Dr. Colin Campbell caused a stir with publication of his 2005 book, The China Study. Dr. Campbell, after extensive animal and epidemiologic research conducted in China over 20 years, concluded that a diet high in animal protein, especially casein, was associated with increased cancer, osteoporosis, and heart disease risk.
Richard Nikoley of Free the Animal and Stephan Guyenet of Whole Health Source have been talking about an analysis of the China Study raw data performed by a young woman named Denise Minger.
Denise’s analysis is nothing short of brilliant, absolutely “must” reading for anyone interested in nutrition.
Her comments on the relationship of wheat to heart disease:
Why does Campbell indict animal foods in cardiovascular disease (correlation of +1 for animal protein and -11 for fish protein), yet fail to mention that wheat flour has a correlation of +67 with heart attacks and coronary heart disease, and plant protein correlates at +25 with these conditions?
Speaking of wheat, why doesn’t Campbell also note the astronomical correlations wheat flour has with various diseases: +46 with cervix cancer, +54 with hypertensive heart disease, +47 with stroke, +41 with diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs, and the aforementioned +67 with myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease?
Change your life in 60 seconds
Plaque is the stuff of coronary heart disease. It is CONTROLLABLE, it is STOPPABLE, it is REVERSIBLE.
But you must be equipped with the right information on diet, nutritional supplements, and hopefully the avoidance of medication.
This is the blog that accompanies the 
Anonymous wrote: "What I'd like to know is how correlations > 1 and < -1 are being generated, since that's impossible."
Denise says right in the post that she gave the numbers in percentage rather than decimals to make it easier to read. I.E. +33 = 33% = .33
Martin,
The way Dr. Davis tested einkorn and wheat currently generally available in usa (http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/in-search-of-wheat-einkorn-and-blood.html) is probably is what brings real value to this blog.
The subhead Europe:Sourdough bread http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/06/fermented-grain-recipes-from-around.html is very close to how wheat is consumed in India. This process very likely breaksdown a large part of the offending ingredients such as gluten and phytic acid from a cursory search i did on google scholar.
I would trust a test on this process by Dr. Davis than on statistics, which as you rightly said generate ideas but need testing.
However, when Dr Davis goes on to implicate wheat in general for all sorts of diseases like in this blogpost, that applies to americans (the specific way of consuming wheat) and not necessarily to those who process grain differently like in asia.
That is the point where things get icky and can be misleading for those consuming wheat in asia and reading such posts.
Perhaps we can all come to a better way of processing grains than cutting them out from the diet altogether?
"a diet high in animal protein, especially casein"
Quickly, briefly, because my story is only tangentially related to this post by means of Dr Davis's almost stray remark I quote above…
I am ~5 weeks into my wheat free diet — to zero success. I do not measure myself daily in any way, but the obvious one: do I lose weight? Yes, but only ~5lbs, which represents 2% of my total body weight. I should have lost that amount easily within 1 week, if I were proceeding on this diet correctly.
And then the other stray remarks began to pile up:
1) The 20 year old girl with celiac disease who dropped wheat AND 20lbs in 2 months. (What about me?!)
2) The dinner at PF Changs. I ordered the chicken lettuce wraps and skip the rice noodle thingees. Good job, I thought. Then I lingered over the menu, saw the restaurant offers an entire page of gluten free items, and the dish I just ordered was not one of them. I called for the waiter. He explained the sauce…
3) I drink protein shakes. A lot. As fate would have it, I migrated to casein protein because it broke down more slowly thus causing satiety to last longer. Until I read this post from Dr Davis with his stray remark, did my homework, and discovered to my chagrin that on a cellular level casein protein is so similar to gluten that it might as well be the same. (In essence.)
Okay, lesson learned. This gluten free, wheat free, grain free, carb free diet is not as easy as it looks at first glance. There is way more to it than skipping bread, and pasta, etc. But now I think I have it. So Sunday is Day 1. Shame I lost those first 4 or 5 weeks, but this time…
It may be true that wheat is a major cause of heart disease, but I'm not sure the high correspondence between wheat and cvd in this study makes that case. Richard Peto, the Oxford professor of epidemiology who was part of the original study said what the data showed was that in places where people started adopting more of a western diet their health deteriorated. I doubt the study spells out which parts of the western diet did the harm, wheat might be a marker for western diet.
People feel threatened when facts are released that go against the standard, cultural beliefs. We are raised as children to eat animals and animal secretions and so it is understandable why so many people feel threatened when they find out that the food mama gave them is helping to promote heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases, digestive disorders, etc. The China Study is the longest, most unbiased studies ever conducted and show statistically significant results, worldwide, that ingesting animal foods create chronic ill heath in humans. I have helped 400 people in the last 4 years to eat a healthy, low fat, plant based diet and they have all rid themselves of the diseases listed above. Now, I have also some Kaiser doctors who, instead of handing pills or surgery, are handing out this book and getting the same results. Thank you Dr. T. Colin Campbell for your 35 year long work. And, I know that you went into this study trying to prove the opposite results!
When people hear that their upbringing needs to be challenge, they lash out with untruths….just as yound, 23 yr old Mindy has done.
People feel threatened when facts are released that go against the standard, cultural beliefs. We are raised as children to eat animals and animal secretions and so it is understandable why so many people feel threatened when they find out that the food mama gave them is helping to promote heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases, digestive disorders, etc. The China Study is the longest, most unbiased studies ever conducted and show statistically significant results, worldwide, that ingesting animal foods create chronic ill heath in humans. I have helped 400 people in the last 4 years to eat a healthy, low fat, plant based diet and they have all rid themselves of the diseases listed above. Now, I have also some Kaiser doctors who, instead of handing pills or surgery, are handing out this book and getting the same results. Thank you Dr. T. Colin Campbell for your 35 year long work. And, I know that you went into this study trying to prove the opposite results!
When people hear that their upbringing needs to be challenge, they lash out with untruths….just as yound, 23 yr old Mindy has done.
To David M Gordon – how much of the lettuce wraps did you eat. PF Changs has nutritional info on the website and says this dish has 4 servings of 5oz. Each serving is 11 carbs so if you ate the whole thing yourself, that was 44 carbs.
It is very easy to underestimate carb counts. I have found a scale can be very useful. Mine measures carbs and other stuff.
That little dish is 4 servings? C'mon! You bet, I bet I ate the whole thing, Anne.
What is in it that weighs so much? Some iceberg lettuce leaves, chicken, the rice noodle thingees I did without, and the sauce — which is NOT gluten free, but I changed to a gluten free sauce. I bet that swap changes the calorie count etc. (Hey, I can hope!
Sure I want to lose weight — okay, I must lose weight — but my issue is visceral fat and its resulting potential problems: diabetes and heart issues (inflammation).
Thank you for your comments.
Instead of driving yourself with all these numbers why not just look for visable proof in REAL people. I decided to try plant based eating and here is what happened: (the numbers have actually gotten better since this was published last October) Why I'm a believer in Dr. Campbell's advice:
http://www.drmcdougall.com/stars/mike_teehan.htm
Instead of driving yourself with all these numbers why not just look for visable proof in REAL people. I decided to try plant based eating and here is what happened: (the numbers have actually gotten better since this was published last October) Why I'm a believer in Dr. Campbell's advice:
http://www.drmcdougall.com/stars/mike_teehan.htm
Mike, good for you. See this:
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ketones-and-ketosis/low-carb-gaining-a-foothold-with-the-mainstream/
If Campbell is right that a plant-based diet is best for most humans, why did the low carb group do better than the other two groups (Ornish and LEARN diets) in the intervention study above? Not only did the low carb group do better in weight loss, they did better in all things measured.
Denise Minger wrote:
"Here we have evidence that areas in China with the highest rates of Western-type diseases also eat the most processed starch and sugar. Maybe not in the grotesque amounts that Americans eat them, but then again, China’s “affluent disease” rates were also lower than America’s"
This could easily be the headline "Minger accuses Americans of grotesque eating habits"
Debate is good but be healthy, not paranoid
Trevor
How can anyone tell anyone else what to eat? We all NEED plants to survive. However, some do better with wheat in their diet and some do better with meat in their diet. It all depends on the person. I wouldn't go bashing The China Study until you try the whole foods plant-based diet. Dr. Campbell also stresses that nutrition is NOT about a single nutrient or food group. It's all about the synergy of everything working together. I would love to see Denise's analysis of the aflatoxin rat studies. Everyone needs to take control of their own health. No one should rely solely on the china study as what they should do. I personally believe in what the china study is saying, but it might not work for everyone – especially when people are raised to eat animal protein. I know I have issues with animal protein, but others might be able to tolerate it. Don't go bashing Dr. Campbell for trying to help people.
Dr. Bill Misner Ph.D. said:
The BMI body mass index of rural Chinese is 21.0 supported by a daily calorie intake of over 2600k/cal/day from largely plant foods.
Americans on the other hand consume largely animal sourced foods of 1989 calories per day resulting in an obese BMI of over 27.0! All one has to do is compare the source of total calories with resulting BMI.
Eating 2600 calories whole plant foods that contribute to a lean healthy BMI of 21.0 is preferred to eating 1989 calories from largely animal sources resulting in an obese 27.0 BMI.
Elevated Body Mass Index associated with food category choice are also associated with the typical disease patterns in obese persons. The China Study shows these numerical correlations precisely.
I confirm the report that overweight exists more in cultures consuming largely animal source calories than in those whose diet is primarily whole plant foods.
Interestingly, I have observed all of the above in Americans who change their menu from animal source to whole plant source food protocols.
Warm regards,
Bill Misner Ph.D.
"I would love to see Denise's analysis of the aflatoxin rat studies."
You can read an excellent analysis HERE. In a nutshell, what those rat studies prove is that complete protein provides better nourishment than incomplete protein. Wheat is naturally deficient in lysine, and when lysine was added to the wheat protein diet, it behaved just like the casein.
Cancers are very fast growing cells, so of course they're going to grow a whole lot better if they're better nourished. I'd wager that if the rats had been fed a complete vegetable protein blend, e.g. rice and pea protein in the correct ratio, the tumor growth would have matched both the casein and wheat plus lysine.
Really trustworthy blog. Please keep updating with great posts like this one. I have booked marked your site and am about to email it to a few friends of mine that I know would enjoy reading
Sesli sohbet Sesli chat
Seslisohbet Seslichat
Sesli sohbet siteleri Sesli chat siteleri
Sesli Chat
Sohbet Sesli siteler
Sohbet siteleri Chat siteleri
Sohbet merkezi chat merkezi
Sesli merkezi sesli Sohbet merkezi
Sesli chat merkezi Sohbetmerkezi
Sesli Sohbet Sesli Chat
SesliSohbet Sesli chat siteleri
Sesli sohbet siteleri SesliChat
Sesli Sesli siteler
Seslimuhabbet sesli muhabbet
sesli sohbet sesli chat siteleri
sesli sohbet siteleri sesli chat
seslisohbet seslichat
seslikent sesli kent
sesli sohbet sesli sohbet siteleri
sesli chat sesli chat siteleri
seslisohbet seslichat
Friends,
You don’t need to believe Dr. Campbell. Just read The China Study, slowly and completely, and figure out the truth for yourself. Facts speak for themselves.
I, and a few of my acquaintances, tried a whole-foods plant-based diet (coupled with biweekly exposure to sunlight in noon and some physical activity) for a few months (strict compliance), and it is working wonders for us, so we continue to be on it. Some of my friends failed, because they were mostly eating junk (plant-based) foods.
The China Study book is not just about Dr. Campbell’s work, but more than that it describes the work and results of numerous other research studies, independent and unbiased, that point to the undeniable benefits of a whole-foods plant-based diet.
Denise has adopted a detailed but very narrow view that is insufficient to relate to the larger context. This approach will only add to confusion and misleading conclusions.
As a physician with the health of your patients at stake, Would you accept conclusions that were not peer reviewed?
Wonderful post… Very informational and educational as usual!
Acai Berry Optimum