suffering from inflammation … we shall also need great quantities of all kinds of cattle for those who may wish to eat them, shall we not?
Then shall we not experience the need of medical men also to a much greater extent under this than the former régime? … when dissoluteness and disease abound in a city, are not law courts and surgeries opened in abundance, and do not Law and Physic begin to hold their heads high, when numbers even of well-born persons devote themselves with eagerness to these professions?
- Plato
Above, Socrates lays out a path of destruction for humankind, placing the blame for the poor health of society squarely on the head of a meat centric diet. 2,500 years later, in his book The China Study, T. Colin Campbell, PhD, rehashes that old argument, advocating a whole foods, plant based diet to alleviate the ills of our modern world. And our western world is clearly ill. Obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart and auto-imune diseases abound. More and more of our paycheck is devoted towards health care, and yet we do not seem to be getting any healthier. His book makes some substancial claims that I think we should take to heart.
For one, the triumph of health rests not in the individual nutrients but in the whole foods that contain those nutrients. The reductionist approach that an overwhelming majority of our scientists take, only seeks to line the pockets of those marketing us drugs and specialized foods. Instead he says we should be eating whole foods. Fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes. And that the same diet that prevents disease in the healthy, should also heal those who have succumbed.
Furthermore, he suggests that what you eat far outweighs the genetic and environmental factors when it comes to the most prevalent diseases we face. He cites several large studies backing the claim that when we get too much protein, particularly when that protein comes from animal sources, cancer is promoted. He goes on to make similar claims for many of the other diseases of affluence, again coming down hard on a meat based diet.
Of particular interest was section on the role Vitamin D plays in our body, and the control it has on the development of disease. Itself suffering from a bit of misnomer, Vitamin D is in actuality a hormone which we can produce ourselves, given enough skin exposure to sunlight. There seems to be an alarmingly strong correlation between distance from the equator and some pretty devastating diseases, including, but not limited to, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, and several forms of cancer. The further north (or, south) you head, the more prevalent this diseases become. Dr. Campbell suggests that by acidifying the blood, animal protein significantly decreases the body’s stores of Vitamin D. I would strongly recommend people be tested for levels of Vitamin D and, especially in the winter, supplement where necessary. Also, don’t be afraid of the sun. Its painful to see people lathering up with UV blocking suntan lotions and constantly wearing sunglasses, thinking they are doing themselves a favor by limiting their exposure to what we’ve been told is a cancer causing sun. Nothing can be further from the truth. Well, burning your skin is certainly bad, but it seems avoiding the sun altogether can be equally disastrous. Like all things, in moderation is best.
I didn’t find all his arguments overly convincing but I do think that the book was worth the read.
