The China Study - T Colin Campbell, GRCC Welness Forum 2007 (91 mins)

I wanted to include this video, and a summary / part transcript, to show the Science behind this way of eating.

My own background is legal and scientific, and I attach a lot of value to good science. As a legal investigator I was also trained to find the truth. I am pretty much convinced this is the truth...

If you have 90 minutes, just sit back and watch. Judge for yourself.



The Grand Rapids Community College Wellness Forum, Dr T Colin Campbell, co-author of the China Study
1 hour 31 mins

Here is a summary, with times in square brackets after the paragraphs.

START
A long introduction about his history by Sue Scharf, director of the Wellness forum http://www.wellnessforum.com/

"Our mission is to empower people to take control of their health by providing up-to-date information about how nutrition, exercise and lifestyle choices impact health, longevity and quality of life."

The book was written to promote discussion [3 mins]

Dr Campbell is on, he introduces himself and introduces some nostalgia about older presentation methods, then struggles with modern technology a little. [4 mins]

Younger days: Research project - how to grow cows efficiently. He came from a dairy farm and milked cows at age 5, meat and potatoes guy. Though great American diet was wonderful when he started Cornell. Dissertation in role of animal protein, the bedrock of USA nutrition. [6 mins]

His broad research led him to believe "Nutrition ought to be the premier medical Science of the future" [9 mins]

His projector went blank, it's probably not in presentation mode, ;) [11 mins]

Slide: "connecting dots"
Overweight, rely on drugs
Eat whatever we want, we get sick, someone will fix us [12 mins]

USA is 37th in the world on healthcare. [14 mins]

Nutrition. Poorly understood, research funding hardly exists, doctors not trained. NATIONAL POLICY IS SERIOUSLY CORRUPTED BY THE PRIVATE SECTOR. [16 mins]

Indonesia, Malnourished study in Philippines, trying to help feed malnourished children. Campbell took part, his job was to ensure they had enough protein. Kids 4 years and younger with primary liver cancer. The kids were from wealthy families with diets similar to USA. Campbell thought this was crazy. At same time, rat experiment. Rats got liver cancer. The reverse to what was expected was found. The ones with high protein got liver cancer. [18 mins]

Dr Campbell was so surprised at the results he wanted to know (1) is this true? and (2) if so, how does it work? [22 mins]

More slides - tests on animals (rats) he did. Found they could turn on and turn off early cancer lesions with protein. [23 mins]

Then experimented with longer term protein doses. Those given 5% "not enough" protein were very healthy indeed, those with lots of protein developed tumours. Animals fed 20% were dead after 2 years. [25 mins]

Other percentages were fed. We do need protein. Up to 10% was OK, but above 10% caused problems [27 mins]

When they tested soy and wheat protein at 20%, it did not have that effect. The protein they used came from cows milk (casein), 87% [28 mins]

What is going on here? At 20% Casein, "everything went to hell in a hand-basket". What was this? It was obvious that Casein can grow cancers. They are called carcinogens. [30 mins]

[SIDE COMMENT: in the UK we gave milk free to children in school, but British Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher stopped this in the 1980s for financial reasons. Just as well she did]

Dr Campbell questions his objectivity at this point because he has "baggage" from his dairy history. Wonders what to do with this information. [32 mins]

Seeking the larger context. Casein representative of animal protein? Short story, yes it is. Many searching questions. [33 mins]

At this point he had the opportunity to go to China to do a study [35 mins]

Dietary fat versus Breast Cancer rates graph. Correlation between the two. This became controversial, but on reflection it was more to do with animal food intake. [36 mins]

When people move geographically, they get the risk of the country they move to. All they did was change diet and lifestyle. [37 mins]

Map of China, Chinese government did previous cancer study on 8% of population, some cancers were common in some counties but not in others. Good data, reliable. They got funding for joint US / Chinese study. Cancer is geographically localised NOT A DISEASE OF GENES[39 mins]

Selected 165 counties. Questionnaire, took lots of blood samples. Measured what the people ate. [40 mins]

Generally, low fat diet, 3% fibre (high) we consume 10 times more animal protein than China. Their cholesterol levels were extremely low, BMI low. Basically no obesity. But the Chinese were consuming more calories!! "Bloody crazy". Thin Chinese were office workers, sedentary people. Calories in plant based diets get burned off as heat. This is why. Blood cholesterol - forget 150, the lower the better. [42 mins]

Massive amount of data, good correlation. Conclusions. Plant based diet for minimal disease risk. It shocked Dr Campbell. [45 mins]

Hard to believe that a small amount of animal food makes such a difference, but it does. Time to wake up, it is about a plant based diet, no mistake. The protein trail was more to do with animal food [46 mins]

Has nature played a trick on us? What if low animal high plant lead to heart attacks? More studies. But he actually found that the information is all around, and consistent, but we have ignored it. For example dairy promotes prostrate cancer. Milk seems to probably cause breast cancer. [48 mins]

Schematic of what we learned in China. Age at menarche is related to cancer, and this is caused by feeding rich food. Oestrogen levels soars and plunges at menopause. In china, average age of menarche was 17 or even 19 in some places. Here it is 11 [hey, maybe this is why Chinese women look so gorgeous, have lovely skin and look young, probably it's their diet that gives them their youthfulness] [50 mins]

Oestrogen levels 50% higher in western women than Chinese. Menopause at 52 for western women, 48 for Chinese, so western women have more exposure to oestrogen. This is why more breast cancer. Suggests with considerable confidence that the same thing relates to men and prostrate cancer, uterine cancer etc. [52 mins]

Osteoporosis, bone fracture rate, study in 1952 shows that higher the animal intake and the higher the calcium intake, the greater the fracture rate. Calcium and protein comes from dairy (the audience expresses surprise at these findings). [53 mins]

Doctor Esselstyn is a good friend of mine. He came from a famous medical family. Decided to test the effect of diet on heart disease, he got to a point where he thought that surgery wasn't doing it. They didn't know each other at the time, but Dr Esselstyn had chosen a diet similar to Dr Campbell's China study. [54 mins]

Slide, Dr Esselstyn's 20 year study of 18 seriously ill heart patients. Results: 18 patients were seriously ill and expected to die 29 coronary events between them. They were in bad way. 20 years later they are still alive. Shock. Diet CURES heart disease. Conference in 1991. People deny this study exists. Esselstyn still cures people when he is retired. [55 mins]

What else does a plant based diet help with / cure?
Slide:
* Multiple cancers
* Osteoporosis
* Heart disease
* Acne
* Multiple Sclerosis
* Migraine
* Type 1 / 2 diabetes
* Mental depression
* Alzheimer's disease
* Macular degeneration

[Mention of Doctor Roy Swank from Oregon medical center who conducted the above tests. [58 mins 36 secs]

People don't talk about diet. A new simplified definition of nutrition. Forget the labels and all the crap.
Slide:
NUTRITION INVOLVES THE EFFECTS OF COUNTLESS FOOD CONSTITUENTS. Who knows how many? A hundred thousand? Millions? Our bodies are marvellous machines, let our bodies decide. It creates health given the right food, and illness if you don't. [59 mins]


The nutritional effect is greater than the sum of its parts. It's like a symphony.
Slide: NUTRITION
* Involves INTEGRATED effects of COUNTLESS food products.
* Involves INFINITELY COMPLEX MECHANISMS to produce COMPREHENSIVE health.
"You don't go to a symphony to hear one person banging away on one note. That's not a symphony. But that's how we study nutrition. We might add another note, or so. But we are not looking at the symphony"
The symphony is marvellous. The integration of it all. This is why Dr. Esselstyn and other physicians have had such great results. You can take diet and do marvellous things with it, NOT THROUGH SUPPLEMENTS. Whole grains, whole veg, whole fruits. Not plant parts, like Sugar and white flour, whole foods. Don't add back salt, sugar, fat and dairy. [1 hr 0 mins]

So why is this information so invisible? I will share ideas, I have been involved in national policy. Really troubling... I get excited about the information we are working on. I KNOW it's there, and my colleagues, but it is DANGEROUS to talk about this in the current climate. They could lose funding, reputation, be kicked out of research, school... I am serious about that. But I am recently retired so... (audience murmurs). [1 hr 1 mins]

2 committees set food policy. One is the Food Nutrition Board (FNB), they get the data, set the numbers, RDA etc. Then they give this report to 2nd committee (IOM?) on food who make pretty shapes with it such as pyramids. He completely trashes the report, words like "ludicrous", "absolutely nuts" 25% of calories from candy!! When US body was deciding, Sugar industry got word and influenced the UN to raise this bar from 10% to 25%, and threatened to use "friends" in congress to withhold UN funding. BUT, the UN guy was Welsh [Hurrah] and the research institute was in Scotland, tough people there. They stood their ground at 10% max. He then shows a diet full of crap that complies with the governments recommendation and the audience laugh. The government say this is what you eat to stay disease free, no wonder people are confused. We are going nowhere with this kind of diet. [1 hr 2 mins]

IOM Funding
1. Dannon institute. Represent dairy industry. Want protein increased to justify their products.
2. International Life Sciences Institute. Fancy name, but this is the coalition of soft drinks companies. Coca cola, Pepsi etc. They want to get Sugar up there.
The first two - almost seems as if they want to promote sickness, then the next can put out the drugs to make us well:
3. Corporate Donor's Fund (bunch of food and drug companies)
4. Roche vitamins Inc.
5. Mead Johnson Nutrition Group.
6. M&MRs??
7. Academic people, who he calls charlatans
This is where the problem is. The committees are put together by someone in Academia (charlatan) who is a consultant to industry, and there is financial interest, not the interests of health. The individuals are generally honest and hard working, but the system is at fault, and just a few individuals, these charlatans. This is why much of the information we get is confusing, troubling, and damaging, because of the way policy is set. [1 hr 9 mins]

We have detailed some of this in THE CHINA STUDY (his book). His son Tom helped him write it. Based on first hand evidence and his personal experience. And now he wants to write another book that is more provocative, because he's not sure the China Study is going to do the job. [1hr 11 mins]

Thank you, lecture ends [1hr 12 mins]

Questions

Audience member 1 (male):
Q. Curious to know what you think about metabolic typing for diets, suited to individuals.
A. There are differences, some people will benefit greatly by a plant based diet. But the important part is that this diet will suit everyone, and no one will get worse, they will only get better. In my opinion metabolic typing was simply a way to sell more products. [1 hr 16 mins]

Audience member 2 (male):
Q. What is the optimum level of cholesterol? Dr Esselstyn says no heart attacks at all below 150. Some say 225.
A. Agree with Dr Esselstyn generally, but a caveat, cholesterol alone is a crude estimate of heart attack. It depends on individuals. Need to look at total cholesterol ratio to HDL, or LDL to HDL, or other things, eg antioxidants etc. [1 hr 16 mins]

Audience member 3: (male - barely audible - no mic)
A. The greatest sin in biological research, in my view, is that the redemption of Science works. It doesn't. That's the stuff of the drugs industry. [1 hr 18 mins]

Audience member 4 (male):
Q. I was fascinated by what you said about Philippine children. But why is our child cancer rate significantly less than the Philippines if our children consume more animal protein?
A. I did not have time to tell you the full story, but liver cancer is also linked to hepatitis B and C. Liver cancer starts with a gene aberration, maybe from a chemical or the hepatitis. From there on it is a nutritional disease. China has 12-13% infected, here it's between 0.1% and 0.3%. Full stats are in my more recent research. Thank god the Philippine children don't consume much protein. We were not aware of this infection rate difference or its significance when we did the China Study [1 hr 19 mins]

Audience member 5 (female):
Q. If you were drafting the wellness policy for a public school, what would you put in?
A. Firstly, I would ask the government to take control of the school lunch program away from the USDA. We are feeding our kids on compensated food. Secondly I would insist that schools do not have to offer the dairy option, which is currently a requirement. Locally everyone believes drinking milk is good, and kids are made to drink it. Thirdly I would alter the program to be like what Antinia Demas did when she went to 300 schools and showed them how to cook with plants, and they went home and demonstrated it to parents, then they ate this way [1 hr 22 mins]

Audience member 6 (male):
Q. What about organic meat, is this safer?
A. I wish we had the answer to this. Probably grass fed beef would be safer. Less fat on grazing cows. How much to the junk and how much to the protein? We have looked at the composition of wild game and found it to be quite different, and it would appear to indicate there would be less problems.
(barely audible) any studies?
Maybe, but we don't know of them. But there are still lots of problems with this type of food, eg no fibre etc.
(barely audible) what was the meat like in China?
Primary was pork and chicken. Chinese kept their own cows and chickens but were reserved for feasts.
(barely audible) organic
Yes I think so. [1 hr 25 mins]

Audience member 7 (male):
Q. Breast Cancer question. I am from Marin County California which has a high Breast Cancer rate, but they also eat very healthily.
A. I just lectured there, their views are similar to Nassau, in Suffolk County Long Island. Namely that the increase is only 10, 20 or 30%, whereas in china it is 5000% less. So I think the differences we see are not enough to be of statistical significance, they are just a quirk. Also, some counties tend to consume richer food. That's enough to account for that kind of increase [1 hr 29 mins]

Sue Scharf: Thank you
Applause
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