The China Study: Fact or Fallacy?

Disclaimer: This blog post covers only a fraction of what’s sketchy with “The China Study.” In the years since I wrote it, I’ve added a number of additional articles expanding on this critique and covering a great deal of new material. Pop over to my Forks Over Knives review for more information on what’s wrong with the conclusions drawn from Campbell’s casein/aflatoxin research, and if you’d rather look at peer-reviewed research than the words of some random internet blogger, see my collection of scientific papers based on the China Study data that contradict the claims in Campbell’s book. I’ve also responded to Campbell’s reply to my critique with a much longer, more formal analysis than the one on this page, which you can read here.

When I first started analyzing the original China Study data, I had no intention of writing up an actual critique of Campbell’s much-lauded book. I’m a data junkie. Numbers, along with tiny strawberries and Audrey Hepburn films, please me greatly. I mainly wanted to see for myself how closely Campbell’s claims aligned with the data he drew from—if only to satisfy my own curiosity as a long-time dietary inquisitor.

But after spending a solid month and a half reading, graphing, sticky-noting, and passing out at 3 AM from studious exhaustion upon my copy of the raw China Study data, I’ve decided it’s time to voice all my criticisms. And there are many.

First, let me put out some fires before they have a chance to ignite:

  1. I don’t work for the meat or dairy industry. Nor do I have a fat-walleted roommate, best friend, parent, child, love interest, or highly prodigious cat who works for the meat or dairy industry who paid me off to debunk Campbell.
  2. Due to food sensitivities, I don’t consume dairy myself, nor do I have any personal reason to promote it as a health food.
  3. I was a vegetarian/vegan for over a decade and have nothing but respect for those who choose a plant-based diet, even though I no longer limit myself to the vegetable kingdom. My goal, with the “The China Study” analysis and elsewhere, is to figure out the truth about nutrition and health without the interference of biases and dogma. I have no agenda to promote.

As I mentioned, I’m airing my criticisms here; this won’t be a China Study love fest, or even a typical balanced review with pros and cons. Campbell actually raises a  number of points I wholeheartedly agree with—particularly in the “Why Haven’t You Heard This?” section of his book, where he exposes the reality behind Big Pharma and the science industry at large. I admire Campbell’s philosophy towards nutritional research and echo his sentiments about the dangers of scientific reductionism. However, the internet is already flooded with rave reviews of this book, and I’m not interested in adding redundant praise. My intent is to highlight the weaknesses of “The China Study” and the potential errors in Campbell’s interpretation of the original data.

(If this is your first time here, feel free to browse the earlier posts in the China Study category to get up to speed.)

On the Cornell University website (the institution that—along with Oxford University—spawned the China Project), I came across an excellent summary of Campbell’s conclusions from the data. Although this article was published a few years before “The China Study,” it distills some of the book’s points in a concise, down-n’-dirty way. In this post, I’ll be looking at these statements along with other overriding claims in “The China Study” and seeing whether they hold up under scrutiny—including an in-depth look at Campbell’s discoveries with casein.

(Disclaimer: This post is long. Very long. If either your time or your attention span is short, you can scroll down to the bottom, where I summarize the 9,000 words that follow in a less formidable manner.)

(Disclaimer 2: All correlations here are presented as the original value multiplied by 100 in order to avoid dealing with excessive decimals. Asterisked correlations indicate statistical significance, with * = p<0.05, ** = p<0.01, and *** = p<0.001. In other words, the more stars you see, the more confident we are that the trend is legit. If you’re rusty on stats, visit the meat and disease in the China Study page for a basic refresher on some math terms.)

(Disclaimer 3: The China Study files on the University of Oxford website include the results of the China Study II, which was conducted after the first China Study. It includes Taiwan and a number of additional counties on top of the original 65–and thus, more data points. The numbers I use in this critique come solely from the first China Study, as recorded in the book “Diet, Life-style and Mortality in China,” and may be different than the numbers on the website. [MUCH LATER UPDATE: shucky darns, Oxford yanked the files down—but luckily nothing really disappears from the internet! Voila, Wayback Machine!])

From Cornell University’s article:

“Even small increases in the consumption of animal-based foods was associated with increased disease risk,” Campbell told a symposium at the epidemiology congress, pointing to several statistically significant correlations from the China studies.

Alright, Mr. Campbell—I’ll hear ya out. Let’s take a look at these correlations.

Campbell Claim #1

Plasma cholesterol in the 90-170 milligrams per deciliter range is positively associated with most cancer mortality rates. Plasma cholesterol is positively associated with animal protein intake and inversely associated with plant protein intake.

No falsification here. Indeed, cholesterol in the China Project has statistically significant associations with several cancers (though not with heart disease). And indeed, plasma cholesterol correlates positively with animal protein consumption and negatively with plant protein consumption.

But there’s more to the story than that.

Notice Campbell cites a chain of three variables: Cancer associates with cholesterol, cholesterol associates with animal protein, and therefore we infer that animal protein associates with cancer. Or from another angle: Cancer associates with cholesterol, cholesterol negatively associates with plant protein, and therefore we infer plant protein protects against cancer.

But when we actually track down the direct correlation between animal protein and cancer, there is no statistically significant positive trend. None. Looking directly at animal protein intake, we have the following correlations with cancers:

Lymphoma: -18
Penis cancer: -16
Rectal cancer: -12
Bladder cancer: -9
Colorectal cancer: -8
Leukemia: -5
Nasopharyngeal: -4
Cervix cancer: -4
Colon cancer: -3
Liver cancer: -3
Oesophageal cancer: +2
Brain cancer: +5
Breast cancer: +12

Most are negative, but none even reach statistical significance. In other words, the only way Campbell could indict animal protein is by throwing a third variable—cholesterol—into the mix. If animal protein were the real cause of these diseases, Campbell should be able to cite a direct correlation between cancer and animal protein consumption, which would show that people eating more animal protein did in fact get more cancer.

But what about plant protein? Since plant protein correlates negatively with plasma cholesterol, does that mean plant protein correlates with lower cancer risk? Let’s take a look at the cancer correlations with “plant protein intake”:

Nasopharyngeal cancer: -40**
Brain cancer: -15
Liver cancer: -14
Penis cancer: -4
Lymphoma: -4
Bladder cancer: -3
Breast cancer: +1
Stomach cancer: +10
Rectal cancer: +12
Cervix cancer: +12
Colon cancer: +13
Leukemia: +15
Oesophageal cancer +18
Colorectal cancer: +19

We have one statistically significant correlation with a rare cancer not linked to diet (nasopharyngeal cancer), but we also have more positive correlations than we saw with animal protein.

In fact, when we look solely at the variable “death from all cancers,” the association with plant protein is +12. With animal protein, it’s only +3. So why is Campbell linking animal protein to cancer, yet implying plant protein is protective against it?

In addition, Campbell’s statement about cholesterol and cancer leaves out a few significant points. What he doesn’t mention is that plasma cholesterol is also associated with several non-nutritional variables known to raise cancer risk—namely schistosomiasis infection (correlation of +34*) and hepatitis B infection (correlation of +30*).

Not coincidentally, cholesterol’s strongest cancer links are with liver cancer, rectal cancer, colon cancer, and the sum of all colorectal cancers. As we saw in the posts on meat consumption and fish consumption, schistosomiasis and hepatitis B are the two biggest factors in the occurrence of these diseases. So is it higher cholesterol (by way of animal products) that causes these cancers, or is it a misleading association because areas with high cholesterol are riddled with other cancer risk factors? We can’t know for sure, but it does seem odd that Campbell never points out the latter scenario as a possibility.

Campbell Claim #2

Breast cancer is associated with dietary fat (which is associated with animal protein intake) and inversely with age at menarche (women who reach puberty at younger ages have a greater risk of breast cancer).

Campbell is correct that breast cancer negatively relates to the age of first menstruation—a correlation of -20. Not statistically significant, but given what we know about hormone exposure and breast cancer, it certainly makes sense. And there is a correlation between fat intake and breast cancer—a non-statistically-significant +18 for fat as a percentage of total calories and +22 for total lipid intake. But are there any dietary or lifestyle factors with a similar or stronger association than this? Let’s look at the correlation between breast cancer and a few other variables. Asterisked items are statistically significant:

Blood glucose level: +36**
Wine intake: +33*
Alcohol intake: +31*
Yearly fruit consumption: +25
Percentage of population working in industry: +24
Hexachlorocyclohexane in food: +24
Processed starch and sugar intake: +20
Corn intake: +20
Daily beer intake: +19
Legume intake: +17

Looks to me like breast cancer may have links with sugar and alcohol, and perhaps also with hexachlorocyclohexane and occupational hazards associated with industry work. Again, why is Campbell singling out fat from animal products when other—stronger—correlations are present?

Certainly, consuming dairy and meat from hormone-injected livestock may logically raise breast cancer risk due to increased exposure to hormones, but this isn’t grounds for generalizing all animal products as causative for this disease. Nor is a correlation of +18 for fat calories grounds for indicting fat as a breast cancer risk factor, when alcohol, processed sugar, and starch correlate even more strongly. (Animal protein itself, for the record, correlates with breast cancer at +12—which is lower than breast cancer’s correlation with light-colored vegetables, legume intake, fruit, and a number of other purportedly healthy plant foods.)

Campbell Claim #3

For those at risk for liver cancer (for example, because of chronic infection with hepatitis B virus) increasing intakes of animal-based foods and/or increasing concentrations of plasma cholesterol are associated with a higher disease risk.

Ah, here’s one that may be interesting! Even if animal products don’t cause cancer, do they spur its occurrence when other risk factors are present? That would certainly be in line with Campbell’s research on aflatoxin and rats, where the milk protein casein dramatically increased cancer rates.

So, let’s look only at the counties with the highest rates of hepatitis B infection and see what animal food consumption does there. In the China Study, one documented variable is the percentage of each county’s population testing positive for the hepatitis B surface antigen. Population averages ranged from 1% to 29%, with a mean of 13% and median of 14%. If we take only the counties that have, say, 18% or more testing positive, that leaves us with a solid pool of high-risk data points to look at.

Animal product consumption in these places ranges from a meager 6.9 grams per day to a heftier 148.1 grams per day—a wide enough range to give us a good variety of data points. Liver cancer mortality ranges from 5.51 to 59.63 people per thousand.

Let’s crunch these numbers, shall we? Here’s a chart of the data I’m using.

When we map out liver cancer mortality and animal product consumption only in areas with high rates of hepatitis B infection (18% and higher), we should see cancer rates rise as animal product consumption increases—at least, according to Campbell. That would indicate animal-based foods do encourage cancer growth. But here’s what we really get.

In these high-risk areas for liver cancer, total animal food intake has a correlation with liver cancer of… dun dun dun… +1.

That’s it. One. We rarely get a perfect statistical zero in the real world, but this is pretty doggone close to neutral. Broken up into different types of animal food rather than total consumption, we have the following correlations:

  • Meat correlates at -7 with liver cancer in high-risk counties
  • Fish correlates at +11
  • Eggs correlate at -29
  • Dairy correlates at -19

In other words, it looks like animal foods have virtually no effect—whether positive or negative—on the occurrence of liver cancer in hepatitis-B infected areas.

Campbell mentioned plasma cholesterol also associates with liver cancer, which is correct: The raw correlation is a statistically significant +37. If it’s true blood cholesterol is somehow an instigator for liver cancer in hepatitis-B-riddled populations, we’d expect to see this correlation preserved or heightened among our highest-risk counties. So let’s take a look at the same previous 19 counties with high hepatitis B occurrence, and graph their total cholesterol alongside their liver cancer rates.

In the high-risk groups, the correlation between total cholesterol and liver cancer drops from +37 to +8. Still slightly positive, but not exactly damning.

If I were Campbell, I’d look at not only animal protein and cholesterol in relation to liver cancer, but also at the many other variables that correlate positively with the disease. For instance, daily liquor intake correlates at +33*, total alcohol intake correlates at +28*, cigarette use correlates at +27*, intake of the heavy metal cadmium correlates at +38**, rapeseed oil intake correlates at +25*—so on and so forth. All are statistically significant. Why doesn’t Campbell mention these factors as possible causes of increased liver cancer in high-risk areas? And, more importantly, why doesn’t Campbell account for the fact that many of these variables occur alongside increased cholesterol and animal product consumption, making it unclear what’s causing what?

Campbell Claim #4

Cardiovascular diseases are associated with lower intakes of green vegetables and higher concentrations of apo-B (a form of so-called bad blood cholesterol) which is associated with increasing intakes of animal protein and decreasing intakes of plant protein.

Alright, we’ve got a multi-parter here. First, let’s see what the actual correlations are between cardiovascular diseases and green vegetables—an interesting connection, if it holds true. The China Study accounted for this variable in two ways: one through a diet survey that measured how many grams of green vegetables each county averaged per day, and one through a questionnaire that recorded how many times per year citizens ate green vegetables.

From the diet survey, green vegetable intake (average grams per day) has the following correlations:

Myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease: +5
Hypertensive heart disease: -4
Stroke: -8

From the questionnaire, green vegetable intake (times eaten per year) has the following correlations:

Myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease: -43**
Hypertensive heart disease: -36*
Stroke: -35*

A little odd, oui? When we look at total quantity of green vegetables consumed (in terms of weight), we’ve got only weak negative associations for two cardiovascular conditions, and a slightly positive association for heart attacks (myocardial infarction) and coronary heart disease. Nothing to write home about. But when we look at the number of times per year green vegetables are consumed, we have much stronger inverse associations with all cardiovascular diseases. Why the huge difference? Why would frequency be more protective than quantity? What accounts for this mystery?

It could be that the China Study diet survey did a poor job of tracking and estimating greens intake on a long-term basis (indeed, it was only a three-day survey, although when repeated at a later date yielded similar results for each county). But the explanation could also boil down to one word: geography.

Let me explain.

The counties in China that eat greens year-round live in a particular climate and latitude—namely, humid regions to the south.  The “Green vegetable intake, times per year” variable has a correlation of -68*** with aridity (indicating a humid climate) and a correlation of -60*** with latitude (indicating southerly placement on the ol’ map). Folks living in these regions might not eat the most green vegetables quantity-wise, but they do eat them frequently, since their growing season is nearly year-round.

In contrast, the variable “Green vegetable intake, grams per day” has a correlation of only -16 with aridity and +5 with latitude, indicating much looser associations with southern geography. The folks who eat lots of green veggies don’t necessarily live in climates with a year-round growing season, but when green vegetables are available, they eat a lot of them. That bumps up the average intake per day, even if they endure some periods where greens aren’t on the menu at all.

If green vegetables themselves were protective of heart disease, as Campbell seems to be implying, we would expect their anti-heart-disease effects to be present in both quantity of consumption and frequency of consumption. Yet the counties eating the most greens quantity-wise didn’t have any less cardiovascular disease than average. This tells us there’s probably another variable unique to the southern, humid regions in China that confers heart disease protection—but green veggies aren’t it.

Some of the hallmark variables of humid southern regions include high fish intake, low use of salt, high rice consumption (and low consumption of all other grains, especially wheat), higher meat consumption, and smaller body size (shorter height and lower weight). And as you’ll see in an upcoming post on heart disease, these southerly regions also had more intense sunlight exposure and thus more vitamin D—an important player in heart disease prevention.

(And for the record, as a green-veggie lover myself, I’m not trying to negate their health benefits—promise! I just want to offer equal skepticism to all claims, even the ones I’d prefer to be true.)

Basically, Campbell’s implication that green vegetables are associated with less cardiovascular disease is misleading. More accurately, certain geographical regions have strong correlations with cardiovascular disease (or lack thereof), and year-round green vegetable consumption is simply an indicator of geography. Since only frequency and not actual quantity of greens seems protective of heart disease and stroke, it’s safe to say that greens probably aren’t the true protective factor.

So that about covers it for greens. What about the next variable in Campbell’s claim: a “bad” form of cholesterol called apo-B?

Campbell is justified in noting the link between apolipoprotein B (apo-B) and cardiovascular disease in the China Study data, a connection widely recognized by the medical community today. These are its correlations with cardiovascular disease:

Myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease: +37**
Hypertensive heart disease: +35*
Stroke: +35*

And he’s also right about the negative association between apo-B and plant protein, which is -37*, as well as the positive association between apo-B and animal protein, which is +25* for non-fish protein and +16 for fish protein. So from a technical standpoint, Campbell’s statement (aside from the green veggie issue) is legit.

However, it’s the implications of this claim that are misleading. From what Campbell asserts, it would seem that animal products are ultimately linked to cardiovascular diseases and plant protein is ultimately protective of those diseases, and apo-B is merely a secondary indicator of this reality. But does that claim hold water? Here’s the raw data.

Correlations between animal protein and cardiovascular disease:

Myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease: +1
Hypertensive heart disease: +25
Stroke: +5

Correlations between fish protein and cardiovascular disease:

Myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease: -11
Hypertensive heart disease: -9
Stroke: -11

Correlations between plant protein and cardiovascular disease (from the China Study’s “diet survey”):

Myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease: +25
Hypertensive heart disease: -10
Stroke: -3

Correlations between plant protein and cardiovascular disease (from the China Study’s “food composite analysis”):

Myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease: +21
Hypertensive heart disease: 0
Stroke: +12

Check that out! Fish protein looks weakly protective all-around; non-fish animal protein is neutral for coronary heart disease/heart attacks and stroke but associates positively with hypertensive heart disease (related to high blood pressure); and plant protein actually correlates fairly strongly with heart attacks and coronary heart disease. (The China Study documented two variables related to plant protein: one from a lab analysis of foods eaten in each county, and one from a diet survey given to county citizens.) Surely, there is no wide division here between the protective or disease-causing effects of animal-based protein versus plant protein. If anything, fish protein looks the most protective of the bunch. No wonder Campbell had to cite a third variable in order to vilify animal products and praise plant protein: Examined directly, they’re nearly neck-and-neck.

If you’re wondering about the connection between animal protein and hypertensive heart disease, by the way, it’s actually hiked up solely by the dairy variable. Here are the individual correlations between specific animal foods and hypertensive heart disease:

Milk and dairy products intake: +30**
Egg intake: -28
Meat intake: -4
Fish intake: -14

You can read more about the connection between dairy and hypertensive heart disease in the entry on dairy in the China Study.

At any rate, Campbell accurately points out that apo-B correlates positively with cardiovascular diseases. But to imply animal protein is causative of these diseases—and green vegetables or plant protein protective of them—is dubious at best. What factors cause both apo-B and cardiovascular disease risk to increase hand-in-hand? This is the question we should be asking.

Campbell Claim #5

Colorectal cancers are consistently inversely associated with intakes of 14 different dietary fiber fractions (although only one is statistically significant). Stomach cancer is inversely associated with green vegetable intake and plasma concentrations of beta-carotene and vitamin C obtained only from plant-based foods.

This is congruous with conventional beliefs about fiber being helpful for colon health. And as a plant-nosher myself, I hope it’s true—but that’s no reason to omit this claim from critical examination. Here are all of the China Study’s fiber variables as they correlate to colorectal cancer:

Total fiber intake: -3
Total neutral detergent fiber intake: -13
Hemi-cellulose fiber intake: -10
Cellulose fiber intake: -13
Intake of lignins remaining after cutin removed: -9
Cutin intake: -14
Starch intake: -1
Pectin intake: +3
Rhamnose intake: -26*
Fucose intake: +2
Arabinose intake: -18
Xylose intake: -15
Mannose intake: -13
Galactose intake: -24

Surprise, surprise: I agree with Campbell on this one! All but two of the fiber variables have inverse associations with colorectal cancers. The first part of Campbell Claim #5 passes Denise’s BS-o-Meter test. Let us celebrate!

…But before we get too jiggy with it, I do have a nit to pick. Fiber intake also negatively correlates with schistosomiasis infection, a type of parasite. Try Googling “schistosomiasis and colorectal cancer” and you’ll get more relevant hits than you’ll ever have time to read. I’ll elaborate on this in a few paragraphs, so hang tight—but for now, I’ll just point out two things:

  1. Schistosomiasis infection is a very strong predictor for colon and rectal cancers, more so than any of the other hundreds of variables studied in the China Project (it has a correlation of +89 with colorectal cancer).
  2. The only fiber factions that don’t appear protective of colorectal cancer (pectin and fucose) also have the most neutral associations with schistosomiasis infection (+1 and -5, respectively—whereas other fiber factions had correlations ranging from -9 to -27 with schistosomiasis). In all cases, the correlation between each fiber faction and colorectal cancer parallels its correlation with schistosomiasis.

In other words: Is it the fiber itself that’s protective against colorectal cancer, or is it the fact that the counties eating the most fiber happened to also have the lowest rates of schistosomiasis? It would, I think, be wise to prune these variables apart before declaring fiber itself as protective based on the China Study data.

There is research conducted outside of the China Project suggesting fiber benefits colon health, but often that association dissolves when researchers adjust for other dietary risk factors, such as with the this pooled analysis of colorectal cancer studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Bottom line: It’s never a good idea to go looking for a specific trend just because we believe it should be there. Chains of confirmation bias are often what cause nutritional myths to emerge and persist. Fiber may be beneficial, but we shouldn’t approach the data already expecting to find this—lest we overlook other important influences.

Moving on. Now, what about the second part of this claim: Stomach cancer is inversely associated with green vegetable intake and plasma concentrations of beta-carotene and vitamin C obtained only from plant-based foods.

Is this a fair assessment? Let’s find out. Here are the correlations between stomach cancer and each of these variables.

Green vegetables, daily intake: +5
Green vegetables, times eaten per year: -35**
Plasma beta-carotene: -14
Plasma vitamin C: -13

Ah, looks like we’re facing the Green Veggie Paradox once again. The folks with year-round access to green vegetables get less stomach cancer, but the the folks who eat more green vegetables overall aren’t protected. Once again, I’ll suggest that a geographic variable specific to veggie-growing regions could be at play here.

As for beta-carotene and vitamin C concentrations in the blood, Campbell is correct in noting an inverse association with stomach cancer. However, the correlations aren’t statistically significant, nor are they very high: -14 and -13, respectively.

Campbell Claim #6

Western-type diseases, in the aggregate, are highly significantly correlated with increasing concentrations of plasma cholesterol, which are associated in turn with increasing intakes of animal-based foods.

From his book, we know Campbell defines Western-type diseases as including heart disease, diabetes, colorectal cancers, breast cancer, stomach cancer, leukemia, and liver cancer. And indeed, the variable “total cholesterol” correlates positively with many of these diseases:

Myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease: +4
Diabetes: +8
Colon cancer: +44**
Rectal cancer: +30*
Colorectal cancer: +33**
Breast cancer: +19
Stomach cancer: +17
Leukemia: +26*
Liver cancer: +37*

Perhaps surprisingly, total cholesterol has only weak associations with heart disease and diabetes—weaker, in fact, than the correlation between these conditions and plant protein intake (+25 and +12, respectively). But we’ll put that last point aside for the time being. For now, let’s focus on the diseases with statistical significance, which include all forms of colorectal cancer, leukemia, and liver cancer. (Despite classifying stomach cancer as a “Western disease,” by the way, China actually has far higher rates of this disease than any Western nation. In fact, half the people who die each year from stomach cancer live in China.)

First, let’s dive into the dark, murky chambers of the digestive tract and start with colorectal cancers. Off we go!

What Campbell overlooks about colorectal cancers and cholesterol

As I mentioned earlier, a little somethin’ called “schistosomiasis” is a profoundly strong risk factor for developing colon cancer and rectal cancer. In the China Study data, schistosomiasis correlates at +89*** with colorectal cancer mortality. Yes, 89—higher than any of the other 367 variables recorded.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a positive correlation.

It just so happens that total cholesterol also correlates with schistosomiasis infection, at a statistically significant rate of +34*:

Basically, this means that areas with higher cholesterol levels also had—for whatever reason—a higher incidence of schistosomiasis infection. It’s hard to say for sure why this is, but it’s likely that the high-cholesterol and high-schistosomiasis groups had a third variable in common, such as infected drinking water or other source of schistosomiasis exposure.

From this alone, it shouldn’t be too shocking that higher cholesterol also correlates with higher rates of colorectal cancer (+33*):

Clearly, we have three tangled-up variables to sort through: total cholesterol, colorectal cancer rates, and schistosomiasis infection. Is it really higher cholesterol that increases the risk of developing colon and rectal cancers, or is the influence of schistosomiasis deceiving us?

To figure this out, let’s look at what cholesterol and colorectal cancer rates look like only in regions with zero schistosomiasis infection. If cholesterol is a causative factor for colorectal cancers, then cancer rates should still increase as total cholesterol rises.

The above graph showcases a correlation of +13. Still positive, but not statistically significant, and a major downgrade from the original correlation of +33*. It does seem schistosomiasis inflates the correlation between cholesterol and colorectal cancers—something Campbell never takes into account. Is blood cholesterol still a risk factor? It’s possible, but we would need more data to know whether the +13 correlation persists or whether there are additional confounding variables at work. For instance, beer intake is another factor correlating significantly with both total cholesterol (+32*) and colon cancer (+40**).  If we remove the three counties that drink the most beer from of the data set above, the correlation between cholesterol and and colorectal cancer drops to -9.

See how tricky the interplay of variables can be?

What Campbell overlooks about leukemia and cholesterol

Next in our lineup of “Western diseases” is leukemia, which has a statistically significant correlation of +26* with total cholesterol. (Although the implication here is that animal product consumption raises leukemia risk, it should be noted that animal protein intake itself has a correlation of -5 with leukemia, whereas plant protein actually has a correlation of +15 with this disease. But let’s humor this claim anyway by looking solely at the role of blood cholesterol.)

If you’ll recall from the post on fish and disease in the China Study, leukemia correlates very strongly with working in industry (+53**) and inversely with working in agriculture (-53**). Although it’s possible the cause is nutritional, it’s also quite likely that an occupational hazard is to blame—such as benzene exposure, which is a major and well-known cause of leukemia in Chinese factory and refinery workers.

Lo and behold, cholesterol also correlates strongly with working in industry (+45**) and inversely with working in agriculture (-46**). If an industry-related risk factor raises leukemia rates, it could very well appear as a false correlation with cholesterol. How can we tell if this is the case?

Let’s try looking at the correlation between leukemia and cholesterol only in counties where few members of the population were employed in industry. If cholesterol itself heightens leukemia risk, our positive trend should still be in place. In the China Study data set, the range for percent of the population working in industry is 1.1% to  41.3%, so let’s try looking at the counties where the value is under 10%:

For the low-industry counties, the correlation between leukemia and total cholesterol is close to neutral—a mere +4. As you can see, this is hardly a damning trend. And in case you’re wondering if higher cholesterol could possibly spur the rates of leukemia in folks who are already at risk, this isn’t the case either: Using only counties that had 20% or more of the population working in industry, presumably the folks who had the most exposure to chemicals like benzene, the correlation between cholesterol and leukemia is a slightly protective -3.

What Campbell overlooks about liver cancer and cholesterol

I may not be vegan, but that doesn’t mean I like beating dead horses. Instead of rehashing the earlier analysis of liver cancer under Campbell Claim #3, I’ll just repeat that cholesterol does not have a significant correlation with liver cancer when you divide the data set into separate groups: areas with high hepatitis B rates an areas with low hepatitis B rates.

From page 104 of his book:

Liver cancer rates are very high in rural China, exceptionally high in some areas. Why was this? The primary culprit seemed to be chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV). …

… But there’s more. In addition to the [hepatitis B] virus being a cause of liver cancer in China, it seems that diet also plays a key role. How do we know? The blood cholesterol levels provided the main clue. Liver cancer is strongly associated with increasing blood cholesterol, and we already know that animal-based foods are responsible for increases in cholesterol.

Campbell connects some of the dots, but misses a very important one. Indeed, hepatitis B associates strongly with liver cancer. Indeed, cholesterol associates with liver cancer. But what he doesn’t mention is that cholesterol also associates with hepatitis B infection. In other words, the groups with higher cholesterol are already at greater risk of liver cancer than groups with lower cholesterol—but it’s not because of diet.

In addition to greater rates of hepatitis B infection, higher-cholesterol areas had additional risk factors for liver cancer, such beer consumption, which also inflated the trend. Despite Campbell’s claims, cholesterol itself does not appear to significantly heighten cancer rates in at-risk populations.

Given Campbell’s casein research and earlier observations about the animal-protein consuming children in the Philippines getting more liver cancer, I wonder if Campbell approached the China Study already expecting a particular outcome. In a massive data set with 8,000 statistically significant correlations, even a smidgen of confirmation bias can cause someone to find a trend that isn’t truly there.

An example of bias in “The China Study”

Body weight, associated with animal protein intake, was associated with more cancer and more coronary heart disease. It seems that being bigger, and presumably better, comes with very high costs. (Page 102)

Consuming more protein was associated with greater body size. … However, this effect was primarily attributed to plant protein, because it makes up 90% of the total Chinese protein intake. (Page 103)

Let’s read between the lines. Here we have Campbell claiming two things, a few paragraphs apart: One, that body weight is associated with more cancer and heart disease, and two, that body size in China is linked not only with a greater intake of animal protein, but also with a greater intake of plant protein. In fact, the link between body size is stronger with plant protein than with animal protein.

Yet notice how Campbell only implicates animal protein in the association between body weight, cancer, and heart disease. If he were to describe the data without bias, Campbell’s first statement would be this:

Body weight, associated with animal protein intake and plant protein intake, was associated with more cancer and more coronary heart disease.

Maybe his editor just overlooked that omission, eh? Right afterward, Campbell notes:

But the good news is this: Greater plant protein intake was closely linked to greater height and body weight. Body growth is linked to protein in general and both animal and plant proteins are effective! (Page 102)

Wait a minute. This is good news? Didn’t Campbell just say being bigger “comes with very high costs” and that it’s associated with “more cancer and coronary heart disease?” Why is body size a bad thing when it’s associated with animal protein, but a good thing when it’s associated with plant protein?

Does less animal foods equal better health?

People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease. Even relatively small intakes of animal-based food were associated with adverse effects. People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.

This oft-repeated quote from “The China Study” is compelling, but is it true? Based on the data above, it seems like an unlikely conclusion—but let’s try once more to see if it could be valid.

As an illustrative experiment, let’s look at the top five Chinese counties with the lowest animal protein consumption and compare them against the top five counties with the highest animal protein consumption. A data set of 10 won’t yield any confident conclusions, of course, and I won’t treat this as representative of the collective body of China Study data. But since animal protein consumption among the studied counties ranged from 0 grams* to almost 135 grams per day, we should see a stark contrast between the nearly-vegan regions and the ones eating considerably more animal foods. That is, assuming it’s true that “even relatively small intakes of animal-based food” yield disease.

*The county averaging zero grams per day wasn’t completely vegan, but the yearly consumption of animal foods was low enough so that the daily average appeared less than 0.01 grams.

Here are the counties I’ll be using. The first five are our near-vegans; the second five are our highest animal product consumers. From both groups, I had to exclude a top-five county due to missing data for most mortality variables (illegible documentation, according to the authors of “Diet, Life-style and Mortality in China”) and replaced it with a sixth county where animal protein consumption matched within a few hundredths of a gram.

Below are the names of each county, as well as values for their daily animal protein intake, the percentage of their total caloric intake coming from fat, and their daily intake of fiber (in case the latter two variables are also of interest).

To give you a visual idea of these quantities, 135 grams of animal protein is the equivalent of 22 medium eggs per day, 24 grams of animal protein is the equivalent of four medium eggs per day, 12 grams is two eggs, and 9 grams is one and a half eggs. Obviously, that’s quite a wide range even among the top consumers of animal foods, so the highest animal-food-eating counties (Tuoli and XIanghuang qi) may be the most important to study in contrast with the near-vegan counties.

Animal protein intake by county:

For reference, some other diet variables:

And now, mortality rates for important variables (as per 1000 people). I’ll save you my commentary and just show you the graphs, which should speak for themselves. Remember, the five left-most bars (Jiexiu through Songxian) on each graph are the near-vegan counties, and the five right-most bars (Tuoli through Wenjiang) are the highest consumers of animal products.


As you can see, the mortality rates for both groups (near-vegan and higher-animal-foods) are quite similar, with the animal food group coming out more favorably in some cases (death from all cancers, myocardial infarction, brain and neurological diseases, lymphoma, cervix cancer). This little comparison might not carry a lot of scientific clout due to its small sample size, but it does blatantly undermine Campbell’s assessment:

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.

Sins of omission

Perhaps more troubling than the distorted facts in “The China Study” are the details Campbell leaves out.

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? (None of these correlations appear to be tangled with any risk-heightening variables, either.)

Why does Campbell overlook the unique Tuoli peoples documented in the China Study, who eat twice as much animal protein as the average American (including two pounds of casein-filled dairy per day)—yet don’t exhibit higher rates of any diseases Campbell ascribes to animal foods?

Why does Campbell point out the relationship between cholesterol and colorectal cancer (+33) but not mention the much higher relationship between sea vegetables and colorectal cancer (+76)? (For any researcher, this alone should be a red flag to look for an underlying variable creating misleading correlations, which—in this case—happens to be schistosomiasis infection.)

Why does Campbell fail to mention that plant protein intake correlates positively with many of the “Western diseases” he blames cholesterol for—including +19 for colorectal cancers, +12 for cervix cancer, +15 for leukemia, +25 for myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease, +12 for diabetes, +1 for breast cancer, and +10 for stomach cancer?

Of course, these questions are largely rhetorical. Only a small segment of “The China Study” even discusses the China Study, and Campbell set out to write a publicly accessible book—not an exhaustive discussion of every correlation his research team uncovered. However, it does seem Campbell overlooked or ignored significant points when discerning the overriding nutritional themes in the China Project data.

What about casein?

Along with trends gleaned from the China Project, Campbell recounts the startling connection he found between casein (a milk protein) and cancer in his research with lab rats. In his own words, casein “proved to be so powerful in its effect that we could turn on and turn off cancer growth simply by changing the level consumed” (page 5 of “The China Study”). Protein from wheat and soy did not have this effect.

This finding is no doubt fascinating. If nothing else, it suggests a strong need for more research regarding the safety of casein supplementation in humans, especially among bodybuilders, athletes, and others who use isolated casein for muscle recovery. Unfortunately, Campbell extrapolates this research beyond its logical scope: He concludes that all forms of animal protein have similar cancer-promoting properties in humans, and we’re therefore better off as vegans. This claim rests on several unproven assumptions:

  1. The casein-cancer mechanism behaves the same way in humans as in lab rats.
  2. Casein promotes cancer not just when isolated, but also when occurring in its natural food form (in a matrix of other milk substances like whey, bioactive peptides, conjugated linoleic acid, minerals, and vitamins, some of which appear to have anti-cancer properties).
  3. There are no differences between casein and other types of animal protein that could impose different effects on cancer growth/tumorigenesis.

Campbell offers no convincing evidence that any of the above are true. We do share some metabolic similarities with rats, so for the sake of being able to entertain the possibility that #2 and #3 are valid, let’s assume that the effect of casein on rats translates cleanly to humans.

How does Campbell justify generalizing the effects of casein to all forms of animal protein? Much of it is based on a study he helped conduct: “Effect of dietary protein quality on development of aflatoxin B[1]-induced hepatic preneoplastic lesions,” published in the August 1989 edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. In this study, he and his research crew discovered that aflatoxin-exposed rats fed wheat gluten exhibited less cancer growth than rats fed the same amount of casein. But get this: When lysine (the limiting amino acid in wheat) was restored to make the gluten a complete protein, the rats had just as much cancer occurrence as the casein group. Jeepers!

Campbell thus deduced that it’s the amino acid profile itself responsible for spurring cancer growth. Because most forms of plant protein are low in one or more amino acids (called “limiting amino acids”) and animal protein is complete, Campbell concluded that animal protein, but not plant protein, must encourage cancer growth. Time to whip out the veggie burgers!

Of course, this conclusion has some gaping logical holes when applied to real life. Unless you consume nothing but animal products, you’ll be ingesting a mixed ratio of amino acids by default, since animal foods combined with plant foods still yield limiting amino acids. The rats in Campbell’s research consumed casein as their only protein source, the equivalent of someone eating zero plant protein for life. An unlikely scenario, to be sure.

Moreover, certain combinations of vegan foods (like grains and legumes) have complementary amino acid profiles, restoring each other’s limiting amino acid and resulting in protein that’s complete or nearly so. Would these food combinations also spur cancer growth? How about folks who pop a daily lysine supplement after eating wheat bread? If Campbell’s conclusions are correct, it would seem vegans could also be subject to the cancer-promoting effects of complete protein, even when eschewing all animal foods.

Also, it seems Campbell never mentions an obvious implication of a casein-cancer connection in humans: breast milk, which contains high levels of casein. Should women stop breastfeeding to reduce their children’s exposure to casein? Did nature really muck it up that much? Are children who are weaned later in life at increased risk for cancer, due to a longer exposure time the casein in their mothers’ milk? It does seem strange that casein, a substance universally consumed by young mammals, is so hazardous for health—especially since it’s designed for a time in life when the immune system is still fragile and developing.

At any rate, Campbell’s theories about plant versus animal protein and cancer are essentially speculation. Despite a single experiment with restoring lysine to wheat gluten, he hasn’t actually offered evidence that all animal protein behaves the same way as casein.

But check this out. After delineating his discovery of the link between casein and cancer, Campbell writes:

We initiated more studies using several different nutrients, including fish protein, dietary fats and the antioxidants known as cartenoids. A couple of excellent graduate students of mine, Tom O’Conner and Youping He, measured the ability of these nutrients to affect liver and pancreatic cancer. (Page 66)

So he did experiment with an animal protein besides casein! Unfortunately, Campbell never mentions what the specific results of this research were. In describing the studies he conducted with his grad students, Campbell says only that a “pattern was beginning to emerge: nutrients from animal-based foods increased tumor development while nutrients from plant-based foods decreased tumor development.” (Page 66)

I don’t know about you, but I’d sure like to see the actual data for some of this.

After a little searching, I found one of the aforementioned experiments conducted by Campbell, his grad student Tom, and two other researchers. It was published in the November 1985 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute: “Effect of dietary intake of fish oil and fish protein on the development of L-azaserine-induced preneoplastic lesions in the rat pancreas.”

(A preneoplastic lesion, by the way, is a fancy term for the growth that occurs before a tumor.)

In this study, Campbell and his team studied three groups of carcinogen-exposed rats: One fed casein plus corn oil, one fed fish protein plus corn oil, and one fed fish protein plus fish oil (from a type of high omega-3 fish called menhaden). All groups received a diet of about 20% protein and 20% fat and ate the same amount of calories.

Providing background for the study, the authors note that previous research has showed fish protein to have anti-cancer properties (emphasis mine):

Gridley et al. [n15,n16] reported on two studies in which intake of fish protein resulted in a reduced tumor yield when compared to other protein sources. Spontaneous mammary tumor development in C3H/HeJ mice was reduced. The incidence of herpes virus type 2-transformed cell-induced tumors in mice was also reduced in animals fed a fish protein diet.

Perhaps this should’ve tipped Campbell off that not all sources of animal protein spur cancer growth like casein does. For reference, the cited studies are “Modification of herpes 2-transformed cell-induced tumors in mice fed different sources of protein, fat and carbohydrate” published in the November-December 1982 issue of Cancer Letters, and “Modification of spontaneous mammary tumors in mice fed different sources of protein, fat and carbohydrate” published in the June 1983 issue of Cancer Letters.

So what were the results of Campbell’s experiment? According to the study, both the casein/corn oil and fish protein/corn oil groups had significant preneoplastic lesions. We don’t know whether to blame this on the protein or the corn oil, since—according to the researchers—“intake of corn oil has previously been shown to promote the development of L-azaserine-induced preneoplastic lesions in rats.” However, the group that ate fish protein plus fish oil exhibited something radically different:

It is immediately apparent that menhaden oil had a dramatic effect both on the development in the number and size of preneoplastic lesions. The number of AACN per cubic centimeter and the mean diameter and mean volume were significantly smaller in the F/F [fish protein and fish oil] group compared to the F/C [fish protein and corn oil] group. Furthermore, no carcinomas in situ were observed in the F/F group, whereas the F/C group had an incidence of 3 per 16 with 6 total carcinomas.

There’s some significant stuff here, so let’s break this down point by point.

One: The cancer-inducing properties of fish protein, if there are any to begin with, were neutralized by the presence of fish oil. This means that even if all animal protein behaves like casein under certain circumstances, its effect on cancer depends on what other substances accompany it. Animal protein is therefore not a universal cancer promoter; only a situational one, at best.

Two: What does “fish protein” plus “fish fat” start to resemble? Whole fish. Campbell just demonstrated that animal protein may, indeed, operate differently when consumed with its natural synergistic components.

Since there wasn’t a rat group eating casein plus fish oil, we don’t know what the effect of a dairy protein plus fish fat would have been. However, it would be interesting to have more studies looking at cancer growth in mice fed diets of casein plus milk fat. If casein loses its cancer-promoting abilities under that circumstance, as fish protein did with fish oil, then we’d have good reason to think the various factions of whole animal products might reduce any cancer-promoting properties a single component has in isolation.

And Campbell and his team conclude:

[A] 20% menhaden oil diet, rich in omega 3 fatty acids, produced a significant decrease in the development of both the size and number of preneoplastic lesions when compared to a 20% corn oil diet rich in omega 6 fatty acids. This study provides evidence that fish oils, rich in omega 3 fatty acids, may have potential as inhibitory agents in cancer development.

Remember how Campbell said, summarizing this research, that “nutrients from animal-based foods increased tumor development while nutrients from plant-based foods decreased tumor development”? Last I checked, fish oil ain’t no plant food.

Why does Campbell avoid mentioning anything potentially positive about animal products in “The China Study,” including  evidence unearthed by his own research? For someone who has openly censured the nutritional bias rampant in the scientific community, this seems a tad hypocritical.

But back to casein and milk for a moment. It’s interesting that the only dairy protein Campbell experimented with was casein, since whey—the other major protein in milk products—repeatedly shows cancer-protective and immunity-boosting effects, including when tested side-by-side with casein. Just a sampling of the literature:

Given all this, it seems unlikely that casein’s effects on cancer apply to other forms of milk protein—much less all animal protein at large. Isn’t it possible (maybe even probable) that casein has deleterious effects when isolated, but doesn’t exhibit cancer-spurring qualities when consumed with the other components in milk? Could casein and whey work synergistically, with the anti-cancer properties of whey neutralizing the pro-cancer properties of casein?

I’ll let you be the judge.

In summary and conclusion…

Apart from his cherry-picked references for other studies (some of which don’t back up the claims he cites them for), Campbell’s strongest arguments against animal foods hinge heavily on:

  1. Associations between cholesterol and disease, and
  2. His discoveries regarding casein and cancer.

For #1, it seems Campbell never took the critical step of accounting for other disease-causing variables that tend to cluster with higher-cholesterol counties in the China Study—variables like schistosomiasis infection, industrial work hazards, increased hepatitis B infection, and other non-nutritional factors spurring chronic conditions. Areas with lower cholesterol, by contrast, tended to have fewer non-dietary risk factors, giving them an automatic advantage for preventing most cancers and heart disease. (The health threats in the lower-cholesterol areas were more related to poor living conditions, leading to greater rates of tuberculosis, pneumonia, intestinal obstruction, and so forth.)

Even if the correlations with cholesterol did remain after adjusting for these risk factors, it takes a profound leap in logic to link animal products with disease by way of blood cholesterol when the animal products themselves don’t correlate with those diseases. If all three of these variables rose in unison, then hypotheses about animal foods raising disease risk via cholesterol could be justified. Yet the China Study data speaks for itself: Animal protein doesn’t correspond with more disease, even in the highest animal food-eating counties—such as Tuoli, whose citizens chow down on 134 grams of animal protein per day.

Nor is the link between animal food consumption and cholesterol levels always as strong as Campbell implies. For instance, despite eating such massive amounts of animal foods, Tuoli county had the same average cholesterol level as the near-vegan Shanyang county, and a had a slightly lower cholesterol than another near-vegan county called Taixing. (Both Shanyang and Taixing consumed less than 1 gram of animal protein per day, on average.) Clearly, the relationship between animal food consumption and blood cholesterol isn’t always linear, and other factors play a role in raising or lowering levels.

For #2, Campbell’s discoveries with casein and cancer, his work is no doubt revelatory. I give him props for dedicating so much of his life to a field of disease research that wasn’t always well-received by the scientific community, and for pursuing so ardently the link between nutrition and health. Unfortunately, Campbell projects the results of his casein-cancer research onto all animal protein—a leap he does not justify with evidence or even sound logic.

As ample literature indicates, other forms of animal protein—particularly whey, another component of milk—may have strong anti-cancer properties. Some studies have examined the effect of whey and casein, side-by-side, on tumor growth and cancer, showing in nearly all cases that these two proteins have dramatically different effects on tumorigenesis (with whey being protective). A study Campbell helped conduct with one of his grad students in the 1980s showed that the cancer-promoting abilities of fish protein depended on what type of fat is consumed alongside it. The relationship between animal protein and cancer is obviously complex, situationally dependent, and bound with other substances found in animal foods—making it impossible extrapolate anything universal from a link between isolated casein and cancer.

On page 106 of his book, Campbell makes a statement I wholeheartedly agree with:

Everything in food works together to create health or disease. The more we think that a single chemical characterizes a whole food, the more we stray into idiocy.

It seems ironic that Campbell censures reductionism in nutritional science, yet uses that very reductionism to condemn an entire class of foods (animal products) based on the behavior of one substance in isolation (casein).

In sum, “The China Study” is a compelling collection of carefully chosen data. Unfortunately for both health seekers and the scientific community, Campbell appears to exclude relevant information when it indicts plant foods as causative of disease, or when it shows potential benefits for animal products. This presents readers with a strongly misleading interpretation of the original China Study data, as well as a slanted perspective of nutritional research from other arenas (including some that Campbell himself conducted).

In rebuttals to previous criticism on “The China Study,” Campbell seems to use his curriculum vitae as reason his word should be trusted above that of his critics. His education and experience is no doubt impressive, but the “Trust me, I’m a scientist” argument is a profoundly weak one. It doesn’t require a PhD to be a critical thinker, nor does a laundry list of credentials prevent a person from falling victim to biased thinking. Ultimately, I believe Campbell was influenced by his own expectations about animal protein and disease, leading him to seek out specific correlations in the China Study data (and elsewhere) to confirm his predictions.

It’s no surprise “The China Study” has been so widely embraced within the vegan and vegetarian community: It says point-blank what any vegan wants to hear—that there’s scientific rationale for avoiding all animal foods. That even small amounts of animal protein are harmful. That an ethical ideal can be completely wed with health. These are exciting things to hear for anyone trying to justify a plant-only diet, and it’s for this reason I believe “The China Study” has not received as much critical analysis as it deserves, especially from some of the great thinkers in the vegetarian world. Hopefully this critique has shed some light on the book’s problems and will lead others to examine the data for themselves.

http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/06/09/a-closer-look-at-the-china-study-fish-and-disease/

1,436 comments

  1. Pingback: The China Study: Fact or Fallacy? « Raw Food SOS: Troubleshooting … | Protene.com – Your Personal Health Care Center

            1. I am reading this because I’m a firm believer of Dr. Davis books the first one “Lose the Wheat Lose the Weight”, books I believe that what Ms. Minger concluded is the truth. Why don’t we expose the wheat that s where all disease including cancer gets worse, we can eat meat dairy vegetables not rice oatmeal ,barley corn potatoes that’s where the danger lies, I have been wheatfree since March 4 2013 I feel much better we all need to read this lose grains gain life!

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              1. I am excited about ms Minger and how much research she did and I want people to know we are all to have. One inclination to offer one bit of criticism. Hard work she did was to go up against. Dr. Campbell and offer insight and investigations of the life of a vegan lifestyle, even gave up on that. Vegetarian involved gluten and grains so it’s not healthy they eat rice I can’t criticize ms minger that’s hard work

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      2. Like Cambell, ones own desire for a confirmation bias will help you find anything to be true, even that our canine teeth where evolutionary accidents and life giving steroidal hormones and their raw ingredients are all bad.

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        1. Canine teeth have nothing to do with diet type, period. Gorillas are herbivores – sharp, long fangs; chimpanzees are omnivores, as are baboons and they have the same canines. Molar makeup is a better indication – gorillas have the molar makeup of a horse or cow, chimps, baboons, and humans have that of a pig or bear (omnivores who need meat as an essential part of the diet because they can’t synthesize B12 or other meat-only nutrients), then you have cats, with large fangs, who are true carnivores, but the back teeth are slim and scissor-like to chop meat into bits and peel gristle from the bone. Humans, in general, have a unique physiology in the animal world, as well as a superior brain (although Campbell really makes me doubt this) but we can look at the diet of animals with similar digestive systems, as well as the animals’ methods of self-medicating, and suddenly we have healthy humans.

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          1. you sure their herbivores? years ago folk said the same thing about all primates. then they saw chimps go to war.

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      3. I missed the part where Minger said she followed the recommendations of “The China Study” for a significant period of time, keeping track of her lab results, blood pressure, heart rate and weight gain or loss.

        If you eat even a healthy variation on a Western diet, then you have available the personal means to test the validity of “The China Study.”

        Yet, most of the critics fail to consider this simple expedient to deciding the validity of the book, research and recommendations.

        Interesting.

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    2. Thank you for this work Denise. What a thoughtful and critical (in the very good sense of that word) piece of work. Your approach is direct and compelling.
      For some time now I’ve been discouraged that so many people who don’t know statistical analysis misuse it dreadfully – but people who SHOULD know their statistical analysis and are able to use it responsibly and yet STILL misuse it dreadfully…well that’s another ball of wax!
      Again, thank you.

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      1. How ironic you make this statement about people misusing statistical analysis – Denise clearly is out of her depths and you are thanking her???

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        1. Denise spent a lot of time and concentrated effort to show the errors of Campbell. Instead of saying she’s wrong, show us where she is wrong through your efforts. Anybody can make an unsupported claim.

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        2. I’m an ex-honours student in stats .. Denise is spot on.

          The key to understanding results like those produced by Campbell, is that you should never confuse correlation with causation. None of the correlations produced by Campbell prove any causal relationships. Showing a ‘statistically significant correlation’ only indicates a relationship that is ’caused’ by a number of other underlying or associated factors.

          For example, lightening is strongly correlated with rain. Does that mean that lightening causes the rain? Of course not!.. Once you find a strong correlation you need to understand the actual causes. Lightening and rain are strongly correlated because of clouds – clouds are what cause both lightening and rain. But if you used Campbell’s logic, you’d get wet every time you got some static electricity from rubbing your shoes on carpet.

          Campbell’s study has not provided any evidence for any of his conclusions. His study is a great accumulation of ideas to test with the correct hypothesis (ie. proving the null hypothesis), but his conclusions are genuinely unsupported.

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          1. Lightening and rain are not significantly correlated.

            Campbell makes this distinction and distinguishes different levels of statistical ‘significance’ throughout the book (>90%, >95% and >99%). His results are very highly correlated.

            Scientists argued that smoking is highly correlated with lung cancer before the underlying causing mechanism was discovered.

            Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, btw, proved the causing mechanism of cancer by animal protein in his studies.

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          2. That is your “ex-honor student in stats” response? Did you read the China Study? He very clearly shows that he can add casein to the diet and cancer progresses, removes it and the cancer growth stops and then adds casein back into the diet and the cancer progresses. He had control groups and thus was able to control for all other factors, so I am trying to understand how you are saying there is no direct evidence, at least in his examples. I agree that human studies, with so many other variables is harder to prove conclusively, but the fact that there is strong correlation between increased meat consumption and lifestyle-related diseases is pretty strong evidence. Unfortunately it is hard to separate the increased consumption of processed foods from that of meat, as they usually always go hand in hand, but I think most all of us can agree that too many dense calories, too many processed foods and too little physical activity is likely to lead to disease. I myself do eat meat and I did have some serious questions about his work, but I think that Denise misses the mark here.

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            1. “This finding is no doubt fascinating. If nothing else, it suggests a strong need for more research regarding the safety of casein supplementation in humans, especially among bodybuilders, athletes, and others who use isolated casein for muscle recovery. Unfortunately, Campbell extrapolates this research beyond its logical scope: He concludes that all forms of animal protein have similar cancer-promoting properties in humans, and we’re therefore better off as vegans. This claim rests on several unproven assumptions:

              The casein-cancer mechanism behaves the same way in humans as in lab rats.
              Casein promotes cancer not just when isolated, but also when occurring in its natural food form (in a matrix of other milk substances like whey, bioactive peptides, conjugated linoleic acid, minerals, and vitamins, some of which appear to have anti-cancer properties).
              There are no differences between casein and other types of animal protein that could impose different effects on cancer growth/tumorigenesis.”

              Your suggesting that rats fed a diet of pure casein has a correlation to humans consuming dairy products? And therefore a relevant correlation? Because if not why are you making the above statement? There IS evidence that RATS fed a diet of PURE CASEIN is correlated to cancer, but that doesn’t say a lot about human dairy consumption does it?

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              1. Mice and rats are NOT humans. The data obtained from small animals is merely suggestive that a human study is warranted. Human cell culture is more suggestive of specific pathways, in the specific cell type. Keep in mind, that the liver is made up of several cell types.

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            2. the rat study never fully removed casine. It simply swung between a diet consisting of 5% and 20% casine. I don’t care what it is, a diet of which 1/5 consists exclusively of a single type of protein is gonna be bad for you. Even the 5% mix is still above how much any human eating the SAD would EVER recieve.

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              1. Have you people actually read the study?
                Have you read Campbells response?
                Have you considered you are under the influence of addiction?
                There is no doubt that caso-morphins are part of milk.
                Are you actually open to other views or are you still suckling and sleeping?

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            3. Jeff, You are a know-it-all USA citizen, and like a great number of your know – it- all country men, and women, your know it all correlation studies, and Money hungry ways, have caused the biggest rise in obese, unhealthy humans to have ever lived on earth. I for one wish our government would repeal anything ever published by the USA, especially when it comes to nutrition. You have a certain slant on what appeals to you and the use any means to *scientifically* prove that you are justified in your thinking, and anyone who disagrees is *wrong*

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    3. I find this very amusing!!! All of you give this Denise so much credit and really don’t understand the formulas!!!I’ll stick with the experts who have spent years,time and money to prove their facts!!!Also, we will be meeting with Colin Campbell on Feb.26th at Sublime Restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale along with Dr. Neal and other Dr’s and scientist!! I’ll print this out and bring it with me!!I’m sure they will have fun with this!!!
      It is very obvious that we are dealing with denial and reisistance to validate your own choices!!!!
      Those of you who put so much faith into this article, should really do your own research!!

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      1. dlibby. This is the first most unintelligent post I read yet. Your response is unscientific, immature and meant to inflame. So I’ll respond with your tone. You brag about meeting Colin, which is irrelevant. He could care less what you say or his critics say. I bet you didn’t print this and didn’t show him. I bet your “dinner meeting” consisted if you paying $100’s to sit a 100 ft away while he gave a speech and signed a few books. You then say “do your own research” but you say “stick with the experts”. I guess you’re the expert to determine who are the experts. The fact that you cannot undersatnd the formulas indicates you are just a cow eating the “grass” and you have no mind or no brains to study nutrition. Faith in science is not faith, it’s fact. Colin attempted science and failed. The writer here responds with more science than Colin ever considered and he’s the one selling books to millions. So, continue being a Campbell groupie and keep on living in denial yourself.

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        1. You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about but i must admit that as lame as your you’re reply to Dlibby was, it was also quite comical.

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          1. Nice try dlibby in disguise. Ad hominems are not great arguments. Neither is supporting yourself with a different name.

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      2. I understand the formulas. I’m a statistician. And I know that by doing only univariate correlations, Campbell is making a first-year undergrad-level error. Statistical modeling involves multiple statistics, not one or two variables taken in isolation. The fact that when we run multivariate analysis on several factors the claimed association between animal products and disease vanishes or reverses tells us that what we were measuring in the univariate analysis was not the effect of ‘animal products’, but the effects of additional confounding variables.

        Minger, fresh from University, no doubt has the rules of good statistics still strong in her mind. Campbell has been in the field for years and may have let his statistical practice slip or not kept up with modern techniques. Skills need to be kept sharp and practiced constantly to be useful, and statistics is no exception. I would put more faith in someone with recent statistical training or refresher training than in someone who has been practicing the same stodgy, ineffective techniques for decades without learning anything new, and who is approaching the data with a clear bias.

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        1. Er, I think you should try reading the posts in more detail. It is Campbell who did the multivariate analyses in The China Study, and Denise Minger who has made the first-year undergrad-level error by doing univariate analysis. Trying reading the book before commenting.

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            1. You are agreeing that Campbell did the multivariate analyses, because you read the book? or just that Denise did not?

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            1. She did a univariate to show that he did not do a true multivariate analysis, by hypothesizing different possible dependencies. Instead of zeroing in on the technique, try reading it from the perspective of trying to understand the data.

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              1. So what if he’s been doing this all his life and published many many studies!
                I want to believe the professional sock pupetteer!
                omg.

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          4. Spot on. Its amazing how the internet works… we give so much attention to an uneducated blogger and then praise her for it…. the world we live in

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        2. This is absurd. It suggests that experts in fields of study are less qualified than college graduates because college graduates have the most up to date science. College graduates are educated by leaders in their respective fields. In addition fat and protein apologists never seem to be able to address the fact that people recover from a myriad of diseases when they go on a low fat plant based diet. If Denise was right, Dr. McDougall, Dr. Esselstyn & Dr. Barnard would not have the success they do in addressing cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

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          1. Even an expert needs evidence to prove an argument. People recover from a myriad of diseases when they lay off the junk food. Most junk-food/processed-food is low fat plant based. You can recover from a myriad of diseases by switch to raw milk or raw fish. Man does not live by sugar and plant protein alone.

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          2. No, this suggests he was bias. For what reasons I certantly don’t know but bias non the less. She simply points out that there was is missing data (on perpose or accident who knows but its not there) or seems some is ignored. Just because he is a “professional” doesn’t mean he can’t make mistakes or be swayed to find a certain result. On the other side just because the author of this is a blogger doesn’t mean her findings should be ignored because she is just a blogger. She also shows that there are many factors that a much bigger than just the consumption of animal products and veggies. I bet your a vigan and didn’t read this with an open mind. Its pretty plain to me this points out missing data and she isn’t trying to prove anything just show her findings.

            Reply

          3. This, this review lacks a lot of critical information and focuses so much on crunching numbers that it fails to view the proper perspective of cause and effect. All these numbers show is that its really easy to blur the truth with myriads of words.

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      3. I find you amusing (pardon my lack of exclamatory punctuation, but I harbor the however inane notion that the words I select will suffice to
        augur what opinions I reserve)…and–pardon my lack of restraint for that which follows–somewhat deficient in the realms of literary abilities, general science research, & understanding, and anger
        management.

        Admittedly, to draw so much conclusion from so few words might be
        suspect here, but I’ve already sought pardon, and I yet think you to be
        quite immature and, in this specific arena of diet-and-health, overtly
        unqualified so as to be, in any relevant manner, a serious consideration to the issues in review here.

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      4. Dear dlibby,

        I have not double checked Denise’s math. Have you?

        We get that you believe her conclusion is wrong. Why?

        Prove to us that you assertions are founded in reason instead of in your own bias or blind clinging to authority.

        Her method of analysis is transparent. Yours is not.

        She has point out direct correlations in source data. You replied only by calling her names.

        If her conclusion is wrong, then logical and analysis should prove that it is wrong.

        Calling her more names will not make her analysis more or less true. If she is wrong, show us why.

        Don’t just say you can. Show us. That will change more minds to your way of thinking than anything you have written to date.

        If you cannot, then please tell us why you wrote what your wrote.

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        1. This is exactly how CAGW-skeptics are treated by climate threat alarmists.
          The skeptic points out direct correlations in source data. The alarmist replies by calling the skeptic names. Interesting.

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          1. That’s because the same pattern exists between the China Study and climate change science. Some people spend many years doing careful analysis of all the data, setting their studies in the wider context of previous knowledge and publishing their results in peer-reviewed journals. This is called science. Then other people, with no training in the subject, think they know better, do some simplistic and superficial analysis, and stick it on a blog. This is called skepticism.

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            2. The China Study is not scientific research; it’s a mass-market book with a fervent mission. It doesn’t matter how many scientific studies he cites or who reviewed them – the book consists of his analysis and conclusions, and it has not been peer-reviewed.

              You may have missed the part where Dr. Campbell admitted that he picked through the China data looking for what would confirm his already-developed hypothesis. Whatever work he has done in the past, this is not science.

              What Denise has done is point out some of what he ignored and disregarded in the process that calls his conclusions into question.

              The way to rebut her would be point by point. Where is that rebuttal? I cannot find one, by Campbell or anyone else.

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                  1. Jack, you are a bit ignorant also. He names himself ‘el jefe’ which is Spanish for ‘the boss’ , suggesting that he might be a Spanish speaker and so far,Jesus is a completely normal name in Spain and in all the Spanish-speaking American countries.

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                    1. Sandilla he’s writing in the English language. And those are dollar signs. And if you’re bilingual do you only pronounce the soft j if your skin is brown? Please fill us in on these concrete laws of linguistics.

      5. Fun. I am curious as to how the restaurant meeting with the Dr.s went and if they in fact laughed and scorned Minger’s responsive analysis. Science relies upon the constant examination by others to find any and all inconsistencies or errors. To believe all that is said in one book or by one scientist doesn’t make you right. It just means you’ve picked a side. Root on fan!!

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        1. Just to clarify that link-

          http://www.vegsource.com/news/2010/07/china-study-author-colin-campbell-slaps-down-critic-denise-minger.html

          And thank you for this share, Kenneth. I feel like I can now make an informed decision based on reading both sides of the story, and I’ve concluded that it only makes sense to me after reading a plethora of info, both scientific and feeling based, that plants are where it’s at, along with legumes and nuts, with animal products to be eaten sparingly. It really just makes sense now after sifting through all the different info out there…

          I now think that folks who say that plants aren’t fantastic for you, the way to base our american diet off of, or that they can’t heal you, are simply crabs in the bucket, (sometimes subconsciously trying to defend they or their families’ culture/dietary lifestyle.) After all, the S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) sure doesn’t seem to be working for us as a whole, as made clear not just through ‘statistics’ but merely through looking out the window and sometimes in the mirror! Thanks for the comments and post!

          Reply

          1. I agree more hospitals more sick people something wrong in this country so far the plant base doctors seem to be the healthiest we will see in 20 or so years go
            dr e and dr Gregor

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            1. Thaddeus, In this topic of vegetarian / raw or not is a very interesting book
              Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human Sep 7, 2010
              by Richard Wrangham

              A co-topic is the dropping nutritional density of plant based food (IE soil depletion), resulting in a indeterminable grams per day of intake to meet nutritional (and medicinal) effectiveness.

              Comment: a long the path of nutritional deficiency (starvation), that thin look, visible muscles, does look “healthy” until systems break down, steroid hormone function (and the systems they support) ceases, mental and physical functions deteriorate.

              One might search on: connective tissue and bone degeneration, mental degeneration, sex function degeneration and in which group Dr Weston A Price’s 3 cat experiment one is in the 1st generation or the 3 generation (barely functioning). The 3rd generation of the nutritionally starved kittens where “nicely thin and cute” but barely functioned and could not reproduce.

              Yes, it will be interesting collecting the health and functioning data in 20 years!

              Reply

      7. True experts do not (or SHOULD not) spend time and money to ‘prove facts’.
        True scientists explore hypotheses. It is virtually impossible to prove most of them; all one can do is find evidence to support or contradict them.
        I suspect that as you can’t even pluralize formula that you probably don’t understand the formulae either.

        Reply

        1. if something is considered proven, then it is considered a fact; that’s why experts don’t try to prove facts, they understand the grammar/logic of the language. however, if you think they should not try to prove to others what they claim because it’s beneath them, you’re talking from a pre-enlightenment religious dogma framework.

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          1. That’s actually incorrect.

            For something to be a ‘fact’, it must be proven and re-proven a great number of times. Just proving it once doesn’t make it a fact.

            Experts do need to prove facts – more importantly, to continuously tweak variables and test if the facts continue to hold up ever under completely different circumstances.

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          1. “calculation conclusions”? What do you mean to prove oneself worthy of “calculation conclusions”? 1. Please express yourself clearly. 2. ad hominem attacks are low – intelligent people will not fall for that. It seems likely that you are not one yourself, otherwise you would not have made an ad hominem attack.

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      12. Dlibby, What about other *experts* with degrees and qualifications, in the medical field who think differently than what your line of nutrition is. By your reasoning, how can you disagree with those experts. Thats not scientific. That is just emotional rubbish. The experts in the nutritional field disagree. Science cannot be proven for or against by either fully carnivores, or by fully plant eaters, because they are biased to begin with. Then all there efforts are swayed toward there own bias.

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    5. Denise,

      I just read this post, and I am amazed at your excellent analysis.

      A few days ago, a friend loaned me a copy of “The China Study”, and my initial reaction was disappointment that Campbell’s graphs and charts provided so little evidence for his major conclusions. Then I found your critique, which articulated my own suspicions… and raised several more that I did not even consider.

      Your criticism was very courteous and deferential to Campbell, and I commend you for it. Not everyone would be as tolerant, especially to a famous researcher who uses an “intervening variable” like cholesterol when the raw data provide little or no direct correlation between animals products and various diseases. Most veterans of statistical analysis would have no patience for this slipshod…or slippery… presentation.

      Thanks again for your significant contribution.

      Bob Flood

      Reply

    6. Congratulations on being a nutritionally semi-educated, statistically-illiterate, but well spoken blogger. As much as you dismiss Bill Gates’ educational failure vs. his business success in computers as evidence that education makes no difference in scientific endeavour; you might consider this: Bill Gates has been farting around with computers since he was a kid – long before most people knew that they even existed. He learned a lot by creating. The big difference between science and creation using applied science is that there is no truth. It just progresses. Bill Gates NEVER argued against the underlying science. He NEVER claimed that silcon was not a good medium for chips. He NEVER said that software was just a fad. (he did muse that “why would anyone need more than 640K – but that is just more of the same). Bill gates was a fly compared to IBM when he started. He did not refute everything they did or said or discovered. He made a way to progress it. He wrote their operating system. If YOU want to be Bill Gates – or have any credibility in your conceit to compare yourself to him, you might want to adapt your approach, You would stop attacking IBM (Dr. Campbell) and his thesis (silicon chips make good processors). Were you to wear his pedigree, you would have been doing research into nutrition since the age of 8 in your bedroom at night with Mom yelling “GO TO BED”. You wear your lack of education like a badge. I have a degree in statistics and engineering. Undergraduate only. So I am also not that well educated. However, I did focus on the statistics. Your analysis is deeply flawed in its critique.

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      1. By the way, my favourite univariate analysis is this: ïce cream causes drowning”. It is hard to find a stronger correlation coefficient than that between the consumption of ice cream the incidence of drowning. Try to figure that one out.

        Reply

        2. Yep, univariate correlations are pretty much crap in observational studies.

          Were you also aware that larger shoe size in schoolchildren causes better spelling ability?

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        4. The reason is obvious; you can’t swim as well after eating a triple scooper. I barely made it out of the water myself.

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      2. To go on and on about Bill Gates and then end with a conclusion that the analysis on a separate topic is deeply flawed without explaining how doesn’t really set you up as a credible critic.

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        1. It is flawed because it is limited to bivariate analyses (two variables at a time, ignoring everything else—which is pretty much Campbell’s thesis as being a problem with prior research–you can’t look at it so simply) and also because it tries to infer conclusions from non-statistically significant correlations. The data requires much more complex statistical analysis.

          Denise has found absolutely nothing here of interest. Her methods are unsophisticated and meaningless in this context.

          —A statistician

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          1. She has found something of great interest… that Campbell has done shoddy work. She is not doing much concluding in this article; rather, she is primarily pointing out where Campbell’s conclusions are not justified, and offering plausible suggestions for further study. That to me is of real interest.

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      3. What many of you fail to realize is that owning a television and actually watching it from time to time causes heart attacks, especially in the USA where every heart attack is associated with a television in the home. Therefore, if you throw your television away, you will avoid heart attacks and certainly will have less stress in your life. I think I am correct, therefore I am. (I have a 50% shot at being right at least. If I am right, I am right and if I am wrong, I am wrong. See, 50/50

        Reply

        1. I’ve also heard that at some point in their lives every heart attack victim ate a banana. Coincidence? I think not.

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      4. Uh, uhm, Bill Gates is the world’s largest supplier of death-meds to stop live births to third world mothers and deliver infertility to involuntary male victims in his prey-sights. So, he’s a great man, eh?

        Actually you are like the vegans who refuse to allow factful comments on their blogs, who go around spreading hate on open blogs where facts about the vegan death diet are posted.

        Ever consider getting honesty in your mind?

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      5. I agree with John. It EASY To Criticized so you can DRAG the other person down. I have learned after 55 years of being adult that it the one that “demeaned” is the one to DON’T TRUST.You can take Dr. Campbell’s 2 cents worth and do whatever you please with it for yourself.
        What are your QUALIFICATIONS THAT MAKES YOU QUALIFTY TO JUDGE??????
        Years of medical education ?
        Years of Biochemistry education?
        Years of clinical practice ?
        Years of research? ETC??????

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      7. Hi John. Could you point out some examples of statistical flaws she makes for us who are statistical amateurs? (I only did statistics as part of business and economics classes).

        I wonder what critics of ‘The China Study’ and the documentary that bases itself on it ‘Forks Over Knives’ have to say about the amazing benefits that occurred in the patients that were told to follow a whole food plant-based diet.

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      8. I just don’t understand why people who criticize Denise’s argument not provide a detailed explanation? Please write a blog post and link us there. It will be much appreciated.

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    7. The only amusing and ironic thing here is the fact that no matter what subject on Earth there is , people fight about it. Football, electronics, religions, politics and now some study.
      I wonder: what is worse to health? Meat, processed foods or all the frustration and unhappiness that leads to disputes everywhere for every possible subject?

      So great I gave up meat because of respect for life and I don’t even care if it was unhealthy or not.
      Best wishes everyone!

      Reply

      2. I do soooo agree with you! What could ever be wrong with health? Less money in the pockets of men, torturing animals? It’s all about the money….always!
        I think it’s best for all to eat a plant-based diet: for humans because of their (mental) health, for animals because otherwise they are being tortured to feed humans.

        Reply

        1. Plants aren’t sentinent beings.

          “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed: to you it shall be for meat.”
          -Genesis 1:29

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            2. but it takes way more plants to supply the meat industry than a plant based lifestyle. so if they are sentient, which there is research to back it up, then plant based diet would kill a lot less than what is needed to feed the livestock. further supporting a plant based diet.

              Reply

              1. I have avoided the guilt and stress associated with sentient foods by following my new “sentient-free” diet: only road kill and plants that have died from natural causes are permitted.

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              2. @AJIV – Your opinion is filled with assumptions. Do you know how much trees and plants are removed to grow crops?

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      4. I’m guessing your respect for life doesn’t extend to the little insects that meet their doom in the form of your shoe (or car tire) crashing down upon their existence, fast tracking them to oblivion. Selective reasoning is bliss.

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        1. not “selective” reasoning when you account for intention. you might want to do more reading on this subject (and on “reasoning” for that matter) before you comment. thank you.

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    8. Let’s see if I understand this. Preferred sources of protein are fish, eggs, and whey. Don’t eat Elmer’s Glue. Get some sun each day. Get tested regularly for schistosomiasis. Does that sum it up in a nutshell?

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    9. Very interesting. As far as the cholesterol link is concerned, it depends whether you see high cholesterol as a cause, or as a symptom of disease. Whilst much of the scientific community out there assumes it is causative, if you contemplate cholesterol’s role within the body as a substance the body uses in repair and restoration, then any kind of disease is almost certainly going to result in higher levels as it scoots around the body doing its job.

      Seeing it as a symptom rather than a cause would throw the whole caboosh out of the window.

      As far as the study is concerned, it’s called the China Study because it studied people in China. Generally, the chinese – especially in rural areas – eat a far more natural diet, whether predominantly plant-based, or meat-based, so how can it possibly have any real bearing on the effects of diet on people eating the ‘Western’ diet, full of sugar, processed carbs, chemicals and food that is generally mucked-about-with?

      Dairy is also not a good comparison – whilst many groups in the World consume dairy and are healthy on it, it is raw and unpasteurised – complete. As the pasteurisation process destroys some of the elements within the milk, it becomes denatured and doesn’t react in the body in the same way as raw milk. The elements within the food communicate with the body – give it instructions on what to do with it. Once they are damaged, the body cannot process it as it should, and it then has the potential to become toxic. A small amount now and again may be tolerable, but when that is the only source of dairy consumed continuously, there has to be a fall-out at some point. Is it the cows milk Casein that is the problem, or the fact that some of the other elements that are needed for its digestion and processing in the body have been destroyed prior to its consumption?

      Statistics cannot ever be true when there are so many different variables to take into consideration – and even missing just one can, and frequently does, throw concepts off into a whole different – and sometimes downright dangerous – direction. How can anyone ever make assumptions based on statistics if they don’t even understand (or only THINK they understand) why certain things act in certain ways or what they do?

      Reply

      1. Alison, thank you sooooo much for saying EVERYTHING I’d been thinking while reading this critique and the subsequent responses. I wholeheartedly agree, and I would’ve considered the entire critiqu an even more successful effort–I still give Denise prod for the analysis and willingness to question a lot of things I’d started to question myself–if any mention had been made of the differences between “western” and Chinese rural diets or the raw milk/dairy intake, and especially of cholesterol as a symptom of disease. BRAVO

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    10. Thanks to Denise, we have a proper interpretation of the study he conducted.
      Thanks Dr. Campbell for providing data that supports an omnivoric diet and disproving any information that vegetarianism is healthier.

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    11. The u.S.A. is filled with unbelievable numbers of STUPID people! I cannot get over how many closed-mind “liberals” there are! But, it’s logical, since the Source of America’s greatness, Creator, was chased away along with His human health guide!

      What’s left is stupid, willy-nilly nutcakes running around electing the likes of Bush and nobama, who are NOT actually presidents, but in reality mere stooges acting out their orders given by banksters running the world.

      Really, it’s “good bye, America.”

      Just study end-time records given humans by Creator in Hebrew Scripture to see why America disappears . . .

      Reply

    12. Good work, Denise. I have a question about claim #1: in the original study, were the people followed-up to see if they develop cancer or other diseases or were the diagnoses recorded at one time point only at the same time with information on diet, blood-work etc? If so, did they look into how soon cancers developed after detection of high cholesterol levels? What I’m aiming at is that due to altered energy metabolism, cancer may increase triglyceride and total cholesterol levels before it’s even diagnosed. Of course, this would only explain a very small proportion of the associations.

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    13. Dear Denise,

      this indeed is a smart analysis, thank you very much!
      In the whole debate one important fact usually is missed: we all have to die one day. And we will have one weakest organ which will make the body stop working in the end. Thus, everyone will have a final diagnosis. As we are built on a carbo basis and as we are using oxygen as the fuel for the cells, we will all develop cancer, if only living long enough. This is derived from the little mistake in construction (carbo based + oxygen fueled leads to cancerogenic changes of tissue – blame God, but think of the alternatives first…). It therefore is of no interest wether somenone get’s cancer or not, but it is of utmost interest wether he will die from cancer prematurely! Prematurely is not defined in this context. One might agree that 30somethings should not die from cancer, might silver liners? Is it okay to die by 90? There is no real answer to that, I suppose. Data should better be analysed not only by cause of death, but also by years reached and furthermore by quality adjusted lifeyears. I’d prefer for myself to die at 80 by cancer rather than dying at 60 from a heart attack. The war against cancer is a dumb idea, misleading people and filling them with false hope – and a great waste of money.

      With kindest regards,
      Christoph

      Reply

      1. Read proof positive a book by Neil Nedley and you will realize that cancer is preventable 95% of the time. You can die of old age while fool of vigor with no chronic diseases. Watch the you tube video “Longevity” done by National geographic and you realize that diet and lifestyle gives health, and you could reach 90 , 100 or more years with your full vigor with none of these common diseases, and die peacefully without groaning. Campbell may not have backed up enough some claims, but there is overwhelming research which support his conclusions in general. Hope this will be good information.

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    14. Maybe it’s time for this Denis to take off her/his blog, or at least some of the fallacies he/she wrote! 1. he/she has no qualifications to dare try debunking a scientific study, that was made in vitro, in vivo, on clinical subjects compared with statistic data amounting to the population of China! This would mean that whatever she wrote there, was proofread by a statistician, chemist, biologist (micro-biologist), doctor… well, a whole team of people of different specialisation. Dr Campbell did the study with a team of scientists, not alone in a lab or in a bedroom like this Denis and her blog 2. Meanwhile also other (and not few) studies have checked if the high protein intake is the dominator of degenerative diseases, and surprised.. they seconded Campbell. These are FELLOW SCIENTISTS, NOT A NO-ONE FROM INTERNET 3. to keep a normal intake of protein is automatically forcing u to be a vegan as diet 4. meanwhile other studies (and not few) have proved that protein of animal provenance is actually, even worse. 5. China study was never debunked, scientifically for real I mean! And the pro paleo diet, damn they tried so hard (some even on the field, doctors). China Study was not debunked! So luckily, it is not false even if some (for what ever mental reasons they have) are trying so deeply to reject the news! 6. An idiot claimed that China Study was proved false, and referenced back to this stupid blog, wrote by who the heck is Denis! This is disturbing! The disclaim this Denis used, should sound more like: I AM NOT A DOCTOR, NOR A BIOLOGIST, NOR A SCIENTIST, THIS BLOG IS MY PERSONAL OPINION AND PERCEPTION AND IT COULD BE, SCIENTIFICALLY, INCORRECT! 7. I am sorry to break this to some, but it appears that indeed the dominator for the degenerative diseases, is the high protein intake (with reference to animal source protein).

      Reply

      1. Denise, You seem to commit an error in how schistosomes are acquired. So far as I know (and I am not a parasitologist), schistosomes infect humans by entering through the skin. If a person is standing in water, like a flooded rice field, for instance, where the infective stage of schistosomes are swimming around, then a person can become infected as the schistosomes burrow through the skin and get into the blood stream. This is a common parasite strategy also seen in human hookworms, and Strongyloides. The only difference here is, hookworms and Strongyloides are soil transmitted helminthes, and schistosomes are water transmitted. But they all burrow through the skin. I really don’t think you catch them by drinking contaminated water, which is what you seem to imply. If I am wrong about what you wrote, then my apologies. By memory, your sentence structure on this matter was a bit ambiguous.
        I should add that, other parasitic infections could be a strong confounding factor. Human hookworm infection, for example, is being shown to be a strong positive influence on health, as remarkable as that sounds. Hookworm infection seems to have a strong modulating influence on systemic inflammation through the expansion of IL-10 producing Bregs and Tregs, promoting immune tolerance to the environment. Given the inflammatory and immune regulatory connections to many diseases, this could be a strong confounding factor.
        Thank you for your analysis. I recently read, “Nutrition And Physical Degeneration” by Weston Price, and I am currently reading “The China Study”. I appreciate your perspective on these seemingly diverse ideas.

        Reply

    15. The volume of snarky comments on this thread is nauseating. Nutrition debates seem to be more often a game of pride and personal attacks. “I know more than you do!! Maybe you should actually do your research!!!” Pathetic. I’m going outside.

      Reply

    16. If Denise ever feels the need to earn a living in an alternative profession then I can tell her she is well suited to modern horse racing betting. Her love of data analysis would make her a formidable player. On a more serious note, what can we run with from all this. Well no one seems to be arguing with the removal of sugar and wheat from our diets. Dump the sugar and simple carbs and all the dwarf wheat we have been poisoned with over the years.

      Reply

    1. I agree. Not much else can we assume from this. Oh!!!! the natural and pure food. And also, great post Mircea C. Really, loved it.

      Reply

  3. This. is. Awesome.

    GREAT job, Denise! I don’t know what to make of all this- it’s crazy. Campbell’s crazy.
    I know you’re always nice to everyone, so I’ll say it for you; Campbell’s a freakin’ LIAR. I can’t believe this! Wow, I’m totally NOT referencing China Study again.

    Well at least now we know the truth. Let’s spread it, people!

    Once again, thank you and congratulations. This is amazing.

    Reply

    1. Apple-man,

      Not sure if you’ll get this, but I just wanted to say you have an admirer. I’ll admit I’ve been lurking around the 30bad forum out of a mix of curiosity and amazement–I’ve never seen passive-aggressive played out in typed words like that in my life, and I’m in awe. Anyhoo, I appreciate your ability to keep your head up and speak your mind as an individual. Kudos to you and your ability to think critically. Keep it real, man.

      Reply

      1. John, clearly you are implying that you *do* know the difference between your ass and a hole in the ground. Cheers. And at what University did you learn that?

        Reply

  4. Fantastic. I’m particularly interested in the correlation between wheat and disease. I’ve been writing about this for a while– mostly on the basis of fairly weak indirect evidence because there’s very little research on the health effects of wheat vs. other grains except in celiac patients. This is probably the best support I’ve seen for the hypothesis. And to think it came from the China study!

    Here’s a study supporting wheat’s association with obesity in China (compared to rice; see table 3):

    http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v32/n6/abs/ijo200821a.html

    And my interpretation:

    http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/wheat-is-invading-china.html

    Reply

    1. Once again – correlation is NOT causation. A correlation between wheat and disease only means there are things usually happen at the same time. Maybe wheat has a high correlation with heart disease because people who eat more wheat:

      a) come from lower income families
      b) generally eat more fast food
      c) generally eat more butter or spreads
      d) do not eat a balanced diet
      e) are older
      f) are younger
      g) are male
      h) are female
      i) come from cultural background more genetically predisposed to the diseases in the study
      j) share similar environmental factors which were responsible for disease

      There are lots of different underlying factors which must be understood and controlled for, and once a specific relationship is identified using correlation, it must be separately studied using causal studies – not correlations.

      Reply

  5. By the way, I would be super grateful if you could work your magic on the wheat data to see if it’s likely to be spurious or not. e.g., is it due to wheat’s association with heavy metals, infectious disease, latitude, etc. I suspect controlling for latitude will attenuate the association, since as I understand it wheat is mostly eaten in Northern China.

    I’m going to link to this post in the next few days, after Richard Nikoley does, since he passed it on to me.

    Reply

  6. As I read this, Denise, I can’t help but wonder: will your findings have any ramifications on your own approach to diet and health?

    Reply
  8. Pingback: Tweets that mention The China Study: Fact or Fallacy? « Raw Food SOS: Troubleshooting on the Raw Food Diet -- Topsy.com

  9. Wow. Just wow.

    I am reminded of the confirmation bias when it comes to The China Study, a well-known cognitive bias which means that people only see what they want to see, ignoring any and all evidence to the contrary. So when a longtime veg*n comes out with an exhaustive study “proving” food from animal sources to be unhealthy once and for all, it’s definitely time to go back over his data with a skeptical eye.

    A big kudos to you, Denise, for putting this together. Truly a page to keep as a reference for a long time to come.

    Reply

    1. so similarly, when a meat-eater comes out with a “repudiation” of a study that “proves” food from animal sources to be unhealthy once and for all, is it time to go over his/her/their data with a skeptical eye?

      I think your comment exposes your bias.

      also, I think both of these studies miss the point.

      Reply

      1. Meat eating is not an ideology, it´s just a baseline human activity. Veganism, on the other hand, is.

        Also, the raw facts on display here are just devastating, regardless of what one´s dietary inclination is.

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        1. I get sick just reading some comments. Bushrat got it right. When all agree, well.. thats impossible, U all have missed a valid point CONTAMINATION. Yes, it will raise your immune responses, but there is such a thing as viral overload – and we are there. I am so busy my website has not updated since 2008 , unlike the rest of the cutting edge world …

          I spend time washing everything , and if I kept animals I would Neem ’em

          Alex @ amoderate life tells it plainly , not one longevity culture were vegan – but missed my point of Contamination – they were in isolated areas , no huge cash transactions – no dirty money, their animals were clean , their soil was clean … and they did not have synthetic Creatine or Carnitine or Acetyl Cystein and dont mix their food with poison (alcohol, to name just 1)

          Reply

        2. Obviously coming from someone who eats meat. Of course you’d only see it your way. Veganism is not an ideology. Why is it that people who eat meat and vegans can’t just accept each other and not criticize?

          Reply

          1. Almost all attacks come from vegans and vegetarians. When I post that I really like foie gras you,d think from the vegan reaction I eat human babies on a skewer . You won’t find any complaints from meat eaters when a vegan eats a toadstool.

            Reply

          2. Melissa…you’ve confused the question. Asking the greater philosophical question of why people don’t accept everyone’s lifestyle without comment has nothing to do with your conclusive statement that “veganism” is not an ideology. You provided no support for your claim and a very small amount of effort would tell you that being a “vegan” comes with a host of ideological prerequisites and rules.

            Reply

          3. Plants can’t supplement all the nutrients that human bodies require such as active vitamin A (retinol), choline and heme-iron (more bioavailable than non heme iron). Plants also contain anti-nutrients, such as phytate, which protect themselves from predators but unfortunately is harmful to predators such as blocking the absorption of nutrients. Nutrients from animals are more bioavailable.

            Most of the cells in humans prefer ketone bodies, which are generated by fat metabolism.
            (https://drcate.com/how-much-carbohydrate-do-you-need-to-eat-per-day/)

            Reply

      2. “so similarly, when a meat-eater comes out with a “repudiation” of a study that “proves” food from animal sources to be unhealthy once and for all, is it time to go over his/her/their data with a skeptical eye?”

        The data isn’t the issue here – it’s the interpretation. Campbell clearly took some serious leaps in the conclusions he made from the data, which is thankfully laid bare here.

        But yes, if a monumental study a la The China Study came out showing vast nutritional benefits from meat compared with vegetables, I would certainly hope the skeptics would come after it from every angle, especially if it came from someone like Dr. Cordain, who has an established history of being pro-meat.

        That’s how science progresses, Monica. Not by deleting, distorting, and generalizing, hoping the public will swallow it without question, but by making bold conjectures that you test rigorously and let others try to falsify. That’s why we no longer believe that the Earth is the center of the universe, rather that the sun is the center of the solar system.

        “I think your comment exposes your bias.”

        Yup. I am just full of biases. (I’m only human after all.) However I am one of the few people who will own up to them being biases and not facts. Half of what everyone knows is wrong. The hard part is trying to figure out what half that is.

        Reply

        1. Yes, everyone makes their assertions based on bias. For one to say they are completely neutral and have zero bias is a lie.

          Reply

        2. What credentials do you have to dispute the findings of Campbell and Esselstyn? Why should a person believe your way of thinking over these two highly trained and highly researched professionals?

          Reply

          1. Dr. Campbell results are consistent with Dr, Esselstyn and Dr.Ornish documented pictures of actual reversal of heart disease.Based on a lowfat plant based diet. In fact Dr. Ornish has demonstrated lower PSA levels after consuming plant based diet. Higher PSA levels are associated with more risk of prostate cancer

            Reply

      4. Hey monica; apparently your reading comprehension is not very high (an effect of the all vegan diet??) BUT Denise DOES say she LIKES lots of veggies !! So, that kinda shoots you in the posterior.

        Reply

    2. Darrin, Campbell was not a vegetarian until after the study and not a vegan until a long time after the study. I don’t think your observation about the confirmation bias is applicable here.

      Reply

    3. With all due respect, you were never a vegan. Veganism is NOT about diet. It is a commitment to living a compassionate lifestyle, respecting all sentient Beings and choosing not to exploit them in any way, shape or form. You may have followed a plant based diet, but vegan- NO! There is no such thing as an ex-vegan. That would be the same as saying “Well I used to think it was wrong to kick puppies, but now, what they heck, kicking puppies is just fine as long as I enjoy it.”

      Reply

      2. I think the expression veganism as an idealogy was used.

        You are wrong when you say “there is no such thing as an ex-vegan”. Can a person not change ones mind? Or one’s philosophy? Many great artistic and scientific advances occurred through such a shift or change in an individuals philosophy – of suddenly seeing something another way, from a different point of view.

        So, if it is not possible to be an ex-vegan, does that mean that I can never become an vegan? That I cannot one day, or over time, adopt your philosophy?

        Are you saying that people cannot change (or leave/join religions for example?)

        Reply

      3. Hey please chill a bit Tumeria. I think I’ve become a vegan over the last couple of months, consumming only plant based nutrition – that seems to fit the definitions I’ve seen of vegan. I like animals, love my three cats, they seem to like their human too. I don’t much care for house flys though. Living in an older log cabin in Montana, I seem to have plenty of house flies. And I swat them daily – otherwise my cats and I wouldn’t like our existence so much. I think I’m still a vegan.

        And this overall blog post is very interesting and seems worth serious consideration.

        Reply

    4. Badly done. Did you know that the first studies on car safety were done by the US Air Force? They wanted to know why so many pilots were dying. Turns out they were mostly dying in cars. People like Denise would have poo-pooed this.

      Reply

      1. AN you have now proven that you are a complete idiot and moron making a giant leap into nothing. It would depend on the parameters of the AF study and if they were separating Auto Deaths from Aircraft Deaths and researching the various related factors. Your statement is pure idiocy.

        Reply

        1. Is anyone on here capable of holding a rational debate without resorting to abuse in the misguided hope that a barrage of name calling somehow adds weight to the points they want to make. This is probably the worse behaved forum I have come across especially on a such a gentile topic as health and wellbeing

          Reply

          1. Well put! Everyone above is really missing the point. The real question is: How does it make YOU feel. How does it work in YOUR world? If IT makes you feel good, then do it!

            Reply

  10. Great post! You explain things precisely and concisely.

    A couple of typos:

    “In these high-risk areas for liver cancer, total animal food intake has a correlation with liver cancer of… dun dun dun… +1.”

    Should be 0.

    “so for the sake of being able to entertain the possibility that #2 and #3 are valid”

    Should be #1 and #2.

    Reply

  11. Hi Denise, as a biologist, I commend you for your detailed research and fact finding in this premiere article debunking a very dangerous compilation of hand picked misinformation. As a reformed raw vegan who now follows a real foods lifestyle according to the Weston Price tradition, I can tell you unequivocably that eating animal products and preparing foods in a traditional manner has indeed increased my health. Weston Price and other traditional foods enthusiasts were discussing these issues in the 1930’s and purporting a healthy balance of all foods and a removal of processed foods, but to no avail.

    It is of interest as well to note that Jon Robbins of vegan fame also wrote a book called healthy at 100 where he revisits all the long lived cultures in the world to determine what each one ate and he NEVER found a vegan culture. All ate some form of dairy/meat, all ate fermented foods and all had limited processed sugars or grain products. All prepared their food in traditional ways and when their youth began eating the SAD diet, they all developed the same degenerative diseases seen accross the country, but they developed them much more quickly. Robbins does NOT promote this book because it obviously goes against his vegan agenda.

    I will be sharing your study on my Thoughts on Friday Link love post and getting it out there to the Real Food community! Thanks so much for your hard work!
    Alex@amoderatelife.

    Reply

    1. Alex: I can’t thank you enough for mentioning the work of Weston A. Price!!!! After Googling his name and reading about his work, I am now ordering the Nourishing Traditions Cookbook by Sally Fallon. Please let me know if there is more information supporting this lifestyle. THANK YOU!

      Reply

    2. Alex….key words “SOME form of meat or dairy” the China Study promotes 10% or less of animal protein which would account in my opinion as “some”. I wasn’t aware that there was a “vegan agenda” and he probably doesn’t promote it because he believes in animal rights. People can and do live healthy as vegans but just because you are vegan does not make you healthy….potato chips and beer is vegan…but not so healthy. I do agree that processed foods should be kept to a minimum and the body does need raw fruits ad vegetables but raw meat??? I think Denise is a little off on this one.

      Reply

      1. For the record, the only raw meat I eat is fish (sushi/sashimi). We have Vegsource to thank for the “raw meat advocate” title.

        Reply

      2. Lily, part of the few (if only??) who dares tread on the steps of St. Denise!

        I don’t see this as “first class” nor worthy of publication in the New England Journal. Healthy people for years have known moderation. I love The China Study because it challenges Americans to change their diet. The US spends more than any other society on Healthcare, yet we have some of the most unhealthy people. Why?

        You make a fantastic point that all of his research is based on a “10% or less” animal protein consumption plan.

        I agree, Denise is a little off on her “un-biased” review. Nothing wrong with telling people to eat more healthy.

        Reply

          1. dl, you really oughta try and stop the punctuation…people might think you’re incapable of a confrontation without tossin them the bird, when their perspectives differ from yours–or your heroes. hopefully, we all contain passion about our existences, but the excess of hubris and anger, nee arrogance, can easily
            consume our prospects for sensitivity and reason….tools without which we are unable to do more than dribble and sputter about, such as you seem to immerse yourself in the processes of. You are passionate. Good, Why not get busy with the objective education you are in need of? Or you could remain an ignorant cheerleader for anyone whom your whims attract you to. And even if you do, still watch the exclamation marks…it has been said that the next syndrome is writing in
            all caps…and then…the possibilities of either utter madness, or a life in politics…perhaps both.

            Reply

          2. I like the enthusiasm you state with your exclamation marks. Don’t change because of the negative view of someone with anger issues :o)

            Reply

        2. Mingers blog reads more like a science paper than many science papers. Unlike Campbell Minger follows all the rules of logic.
          And your comment, “love The China Study because it challenges Americans to change their diet.” is laugh out loud dumb.

          Reply

      3. Exactly. Key word here, “some.” I eat a mostly whole, plant-based diet, but I still eat “some” animal products, but less than 10%. I will never be 100% vegan. After adopting this diet, I got down to the size I was in high school. I love my food, and I imagine maintaining my diet and preventing disease will be effortless because of plant-foods. I’m very thankful!

        Reply

      4. Actually there is a girl on Youtube …come to think of it there are two people I know of on Youtube who were previous vegans and had to include meat in their diet because of deficiencies. The girl had a B12 deficiency that could NOT be helped with B12 shots or taking supplements. She decided to eat fish and is healthy now. Her symptoms IIRC were pretty severe.

        I probably have her video in my favorites so I’ll look for it. I’m sure some people already know of her. She got a lot of shit for going back to meat, especially from raw food vegans.

        Reply

  12. Great work! It’s really nice to see that critical thinking is far more important than just having a great academic pedigree.

    Reply

  13. Although not explicit, there seemed to be an inference that cholesterol could be a cause of some diseases, when there was positive correlation. Since the body produces cholesterol, it is very possible that the disease (especially involving the liver) modifies cholesterol levels.

    Great work!

    Reply
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  17. Wow!! This is more work than my Master’s thesis was. Fantastic job!! I expect to see you on Oprah soon.

    Reply

  18. This is truly a monumental work, Denise.

    It vividly illustrates the danger of “science with an agenda”, as practiced by Campbell and others of his ilk.

    Thank you.

    Reply

  19. LOVE this summary! I’ve long passed out Chris Masterjohn’s critique and subsequent dialog with Campbell as an online resource for those wondering about any holes in The China Study. But this summary, along with your prior posts over the past month, are the most thorough I’ve ever seen. You can bet I’ll be passing this along to others from now on! KUDOS to you and your hard work.

    And THANK YOU so much for doing this research for yourself. I know I certainly wouldn’t have done it, although I’m glad to see it done!

    Oh, and I second Stephan’s desire to see you put your skills to work analyzing the wheat connection. I’m VERY curious about that, mostly because I’ve been following Stephan’s own analysis of whatever relevant studies are out there.

    Reply

  20. Great work, thank you for providing your research.

    I am somewhat depressed after your skillful demonstration of how other variables like parasite infections and other unknown variables can affect the data. This leads me to believe nutrition science will forever be based on beliefs rather than reasoned science, leaving opportunities for egotistic scientists to lead themselves and the rest of us down paths of good intention but harmful destination.

    Reply

    1. Actually, her demonstration proves how important a thorough understanding of statistics is for any scientific venture. There is a great deal of bad science in all areas that boils down to the researchers basic statistical illiteracy.

      Reply

  21. I assume your correlation coefficients R^2 are in the range of [-100,100] instead of the typical [-1.0,1.0]?

    Very interesting to see the tight correlations between infectious vectors and cancers. There’s evidence for similar correlations between bacterial infection of the arterial wall and heart disease.

    Also the anti-dairy protein angle is interesting as well. From what I recall, the Lyon heart trial also had some evidence for dairy intake as being a major difference between the trial and control groups, with the trial group ingesting about half the dairy products and having lower incidence of heart disease.

    Reply

    1. Robert, her correlation coefficients (r) range from -100 to +100 but her r-squared values range from 0 to 100. You can derived them simply by squaring the r values she reported. Squared numbers can’t be negative. 🙂

      Chris

      Reply

  22. Denise:

    I’m so glad you contacted me and I hope my post and efforts to get the word out does your marvelous, high quality, honest and integrated work justice. By the look of comments you’re getting some ver well deserved recognition.

    Nothing short of your collection being the go-to critique of The China Study is acceptable. Right now I’m using Google to source other likely interested parties to make them aware of your work and I challenge and encourage others to do likewise.

    Reply

    1. I have looked at your website and found you to do a great injustice to good health and twist the truth to your own beliefs!!!!
      Remember there are more people who look into theories of long time study and the long term benefit,s as to those who have little knowledge and pick it apart for their own agenda!!!

      Reply
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  24. wow, this is amazing. hope you decide on a career in nutrition research. I will link to this wherever I can.

    Reply

  25. Congratulations on a wonderful bit of analysis. First-rate. Extraordinary. Add superlative of choice. K

    Reply
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  27. That was a really good read. As a non-academic/statistician, you clearly described the data in a way that everyone can understand. Thanks, Julie

    Reply

  29. Simply superb.

    This really belongs in a peer-reviewed journal. This piece is far better and certainly more important than the average dross I read in medical journals.

    Like Stephan, I have been trying to put the hurt on wheat as one of the three “neolithic agents of disease” that are responsible for the diseases of civilization.

    http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2009/6/23/the-argument-against-cereal-grains.html

    http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2010/3/12/the-argument-against-cereal-grains-ii.html

    To find that the actual data on which the China Study was based has a stronger relative risk associated with wheat than almost any other food variable is simlutaneously shocking and gratifying.

    I second Dr. Guyenet in asking you to dig deeper into the wheat issue.

    Nice work.

    Reply
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  32. Fantastic work! Mad respect for someone to dedicate the time to robust scientific rigor. Pity Powell couldn’t do the same himself!

    Reply
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  34. Wow, that was a lot of work just for me to READ it! Most impressive. It’s amazing what intelligence, objectivity, and hard work can accomplish. I would REALLY love to see you eventually tackle other similar projects. It’s so wonderful and so sadly rare to find someone who can root out basic unvarnished truths from piles of numbers. What I want is to understand what is healthy, but that has been amazingly hard info to find! You obviously have a wonderful natural talent for pushing aside the bull and getting to the meat of the matter (excuse the pun).

    Reply
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  38. Outstanding, and one of the few examples to be found (including amongst “real” scientists like, ahem, T. Colin Campbell) of the proper use of classical statistics. Nice job not extrapolating correlations beyond what they are, which are numbers derived from data, as opposed to hypothesis tests.

    Reply

  39. Really solid, and a great reminder at just how twisted, knotted, confusing, and convoluted epidemiological research can be – hence why I never cite epidemiological study as evidence of any pre-asserted hypothesis.

    Reply
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  43. “Apart from his cherry-picked references for other studies (some of which don’t back up the claims he cites them for)”

    I’ve long believed this of many authors who promote a vegan diet.

    I followed a vegan diet for about 5 years. While all my numbers were great, I didn’t feel well. When I added animal products back into my diet, I felt much better and the numbers all improved.

    Reply

  44. Great post, I found it through the paleonu.com blog, which I follow regularly.

    I’ll be checking your blog from now on also, even though my diet is pretty different from yours (see my blog for more info).

    – JLL

    Reply
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  47. I can’t thank you enough for this!! I agree with Dr. Harris’s review that you approached the data in a tone as close to neutral as possible, which I am especially thankful for (b/c it shows how careful of a thinker you are and that you are not pushing an agenda). You tore apart everything that deserved tearing apart, and you left us with some real gems hidden in the data that Campbell buried. Thanks to Richard for pointing so many of us toward this, too. =)

    Reply

  48. Amazing work. Thank you so much. I shudder to think that much of the 2010 USDA guidelines are based on similarly derived association data. This is why I believe the safest way to eat is as close as we can muster to how our ancestors ate, using as much scientific knowledge as we can glean from controlled prospective trials to figure out which Neolithic foods are also safe (and which paleo foods are best left out too).

    I’m also intrigued by the possibilities of real health policy implications that could literally help hundreds of millions of people in China. Implementing hepatitis B and parasite infection control throughout the countryside, for example.

    Reply

  49. Very nice, rigorous critique of Campbell’s methodology!
    Simply, the vegan crowd’s premise that humans supposedly evolved eating only plants is absurd to anyone with the slightest knowledge of evolutionary biology or paleontology. Anyone promoting such as agenda, even with a string of credentials after their name, is pretty much doomed before they begin :-).

    BTW, some of us are currently having a discussion on Campbell’s (negative, of course) review of the “New Atkins Diet” book, if anyone is interested. I enjoy it, not because any great scientific revelations are there, but several vegans are active and I get some sort of perverse pleasure in taking aim at. Sorry, it’s a personality defect I’ve got to get over someday… not today, however.

    Reply

  50. really excellent. the china study has been hanging around in the back of my mind while my reading and eating have carried me in other directions entirely. i feel reassured by your logic and analysis. thank you.

    Reply

  51. Thank you so much for all of your hard work and dedication to finding the truth. I found this critique through Robb Wolf’s website and couldn’t be more pleased with it. I’ve had vegans/vegetarians throwing The China Study at me as if it were gospel for far too long. Even The Protein Debate between Campbell and Cordain seems to have no effect on the illusions. This is something that always scares me in the realm of science and health, when a person’s own opinions clouds their judgment and causes them to form a theory and only ask the questions that will give them the answers they seek. Bravo to you for such a well crafted critique.

    Reply
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  55. awesome work denise, the analysis and time spent by you in this is awesome, especially eye opening is the role of wheat in this. i wonder if you could do one article on wheat itself and perhaps homogenised/pasteurised/UHT milk as well. 🙂

    Reply

  56. you should publish this, or at the very least, you should post a version of this to amazon.com as a book review…

    Reply
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  58. HI Denise,

    Thank you for putting this together, I know how much time and work went into it. I will definitely link to this from my blog and also refer my students to it. This is by far the most thorough critique of Campbell’s work that I have seen so far. Kudos!

    Like Stephan, I would like to see the data on wheat parsed a bit more. I hope you can get around to that.

    Don

    Reply
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  60. What everyone else said.

    Excellent work.

    You have a very bright future in whatever field you choose to pursue.

    Reply
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  62. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I receive frequent emails and blog comments from vegetarians who believe the China Study was handed down by The Almighty. Now I know where to send them.

    I’ve read other articles on Campbell’s selection bias, but this one is the most comprehensive by far.

    Reply

  63. To all who have responded, e-mailed, or simply read in silence so far: a sincere and enormous “thank you.” I wasn’t expecting this analysis to generate so much interest, especially given its daunting length, and I’m thrilled so many people have found the information useful.

    A number of you expressed interest in the wheat/heart disease correlation. My next post will be delving into this issue (based on China Study data) in great depth, although the post might not be up for a week or so. In the meantime, a blogger named Brad Marshall wrote a fantastic post on this exact subject in 2005 — so mosey on over there if you haven’t already, and take a gander:

    http://bradmarshall.blogspot.com/2005/12/is-wheat-killing-us-introduction-maybe.html

    I’ll be testing whether the wheat/heart disease connection holds true when adjusting for other factors (like latitude). Campbell actually published a paper mentioning this correlation in 1998, so he was definitely aware of it, although obviously chose not to include it “The China Study.”

    To those of you who’ve asked questions, I’ll be getting back to you individually (probably not very promptly, though — sorry in advance!).

    Thanks again, everyone!

    Reply

    1. Thanks for doing what the authors should have done with this data. I hope you tease out more information from the study.

      I would be waiting for your Wheat results. I have also gone nearly wheat free, after reading so much about it. It was interesting to note that it does cause such wide ranging damage and not just to gluten sensitive people. Now I will try to be more strict.

      Thanks for pointing to the excellent article by Brad Marshall. It actually contains more gems than just the wheat. It shows that Rice is more beneficial than potatoes (Tubers). This to me totally doesn’t make sense. I have been reading about the Paleolithic diet, and it makes sense that Tubers would have been in our diet since ages, but to think that Rice which is a neolithic food, is more beneficial than potatoes, just doesn’t compute for me.

      I hope that you will also work your magic on the rice and tuber data from the study. It will be interesting if the data shows a negative (or at least insignificant) correlation for rice with the various diseases.

      It will allow me to eat rice more guilt free. I will help me relish biryani guilt free ;-).

      Thanks again, and hope that you get into nutrition field.

      Reply

    2. Denise, if you haven’t already noted it, you might keep an eye out for potential confounders (high omega-6) vegetable oil, and sugar, when looking at the wheat data.

      Reply

      1. In line with ed’s comment you should also look at trying to break down cholesterol into HDL, LDL and trigs and see what affect this has on the data. The current theory that I believe holds the most water is that the ratio of HDL to LDL is the best indicator of coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease.
        Further, the type of LDL matters (i.e. small and dense or big and fluffy).

        I’m not sure whether this distinction is made in the data you have, but if it is then it would be interesting to see how closely the different types of cholesterol correlate with various heart problems.

        Reply
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  65. This work is amazing. Nobels have been awarded for much less. To my thinking, you have persuasively established wheat as the #1 threat to modern human health. (“Staff of life” indeed!)

    That Campbell has finally been put to rest pales beside this accomplishment.

    (Though I do have to wonder about what kind of man can discover the slow yet extraordinary danger wheat posed to billions of his fellow man — and then consciously attempt to hide that fact from them!

    The mind reels.

    Reply
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  67. Anon:

    Let’s not fall into the same trap Campbell did and which Denise worked so hard to show.

    What she did was to demonstrate that other associations were much stronger than animal products and pointed out that Campbell failed to mention those.

    At best, she falsified Campbell’s conclusions as laid out in his book. Let me be clear: she falsified his conclusions, not the hypothesis that animal products are bad, because you simply can’t do that either way with epidemiology.

    On the other hand, Denise has created a ripe field for new hypotheses to be tested in rigeur.

    Reply

  68. Richard,

    I agree. The correlations are damning, but not proof.

    Still…Denise gets my personal Nobel. 🙂

    Reply
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  75. Oh, woman!
    You are amazing! You really took the bullet for those of us who have recently thought to commit to the same thing…with so much more grace and accuracy than I ever could have. Well done! Thanks for the number crunching, research, analysys and balanced presentation. Thanks for avoiding an alarmist perspective (present too frequently on BOTH sides of the fence when it comes to the China Study.) and making the fruits of your labors public information. Thank you, thank you, sincerely…1,000,000 thanks!

    Reply

  76. Unbelievable amount and quality of work. I knew Collin T. was full of it when I learned he was part of that group for responsible medicine that somehow omit to mention they are all vegetarians on a mission. A case of diluted personal integrity you could call it. I read the earlier critic but yours is by far the most comprehensive and comprehensible.
    I am going to translate as much of it as I can to Hebrew (the language of my blog) and if the review I wrote of The Vegetarian Myth is any indication we are going to have a lively debate here.
    Looking forward to the piece on gluten. It should be noted however that recent research shows that not all wheat varieties are equal in terms of damage they can inflict, with most recent verities been more potent.
    Miki

    Reply

  77. Wonderful analysis! I too were stuck by the associations between wheat and the many diseases listed. Kudos to you for the detailed analysis and concise writing.

    Reply
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  79. well done! the number crunching you did is a amazing (interesting hobby!!)..thanks for giving me a concise argument with “sciency” numbers that I can present to others!!

    Reply

  80. Wow! This is a new subject for me, and I am speechless. What a great, great, analysis you did. I just added you to my blogroll. I don’t want to miss a single post you write from now on. I love your reasoning, all your hard work involved, and care you’ve taken in making this one great well researched article. Thank you.

    Reply

  81. Good job doing plots. That’s really important to see data trends, as it really is true that a picture is a better summary than numbers. And as a long time teacher of statistics and researcher myself, I’m absolutely thrilled to see people analyzing data themselves. Seriously, it’s really wonderful to see that whatever I’ve taught in intro stats class that no one wanted to take gets used by some people. Your analysis is a good start, but like all nutrition data, this data is tough, and correlations aren’t enough to analyze it properly. If you continue in this vein, you may want to learn more statistics. Here are some issues you need to deal with:

    1) Outliers. In the plot of that disease that starts with s versus a cancer (colorectal?), you have most of the data clustered around zero prevalence of the S disease, with little evident trend and then you have one outlier from a place with high S disease, and then two points in the middle. That one outlier may be enough to give you the high correlation, and if you took it out, you might have insignificant correlation, and certainly if you took both that point and the 2 middle points out, you would.

    2) Confounding between meat and income. Places with highest grain intake are likely the poorest, and places with the highest meat intake are the wealthiest. See the study discussed here about grain/meat intake in China:
    http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/07/real-world-giffen-good.html
    Obviously income has enormous health impact that go beyond meat intake.

    3) Simpson’s paradox: When you have confounders that might make an enormous difference in the outcome, you have to stratify by them, which you did in some places, when you looked separately at cancer risk of people people with Hep B (if I remember correctly) and without. In some cases, once you stratify, you see that a correlation actually reverses. Here’s one example of that in some sex discrimination data:
    http://www.umsl.edu/~banisr/4326/sexbias.htm

    4) Ecological fallacy. Ecological data is a good place to start, but it’s the most crude type of data because obviously there are lots of reasons why, say, Mississippi and Colorado and Massachusetts are different, and a pattern seen across states (or in this case, Chinese provinces) might not hold for each individual within them. In fact, it might be the opposite. When you break down and look within each state, the data might look different. Here’s one example: blue states (Democratic majority states) are richer, but once you look within each state, richer people are more likely to vote Republican. At the same time, some states have stronger association between income and party affiliation than others.
    http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2005/11/income_matters.html

    These are just a few issues that I saw off the top of my head. I don’t mean to be discouraging. Nutrition data is just really really hard. And obviously all these issues apply to the original published analysis that you are reanalyzing their data.

    I hope that you go on to improve the analysis beyond this, or find individual data to work with. Or ways to improve ecological data (which is hard to work with, and I am not so familiar with the methods people use with ecological data.) Some nutrition data that is publicly available is public release NHANES, the main US federal survey of nutrition. I think anyone can get that, and they are very thorough in documenting things like serving size (though obviously as soon as you have people measure their food, they are going to change their eating habits to some extent, and people also lie about which food they eat.)

    Good job with this analysis. I haven’t seen the original book, but if it really is as you say, it’s great to see challenges to claims resulting from substandard data analysis. Nutrition is really hard to study, though.

    Reply

    1. Janet,

      I’m glad I checked my spam queue, because your fantastic post was snagged there. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this — you bring up so many excellent points and obviously have a wealth of experience with stats!

      1) When writing this critique, I considered posting graphs adjusted for outliers (and played around with this while to see how the correlations were affected), but ultimately chose to just plot the data as recorded in the original monograph. My reasoning: The only correlations supporting Campbell’s claims were the uncorrected ones, and since I was analyzing his claims (not necessarily the validity of the correlations), I figured it’d be best to post the graphs reflecting that.

      In most cases, the outliers vanished naturally once I removed confounding variables. For instance — the outlier you pointed out, in the graph plotting schistosomiasis and total cholesterol, is the same county represented by the outlier in the graph immediately after it (total cholesterol and colorectal cancer). Once the data is adjusted for schistosomiasis infection, that county and its misleading placement disappears.

      EDIT: I just realized you were talking about schistosomiasis and colorectal cancer, not schistosomiasis and cholesterol. My bad! Without the farthest outlier, the correlation remains very high (+74). Without the farther three outliers, including the two in the middle you mentioned, the correlation also remains high (+55).

      2) Great point regarding meat and wealth. Thanks for the link — I’ll check it out. It’s unfortunate the China Study didn’t document income/financial variables, but it may be something that could be approximated indirectly (for instance: Wealthier areas may have less diseases related to poor living conditions, like pneumonia and tuberculosis, so we could divide regions based on indicators of substandard living and see what that does). This is something I’ll be looking into further. Thanks for bringing it up.

      3) Stratifying data did seem to portray the correlations in a new light. Very interesting link; thank you!

      4) Ecological fallacy — in my opinion, this is one of the biggest design limitations of the China Study. Despite the large number of people initially involved, all data was aggregated at the county level, resulting in only 65 data points — none of which preserved the intricacies of individual diet and disease rates; only the averages of a population. Since regions tended to be somewhat isolated and reliant on the same foods (usually what grew locally), this may be less of a problem with the China Project than with other studies of its kind, since regional diets tended to be homogeneous (according to the project’s research team).

      As you’re aware, this sort of study can never yield proof — only clues and hypotheses — so even the most rigorous analysis will have limitations. It could definitely be worthwhile to integrate the ecological data with individual/controlled studies to create something even more definitive.

      Thanks again for your thorough comments. Given your background on this subject, I’d be particularly interested if you see anything I can fine-tune in the analysis above (especially because my lack of credentials will, to some people, be reason enough to dismiss everything I’ve written). I want this to be as accurate as possible, even working within the study’s obvious limitations.

      Denise

      Reply

      1. Where did you study nutritional science? Have you been at it for 50 some years?? Wow….I haven’t seen your name or your credentials to match that of T.Colin Campbell…amazing but I guess you don’t need it on this blog because you have obviously convinced some of these readers and certainly not the majority thankfully, of your misleading data, But then I don’t believe that anyone here really knows science or has any real education that is pertnet to this subject!!!You may have a small following but Campbells book has sold millions and has reached those who do know what he is talking about!!!Some of you should go to” Lona Linda” and research what scientist all over the world have found!!They come together ever year for seminars to educate those on vegetarian/vegan diets!!That is something you can not argue with!!I’ll be taking your data to Sublime in Ft. Lauderdale on the 26th to share with Campbell and other educated experts, who have spent most of their lives promoting good health!!!

        Reply

        1. Compare the digestive systems of herbivores, omnivores, and us…..which do our most resemble? Your agenda is showing, dlibby. She used Campbell’s own information, anyone with the insight, patience, and understanding of statistics could have done that…and she did. Study anatomy, and you’ll have your answers as to how we need to eat.

          Reply

        2. Your comment is full of… well I can’t say on here. 🙂 – Let’s just say your conditioning is obvious. Credentials mean NOTHING in relation to the validity of the scientific data. Stop trying to shoot the messenger and look at the actual science. That’s critical thinking 101.

          As far as “good health,” that’s subjective.

          Reply
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  83. This is amazing, congratulations on what you’ve achieved here it’s seriously impressive. You are such an inspiration to me as a fledgling nerd of nutritional science (I just finished a 4 year degree). Maybe if I try really hard I can be as smart as you and blog as well as you do about these things one day *sigh….* Only problem is I can’t handle numbers so statistics is a disaster area for me lol 🙂

    http://foodfloraandfelines.blogspot.com/

    Reply

  84. This is absolutely brilliant!

    Like Stephan (above), I’d also love to hear more about the data surrounding wheat. I’ve suspected such correlations before, but I wasn’t aware they were embedded in Campbell’s data.

    Reply
  85. Pingback: Chipping Away at The China Study « Liberation Wellness

  86. Thanks for making your exaustive analysis available to the public for free. Since I used to live in China, I can put a lot of the dietary data into context. I didn’t notice any data about plant versus animal fat. Eastern city-dwelling Chinese use a lot of refined vegetable cooking oils, specifically soy and corn, to stirfry vegetables on high heat for a short period. Since Campbell is anti-fat, an examination of plant versus animal fat is not relevant to debunking his claims, but I would be interested in any data, if available.

    Reply

  87. interesting responses on the 30 bananas a day forum, some are touting Campbell’s previous retort to his previous critics (Colpo and Masterjohn), which I can paraphrase as “they are misinterpreting uncorrected raw data”… what the hell does that mean? Seems to me you worked very hard to correctly interpret the raw data. And Campbell worked very hard to torture the raw data to conform to his own biases. I guess by corrected data, he means “only that data that confirms what I already know”

    That guy’s legacy, hopefully, will be as the text book example of how not to do science. If you are a young, or even experienced scientist, you should constantly be asking yourself, “what would TC Campbell do?” And then you should probably do the opposite!

    others are taking the “how could she, she is killing more animals…” Doesn’t matter to them one bit that Campbell’s conclusions appear to be very seriously in error.

    Reply

    1. Hi Mr. Freddy,

      I’ve parted ways from 30BAD and won’t be posting there again, but you’re free to pass this along if folks there are confused.

      I’ve seen Campbell’s responses to previous critics and have been perplexed by the “misinterpreting uncorrected raw data” accusation. My best guess is that he’s referring to the “Death from all causes” or “Death from all cancers” variable, which several critics cite in their reviews in order to vindicate animal foods. Both of these variables can be misleading taken out of context: In the raw data, correlations between animal food consumption are inverse for death from all causes (meaning the meat eaters tend to live longer) and also inverse for death from all cancers (meaning the meat eaters tend to have lower rates of cancer, in totality). These are easy things to cite for anyone looking to discredit “The China Study.”

      But what the uncorrected data here overlooks are the many, many confounding variables at play. Do the meat eaters also live in areas with better health care and living conditions (leading to fewer instances of non-diet-related disease)? Do the meat eaters experience less “death from external causes,” another variable that contributes to all-cause mortality? Any number of entangled variables could sway the “Death from all causes” variable, rendering it fairly useless uncorrected.

      Similarly, the “Death from all cancers” variable can be misleading without looking at individual rates of specific cancers. Some are obviously related to lifestyle habits (like smoking and lung cancer), exposure to external hazards (like toxins in the workplace), infections (like hepatitis B or schistosomiasis)–so on and so forth. If, for instance, plant-eaters tended to be heavier smokers than the meat-eaters and exhibited much higher rates of lung cancer, then the “Death from all cancers” variable would lean in favor of meat consumption for reasons unrelated to diet.

      In these cases, I’d certainly agree with Campbell that using the uncorrected data is unwise and potentially misleading. That said, it appears Campbell himself relies on the raw data, since the correlations he cites are only valid before correcting for confounding variables.

      The analysis on this page avoids those traps by looking at individual cancers instead of cancer in the aggregate, dividing populations into high-risk and low-risk groups, and adjusting for variables known to influence disease rates.

      I hope that clarifies some things.

      Denise

      Reply

      1. Don’t be fooled people, Denise has misinterpreted raw data, just as many inexperienced “researchers” do. Denise is not qualified to read such data correctly.
        Please refer to the use and misuse on pp. 54-82 of the China Project monograph.

        The following is Dr Campbell’s rebuttal. The rest can be found http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/campbell_china_response.htm

        ” China Project results are no exception to these limitations of single experiments. It was very large, unique and comprehensive but it was observational (i.e., not interventional), simply observing things as they were at a single point in time. It provided an exceptionally large number of hypothetical associations (shown as statistically assessed correlations) that may indicate but does not prove cause and effect relationships. These unanalyzed correlations are considered raw or crude. It is highly unusual to find such ‘raw’ data in a scientific report because, in part, untrained observers may misunderstand such raw data.

        For the monograph, we were somewhat uncertain whether to publish such raw data but decided to do so for two principle reasons. First, we wanted to make these data available to other researchers, while hoping that data misuse would not be a significant problem. Second, because these data were collected in rural China at a time when data reliability might have been questioned, we chose to be as transparent as possible. We discussed data use and misuse on pp. 54-82 of the China Project monograph that curiously was overlooked by Masterjohn and Jay’Y’.

        Reply

        1. Hey John, it’s probably sufficient to post this on one entry instead of three of them.

          I agree wholeheartedly with what Campbell says about the limitations of the China Project data (and for the record, I read the warning chapter in the China Study monograph before diving into the data). If you read my critique, you’ll see that I don’t slap down the raw correlations for this very reason: They’re misleading and can easily imply trends that aren’t actually there. This is why I focus on untangling variables and adjusting for confounding factors, thus rendering the data no longer ‘raw’.

          Campbell’s claims, on the other hand, only appear to be valid before those adjustments are made. In every instance I analyzed, his claims matched with the raw correlations but not with the corrected ones.

          If you feel you or someone you know would be better qualified to handle the statistics, by all means, track down a copy of “Diet, Life-style and Mortality in China” and analyze it for yourself. I’ve tried to be very transparent with my process here so that others may replicate my methods or identify any logical errors, should there be any. If you have suggestions for how I can improve upon this analysis, I’d be glad to hear them. Apart from that, RE: your quote from Campbell — you’re preachin’ to the choir. 🙂

          Thanks,
          Denise

          Reply

      2. And who do you think you’re trying to fool, “John?”

        That poor excuse for a “rebuttal” (filled with ad hominem and hand waving — pretty much all Campbell ever does) has been around since 2006 and was in response to Masterjohn and Colpo. It does not in the least address the brunt of Denise’s critique.

        “Denise is not qualified to read such data correctly.”

        You fools crack me up.

        Reply

        1. Richard: Seems your comments too are backed by little. How dare you call John a fool? At least he wrote something solid. You, on the hand, are merely calling names.

          Reply

      3. Also saw your goodbye post on the 30bad site, also well done. You have a fun to read writing style.

        I don’t think I’ll ever be posting there, haha… I’d be an even bigger and more square-er peg than you in that environment. I was just over there having a look around cuz I was curious about how the vegan true believers would react to your astounding analysis.

        I expected to see some head in the sand reactions, but wow, I was suprised at what I found… some interesting characters over there…

        Reply

  88. Hello Denise,

    I found this via Dr. Harris as well. One word. Masterful.
    Also urge you to explore the wheat correlation.

    Thanks!

    Reply
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  90. Two things that can’t be vilified too much…wheat and The China Study.

    Great job Denise.

    “Campbell actually raises a number of points I wholeheartedly agree with—particularly in the “Why Haven’t You Heard This?” section of his book, where he exposes the reality behind Big Pharma and the science industry at large.”

    The best way to sell a lie? Shove it in with some truths.

    Reply

  91. Your analysis is completely OVER-SIMPLIFIED. Every good epidemiologist/statistician will tell you that a correlation does NOT equal an association. By running a series of correlations, you’ve merely pointed out linear, non-directional, and unadjusted relationships between two factors. I suggest you pick up a basic biostatistics book, download a free copy of “R” (an open-source statistical software program), and learn how to analyze data properly. I’m a PhD cancer epidemiologist, and would be happy to help you do this properly. While I’m impressed by your crude, and – at best – preliminary analyses, it is quite irresponsible of you to draw conclusions based on these results alone. At the very least, you need to model the data using regression analyses so that you can account for multiple factors at one time.

    Reply

    1. Hi Rayna,

      Given that this is the first ‘critical’ comment posted so far, you’ll probably get flamed pretty soon — but I’m very grateful for your suggestions, and particularly for your offer to help me get this information publicized even further once it passes your standards. For that, a giant thanks!

      For the sake of making this critique more accessible to readers, I only included the simplest/linear graphs to illustrate some relationships between mortality rates and confounding variables. However, while analyzing the data I did run multiple variable regression analysis on (nearly) all the mortality statistics you see here. I found the results were similar to what I achieved by stratifying the data/eliminating variables by hand (ie, combing through the data in the monograph and using only counties without a certain risk factor — maybe a more crude method than is typically used by statisticians, but again, it produced similar results to running multiple regressions, and I was more interested in seeing whether generally positive or negative associations were in place rather than determining exact numbers). In fact, when running MRA the protective trends for animal foods were even more accentuated in most cases (I recall a -70 between animal protein and cardiovascular diseases).

      For what it’s worth, Campbell’s claims all align with the raw correlations but not with adjusted ones, as far as I can tell, which makes me very curious about his own methods for analyzing the data.

      I didn’t venture beyond linear regressions because I didn’t visually identify curvature in my scatterplots, but if you think this was an error on my part, please let me know. I realize there are probably more sophisticated methods that you PhD-ed epidemiologists use, and I would be much indebted if you let me in on your secrets. 🙂

      At any rate, I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to draw conclusive statements from the China Study data or prove anything beyond my original point: that Campbell’s analysis of the data overlooks important variables influencing disease rates. That’s the intent of this critique. Nothing more. I don’t see how, in any conceivable way, he could reach the conclusions he did after taking obvious risk factors into account. Campbell is the one insisting this mammoth collection of ecological data shows that meat-eaters are less healthy than plant-eaters and I am simply testing whether this is supported by the data.

      Again, thanks for your generous offer to help. When you get a chance, please shoot me an email at deniseminger@gmail.com and we can discuss this more. I’m going to dedicate all of next weekend (translation: I will probably work for 48 hours straight and not sleep) to recording the results from multiple regressions and any other analytical methods you recommend. As it stands, I’m confident in the critique on this page, but I’m certainly willing to perform additional analyses if that would make this more readily accepted in the medical field.

      Thanks,

      Denise

      Reply

    2. Rayna, I think you miss the point. The only conclusion Denise draws is that Campbells presentation of correlations from the data is misleading and inaccurate at best. You are over-interpresting Denise’s post. Defensive much?

      Also, here is something I don’t know. How do you perform multiple regression on 300 variables with 65 data points? And if that’s really the right way to do it, why didn’t Campbell do it that way? Would this only further damn his analysis?

      Reply

    3. Rayna is right: This analysis, while impressive and very well done, is indeed over-simplified.

      However, Ed is also right: Denise is not attempting to draw any conclusions as such; rather, she is pointing out the inaccuracies of Campbell’s interpretation of the data.

      The irresponsibility lies with the paleo quacks who are now declaring that this “proves” that wheat is indeed the cause of disease. Maybe, maybe not; at best this analysis generates a possible hypothesis that there is a possible link between wheat consumption and disease. Nothing more.

      Reply

      1. can someone cite for me the study/analysis that shows how rheumatoid arthritis follows wheat consumption in populations as wheat expanded outward from the fertile crescent? i have seen it referred to but have not the actual analysis. i have a family member that i am trying to make aware of this nasty.

        (yes DLM, Denise is not the only bright light to find something sinister about our opioid-stimulating wheat consumption)…

        Reply

    1. for the record, i did NOT say that the china study *isn’t* bunk – i simply pointed out the errors in denise’s analysis and conclusions. and my offer still stands – i am happy to assist denise with a more appropriate analysis. and if the results still show that dr. campbell’s claims are untrue, then i am happy to share this publicly. but i think if one is going to undertake a scientific stab at something, one should do so responsibly. that’s all i’m saying.

      Reply

      1. But your critique of Denise applies even more to Campbell himself. Are you not grasping the point that “Campbell’s claims, on the other hand, only appear to be valid before those adjustments are made. In every instance I analyzed, his claims matched with the raw correlations but not with the corrected ones.”?

        Reply

  93. i don’t think my being vegan invalidates my intellectual capacity for critiquing denise’s analysis. i’m an epidemiologist. i critique my OWN studies with far greater detail than i’ve done here, trust me.

    Reply

    1. rayna wrote this on another forum here http://vegsource.com/talk/raw/messages/100021596.html

      “2) Much of her conclusions are drawn from purely ecologic data –
      that is, data that is in aggregate – such as comparing the average
      fat consumption in Japan and the U.S. and the corresponding
      breast cancer rates. Sure, it can be informative, but it doesn’t tell us
      anything about some of the other factors that might be related to
      fat consumption and breast cancer. Ecologic studies are considered
      to be at the bottom of the “epidemiologic study totem pole.” And
      we can NOT draw individual-level conclusions from them, i.e. we
      cannot say that an individual who consumes less fat will, on
      average, be protected from breast cancer (even if that’s true, we
      cannot draw this conclusion from an ecologic study – there’s even a
      term for it: “ecologic fallacy”).”

      (so she says the conclusions are faulty b/c they’re drawn from purely ecological data……hmm…. that’s what the China Study IS, ecological data….so apparently this book was bunk from the start?? looks like campbell is guilty of the ecological fallacy then)

      “OK, my disclaimer: I’m an epidemiologist, and yes, scientists are
      NOT objective (I’ll say it: I’m an ardent veggie with a happy veggie
      family). Hell, science is not objective. I mean, you could be given a
      blob of numbers that mean nothing. It takes some context,
      interpretation, and data processing to make anything meaningful
      out of those numbers. Yes, scientists can be biased, and so can the
      studies they conduct, and the analysis of those studies. But good
      scientists do the best they can, are open about their methods, and
      fair when discussing their results. I applaud Dr. Campbell for
      making his raw data available – very few scientists do this. I will be
      totally honest and say I have not read “The China Study” (I guess I
      feel it’d just be preaching to the choir, but I think I will read it
      now…). “

      Reply
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    1. Religion and it’s closed eared and brained dogmas come in many forms. Lets look at the health issues in play eating 100’s of grams of carbs per day, B vitamin deficiency on and on.

      One has to just cut off disinformation channels with ruthlessness and let some folks “be”!

      Reply

  98. Dear vegans,

    Please actually rebut these criticisms instead of just appealing to the authority of your credentials.

    Thank you

    Reply

    1. You have a cat as an avatar and you’re not a vegan? An animal lover that eats animals, now there’s a contradiction if I ever saw one.

      Reply

      1. I love animals, but I am not in bondage to a newage hippy ideology that prevents me from being at peace with the natural world as it is, carnivores, omnivores, herbivores and all.

        Reply

      2. gawd i am so tired of this inane veg-head reply – i read “the secret life of plants” waaaay back –

        veg-heads: that salad you are munching is screaming all the way down–

        that i enjoy my ancestral evolutionary diet that includes meat hardly means i am a heartless animal hater – duhhhh…

        Reply
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    1. If Denise has misinterpreted the data than you should be able to show this. I’ll be awaiting your reply.

      Reply

  101. A friend of mine in stage 4 cancer had given me “The China Study” to read so I could give her my opinion on the research given. Upon comletetion I wanted to burn it. Our bodies are not made from cookie cutters and to say so bodly that animal fats and dairy are bad for mankind is lunacy.
    Look at history and what mankind has been successfully eating for thousands of years Greed and the love of the almighty dollar is the main reason our diet has become such an issue. Government, food production and big pharma work hand in hand. Dr Campbell, very proudly, listed all of the grants he recieved for his studies!
    For those who are educated beyond their intelligence, I am thankful for Denise’s great work. But as for me with a PhD (plain high school diploma),The truth or rather the “untruths” about the China Study didn’t take charts and graphs. It was as clear as the nose on my face.
    The bible says “Everything in moderation”, no truer words have ever been spoken.

    Reply

    1. All things in moderation indeed!
      Remember that originally, in Genesis 1:29-30, both man and beast was given “every green plant for food”. Surely, for healing, it would seem to make sense to “go back to the basics”.

      Reply

      1. Common sense and religion don’t mix. I fail to see how it makes sense to “go back to basics” when the basics are religion. Unless, of course, we’re talking about faith. Are we talking about faith?

        Reply

      2. Yeah, every green plant. If you like the Garden of Eden idea, remember it had plants, and animals, not grains. In fact…Genesis 3:19, when they were kicked from the garden:

        “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

        Sounds like bread was part of the punishment. No bread for me, thanks!

        Reply

  102. The most curious thing about the whole exercise is that Ms. Minger’s correlations made with the uncorrected data apparently match Dr. Campbell’s.

    I would imagine that Ms. Minger made a few mistakes in her analysis along the way. She is only human, was burning the midnight oil, and has no world class epidemiologists on hire to help check her work. Dr. Campbell, as a full professor at Cornell, no doubt has some very fine epidemiologists at his disposal. If he chose to publish the correlations from the uncorrected data, I cannot credit that it was a mistake.

    How many “correlations” and “associated withs” in the current up-for-debate 2010 guidelines come from the China Study data and the papers published by Dr. Campbell’s group?

    The China Study data set is problematic, as explained by the epidemiologist in the comments, and of course by Ms. Minger herself. Nevertheless such a large data set is important, and could have some meaningful information. If the data is processed correctly.

    Reply
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  106. Rayna suggested:

    “At the very least, you need to model the data using regression analyses so that you can account for multiple factors at one time.”

    Engineer Richard Kroeker did just that two years ago. You can see his results on an Amazon discussion thread here .

    Reply

  107. When doing wheat correlation latitude may have to be taken care of since vitamin D is important factor in both CHD and cancer.

    Reply

  108. John wrote:

    “We discussed data use and misuse on pp. 54-82 of the China Project monograph that curiously was overlooked by Masterjohn and Jay’Y’.”

    I located the monograph here . I read the foreward and the study description and methods but could not find any information about data use and misuse that would be relevant to this debate. I also have a copy of The China Study. I would very much appreciate it if you or someone else could direct me to text in the book or online that would explain how Campbell and others connected data from the monograph to their conclusions about animal and plant protein and fat. The monograph itself states in the section “Study description and methods” that no conclusions can be drawn from varying data on fat consumption, noting that fat consumption raises (in its words) both protective HDL and harmful LDL. Links or page numbers will do.

    Reply
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  110. Thank you Denise!

    My friend Greg Glassman once wrote “Truth is like a beach ball, it takes a lot of effort to hold it underwater and eventually, it will rise to the surface.”

    Reply

  111. Just need to thank you, Denise, for this well-researched post. Pretty much closes the book on Campbell’s erroneous, biased “scientific” conclusions.

    Reply

  112. Hi Denise,

    Thank you for your wonderful analysis. Like others before me I am interested in a more detailed parsing of the data concerning wheat and whether the wheat consumed was refined processed wheat. Even though he is a vegan, my guess is T. Colin Campbell would agree with any correlations throwing modern refined processed wheat under the bus.

    Look forward to more of your work (and I also sent you an email).

    Take care..

    Reply

    1. In the monograph, wheat is identified in English and Chinese as wheat flour. There is no information about whether the wheat flour was whole, unbleached white, or bleached.

      Reply

      1. Yes, I was aware of that, and those two links I mentioned below were helpful. I also asked Chris Masterjohn and he wasn’t sure but going from memory he thought it was refined (which may also include bromating, treating with transglutaminase etc.).

        Reply

      2. You can read Chinese, too? : )

        I wonder how Masterjohn would know what kind of flour was consumed during a study that took place in the 70s. Bleached flour was certainly around in China then, and today nearly all flour sold in stores is refined white flour. However, I do not know how rural collectivized farms treated wheat flour back in the 70s. If I can find a Chinese internet forum where foreign nationals can post, I might ask.

        Reply

      3. I looked up the email addresses of a few Chinese professors of nutrition, contacted them, and one has responded (it’s morning in China). Dr. Duo Li of Zhejiang University stated briefly in his reply that rural Chinese ate whole wheat products in the 70s and that refined wheat was rarely consumed then.

        Reply

      4. Actually Michael what I wrote to that particular question was “I don’t think the China Study really collected details about kinds and processing of wheat. I think there were only two districts that consumed wheat and dairy and they were modernized, but that’s off memory.”

        (And when I say memory, I mean it has been five years since I looked at the monograph.)

        My comments about the processing were a question to you about the type of wheat flour Dr. Davis was using in his self-experiment.

        Chris

        Reply

      5. Chris,

        My bad. When you referred to the two districts as being modernized, I assumed you meant in your recollection you thought they were consuming refined wheat and pasteurized dairy.

        Reply

  113. Okay, two of the links posted in this comment thread, Brad Marshall and Richard Kroeker, point to the consumption of refined wheat flour, i.e. white flour, which changes the landscape considerably. Brad Marshall seems to dismiss this issue because white rice is also consumed, but white rice does not have the same impact on the body as white flour (refined wheat flour). Nor does this take into account all the processing other than refining that typical modern day refined wheat flour undergoes.

    Both however are outstanding links.

    Reply

    1. I scrolled up the thread and couldn’t find the link to Marshall. Kroeker’s information comes from a present-day Chinese initiative to enrich flour. I looked online for information about Chinese wheat production and processing and couldn’t find any information specifying one way or the other how flour was processed back in the 70s. I will probably send emails to some middle-aged Chinese who might be able to recall.

      Reply
  114. Pingback: Vindication, “Maps”, and the Athletic Vagabond « Theory to Practice

  115. Denise, I think you would be very interested in this paper:

    Siri-Tarino, Sun Q, Hu F B, Krauss, R M. “Meta-Analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease”, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2010, vol. 91, pp535-546

    It is a meta-analysis of just over 20 papers that looked at the link between saturated fat intake and heart disease. Very good statistical analysis, and I think at one point the authors show that in two studies the researchers misinterpreted their own data.

    Reply

  116. Denise, I think you would be very interested in this paper:

    Siri-Tarino, Sun Q, Hu F B, Krauss, R M. “Meta-Analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease”, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2010, vol. 91, pp535-546

    It is a meta-analysis of just over 20 papers that looked at the link between saturated fat intake and heart disease. A very good statistical analysis.

    Reply
  117. Pingback: Rönngrens Nutritionsblogg » “The China Study” avslöjad, läs och gråt alla veganer

  118. Hi Denise,

    As promised, I’m posting my response to your email on your site. You asked that I provide some tips on where to start and how to proceed. BTW, you mentioned “epidemiology secrets” and I just want to say: no “secrets”!! Epidemiology is just critical thinking, but with numbers. It’s no different from many other disciplines. Maybe some time you can help me with writing (scientists are generally terrible writers, hehe).

    Note: I’ve included some comments on what went wrong and how it can be corrected merely for demonstrative purposes – not at all malicious attacks, OK? This is how we all learn after all. In caps, I will highlight steps in the action plan for you.

    STEP 0: Do a literature search. I find it helpful to keep an excel spreadsheet with columns for author, title, journal, year, summary of paper, strengths of the study, weaknesses, and concluding remarks. This is essential, as one shouldn’t just blindly go into an analysis without having at least some background information on the subject matter. No need to be an expert, but good to know what’s already out there, and what needs to be done.

    1. Correlations:
    For this discussion, the outcome will be colorectal cancer, since you used it on your post. Similarly, the primary exposure of interest will be total cholesterol. By by basing your conclusions on uncorrected correlations alone, you’ve made a huge leap that doesn’t have much ground to stand on. The simple correlations are biased, as you yourself pointed out when evaluating total cholesterol, schistomiasis, and colorectal cancer. As such, if you don’t adjust for potential confounders via multiple regression, the association you observe is biased. We almost always need to adjust for confounders, and this is very true in your case.

    STEP 1: It’s a good habit to evaluate the correlations between all exposures and also between all exposures and the outcome at the individual level. So, for *every* analysis you plan on doing, run create scatterplots for every X against X and every X against Y, using the *individual* data (where possible), and provide the correlation + 95% confidence interval for each.

    STEP 2: Create histograms for every exposure of that is categoric and density plots (or you can create histograms with very narrow bars) for every exposure that is continuous. This will tell you how the variables are distributed and what the appropriate summary statistics for them would be. For example, if total cholesterol is not normally distributed (follow a bell curve) then *median* total cholesterol might be a better summary statistic then *mean* total cholesterol (good to know when you present descriptive statistics of the data you’re using). Sometimes it’s useful to present different stats for a single variable.

    2. Individual data vs. aggregated data:
    You stated you didn’t see much curvature, but keep in mind that you were presenting with aggregated data (eg. average total cholesterol for all individuals) instead of including individual-level data (the exposure and outcome for a single individual). Consequently, there was a big loss in information, and you can’t make accurate decisions on how to model your data if you plot aggregated data. Related to this, your analysis was ecologic (used aggregated/grouped data) but you made individual-level conclusions when you used the term “risk factor.” This is referred to as an ecologic fallacy – and it’s just that. A fallacy. For example, all we can say based on your cholesterol-colorectal cancer example (the one that doesn’t account for schistomiasis) is that the counties with higher mean total cholesterol tend to have higher incidence rates of colorectal cancer. We can’t make the leap to calling cholesterol a *risk factor* for colorectal cancer.

    STEP 3: Don’t aggregate your data in your analysis. Why? You lose A LOT of information when you aggregate data and you can bias your results. So keep that data at the individual-level. For descriptive tables, by all means, aggregated data is necessary for obvious reasons. But in your analysis, individual-level data when you’ve got it is essential.

    3. The right regression model:
    One of your outcomes was incidence rates of colorectal cancer. When you do your analysis with individual-level data, with incidence rates of colorectal cancer as your outcome, linear regression = WRONG model. Make sure you know which models to use and when. To start – when modeling “raw” rates (case counts and person time), we almost always use Poisson regression, and often we need to account for overdispersion as well. Get to know some of the other common regression models as well.

    STEP 4: Write out all of the primary exposures of interest you want to investigate and the corresponding outcome of interest and how you’re setting up your outcome variable (are you interested in colorectal cancer *incidence rates*, *prevalence*, a simple yes/no the person has colorectal cancer?)

    STEP 5: Write out what the appropriate regression model would be for the different analyses you plan to conduct.

    4. Confounders:
    These are factors that are related to the exposure and the outcome of interest such that *not* adjusting for them will produce a biased association between exposure and outcome. As you saw, schistomiasis might be a confounder. And in fact, county might be too – and is actually upstream of schistomiasis in some sense, right? Two confounders that almost *always* must be included in a model are AGE and SEX (provided your analysis isn’t restricted to one sex). This is especially true for chronic disease (eg. cardiovascular disease and cancer). In this particular case, body mass index (BMI) would be very important to include as well. County may also be important.

    STEP 6: For every analysis you do, write out all potential confounders you can think of and why. You know the data better than I do as you’ve worked with it extensively. And, from STEP 0, you’ll know your context.

    STEP 7: Write out *how* the confounders are related to the exposure and outcome. Is the confounder protective (i.e. decrease risk) for the outcome? Or is it a risk factor? How is it associated with the primary exposure of interest? This is where those scatterplots in STEP 1 come in handy! The purpose of this is to give you an idea of *how* an observed association might be biased if you *don’t* adjust for certain confounders. It is tedious, but thorough and, like STEP 6, will allow you to approach your analyses with more contextual background.

    5. “Cleaning” and “recoding” your data:
    Raw data is not *in and of itself* a bad thing. It is simply the data in its original form. But in order to be useful for analysis we often need to “clean” it and “recode” it. When I say “clean” it, I mean setting up the *dataset* that is free (to the greatest extent possible) of unnecessary data (for example, if you’re interested in ovarian cancer, you wouldn’t include men), or mistakes (for example, if an individual in the data was coded as being a man with ovarian cancer, this is clearly wrong). In this case, you might either omit it since you don’t have a way to check which is correct or, based on other data for that individual choose to change “man” to “woman” or “ovarian cancer” to “no ovarian cancer.” “Recoding” means setting up the *variables* to be useful. For example, we might recode BMI in categories of underweight, normal, overweight, and obese rather than leave it as continuous. Some variables may already be categoric, if the corresponding data were collected that way.

    STEP 8: Clean your data. You will likely need to set up multiple datasets.

    STEP 9: Write out *how* you’ve cleaned your data. (This is good record keeping.)

    STEP 10: Recode your data. This might include combining variables too.

    STEP 11: Create a “data dictionary” similar to the one on the Oxford site. But in addition, include a description of how you’ve coded your data (eg. 1=underweight, 2=normal, 3=overweight, 4=obese). Again, good for record keeping, but also “keeps you honest” so others know how you set up your data. This will often be apparent when you present your results, but not always. It’s a good habit to keep track of this, in any event.

    STEP 12: Replot all newly *categorized* variables against the outcome(s) of interest. Why? Because the categorized data may reveal non-linear relationships with the outcome (in fact, this is a strength of categorizing data – that we can account for some non-linear relationships). For example, underweight might be a risk for something, whereas normal BMI is protective, while overweight and obese are a risk (“U-shaped”).

    6. Exploration of your data through descriptive statistics:
    Almost all scientific papers start out with a “Table 1” which presents a description of the data. It tells us things like What’s the % of women and men in our data, What is the proportion of people with and without the exposure and with and without the outcome?

    STEP 13: Create descriptive tables of all relevant variables. This includes your primary exposure of interest, confounders, and outcome. Obviously, you will have different tables for each analysis as you’re interested in different primary exposures (cholesterol? meat? total caloric intake?) and outcomes (cardiovascular disease? colorectal cancer? bladder cancer?). To save time, you might include all relevant exposures and confounders in rows, and cross-classify them with all outcomes of interest in columns.

    6. Analysis:
    The fun part.

    STEP 14: Run your models. Keep track of what you include in your models b/c oftentimes we will evaluate several models for each analysis depending on what’s called “fit statistics.” Since you are familiar with p-values and I assume interpretation of beta coefficients, use these to help inform you of which variables to include in your final model *within the context of the analysis at hand* (this is key – if you have reason to believe that a confounder is important to include, keep it in the model even if it’s non-significant).

    STEP 15: Create tables for results from *all* analyses (including the models you decide to can in favor for another one) and what regression model was used. This is much more transparent than simply producing your final model.

    There’s more “post-analysis” stuff that should be done, but really Steps 1-15 is a pretty thorough.

    7. Publish:
    I can’t stress this enough. This is a long-term goal for sure, especially as you will likely end up with multiple papers! But once you think you’ve got the data set-up and analyses down, you need to write it up and send it on for peer-review. Peer-review is not perfect for sure, but it is the best measure we have for good science. It gives credibility to your efforts. Besides, you *do* want to be acknowledged for your efforts, right? By publishing in a peer-reviewed journal, you’re more likely to gain more widely publicized attention, which I think should be the goal of most epidemiological studies; we want to improve public health through informing not only our peers, but also the public.

    As a last note, I know this is a huge undertaking, but these are steps to a thorough analysis. I have no doubt you’re capable of tackling it.

    Best wishes.

    Reply

    1. PS. I’m sure you already planned to do this, but make all of the above available. With your large readership, you can make this a collaborative effort.

      Reply

    2. R,

      I haven’t read it yet, so perhaps you can tell me, which of your 16 steps did TCC follow for his China Project publication?

      If your argument is that anything less than your complete process is bad science and not to be trusted, what might this say about TCC’s work?

      Reply

      1. i’m not trying to defend TCC’s work by this post, i’m merely providing a framework for denise since i offered help, and she accepted.

        Reply

    3. Hi R,

      Thanks for sharing all that information on data analysis. I think data analysis is very interesting, and I appreciate you sharing your knowledge.

      It is amusing though that some people are so simple-minded to think that you are somehow defending the China Study by critiquing Minger’s work here. I believe that a vegan website is prominently displaying your comments as some type of defense of the China Study.

      They are so blind to see how much your thoughtful commentary is so incredibly damning of Campbell’s work itself. Every criticism you have found with Minger’s work applies also to Campbell’s work, and in most cases it applies even more frequently and strongly to Campbell’s.

      The key thing is, Minger’s work is just an analysis used to bring to light the problems with Campbell’s work, whereas apparently many people are using Campbell’s “findings” from this ecological data to base and support (and defend) their views on optimal nutrition. These findings that Campbell derived from the uncorrected raw data are so important to some people that they feel the need to attack anybody that questions the analysis and interpretations that were used to reach these findings.

      Reply

      1. fair points. but i think it’s important to remember that “the china study” relied not only on the data from the china project, but hundreds of other studies as well.

        Reply

  119. Denise, you might not want to trust this Rayna woman. She is part of a group called Debunking the China Study Critics here-

    http://www.30bananasaday.com/group/debunkingthechinastudycritics/forum

    Where she posted this-
    My response to Denise’s acceptance of my offer to assist, Its purpose was to re-articulate the limitations of her analysis, but also to inform. Good science should prevail, after all. Also, I think it’s good to attack with kindness. 🙂

    Clearly she is not approaching this with intent to help you but to prove you wrong and make it look as though your argument is weak.

    I encourage everyone to go to the first link and see what the insane vegans are doing. They aren’t interested in science, they’re interested in pushing their own agenda. This is plainly obvious. They aren’t even interested in you doing more analysis, they just want to destroy your hard work because they don’t like its outcome.

    Sickening.

    Reply

    1. I’m really sorry for using the “wrong” words. I can see how they can be misconstrued. Anyhow, I think it’s important to be kind, whether I agree. When I wrote it out “attack”, I was thinking of a shirt my husband has with bouncing Buddhas acting as “bullets” as a funny way to portray pacificism. I genuinely wished to offer help and guidance to Denise as she is clearly a smart, ambitious woman who simply needed a little push to expand what she’s already done. In any event, I can see I’m not at all welcome here, so I will close out and wish everyone luck.

      Reply

      1. Perhaps you could send an email to Campbell and offer to help him with his statistics. He clearly needs a refresher course.

        It seems that the China study is nothing but a large data set waiting for someone to properly analyse it. With your experience and statistical knowledge you should try it. You would certainly do a better job than Campbell.

        Reply

      2. R-
        Too bad others have made personal attacks on you. Denise did an impressive job. But as you pointed out, it needs to be checked by others who are qualified to do so. A mistake she may have made would be almost impossible for her to identify herself.
        I hope she follows your suggestions and submits her work for peer-reviewed publication.

        Reply

  120. Fantastic. This is analyzing data done right. If only all our scientists were this diligent and competent we would be living in a much better world. A big thanks for all the hard work.

    Reply

  121. My husband had throat cancer last year and lost most of his swallowing capacity due to the procedures done. He was advised to go vegan to keep the cancer from returning. We believe this was successful, as well as doing his best to get his system back to a better PH. However, veganism, and he was practicing it in good form using high quality foods, still left him in a weakened state. When we became the pick-up location for raw milk products in our area, he met a nutritionist that advised him to add some raw eggs and raw, high quality animal protein to his diet. He started with the raw eggs in his blends, as he is now mostly tube fed from the cancer procedures. What a difference! The addition of just 1 raw egg in each of his tube blends made a huge difference in his energy levels. Of course he uses eggs from a trusted source from our local farmers market, with very clean conditions and healthy hens that are allowed for forage for themselves and we can tell the eggs are of good quality. He also found that adding a small amount of high quality, grass feed meat to his diet made another difference in his energy level. So while he continues to alkalize his system, he has now balanced his dietary needs so that he is now able to return to work in the trades and even lift his floor sander once again as he now finds his strength returning, which it wasn’t doing on a vegan diet.

    Reply

    1. Catherine, I saw this and just had to respond. I am so happy to hear your husband is doing better. I hope he doesn’t have to have any more chemotherapy or radiation therapy – horrible stuff!! Best wishes to you both.

      Reply
  122. Pingback: A Challenge and Response to The China Study | Life Outside The Box | Tynan

  124. Denise, I don’t know if you’ve actually heard from Campbell directly, but he is bad-mouthing you to third-parties, and questioning whose water your carrying. However, you ought to read it so you can pre-emptively address his velveteen slander:

    http://tynan.net/chinastudyresponse

    It is a nasty piece of work, probably the most impressive array of back-handed compliments I’ve ever read.

    Reply

  125. There are plenty of good reasons to abstain from meat eating. But maximizing nutrition and health is not one of them.

    Humans evolved eating meat. In fact, it’s pretty much a universal truth that all societies of humans seek out animal products and consume them on as regular a basis as they are able.

    However, it’s perfectly valid to abstain from meat for ethical or environmental reasons. Most Buddhists, for example, refrain from meat eating because reverence for all life is central to Buddhism.

    Just don’t expect to have your choice validated on nutritional grounds. As a poster noted above, John Robbins, who is vegan, let his honesty overcome his bias and wrote a book called “Healthy At 100” about the most healthy societies on earth. All of them consumed some degree of animal products.

    I’m baffled by the need that people have to seek endless validation for their choices. If vegans decide to stop eating meat because they believe that factory farms are barbaric or because they believe that industrial meat production is very destructive of the environment why isn’t that enough?

    Personally, I would like to be a vegan. But I can’t. I want good health. I want to live a moral life but I don’t want to sacrifice my health to do so.

    Reply

    2. Just pointing out that the current Dalai Lama eats meat. He is not happy about it, but eats it because he is not healthy otherwise. He is from a region that is traditionally at a very high altitude and experiences very little sun. This makes it very important to eat meat for the Vitamin D.
      Infact he is the first Dalai Lama to be Vegetarian ;-).

      http://www.ivu.org/people/writers/lama.html

      Farming is bad period. That includes Vegetables and grains grown in Farms. We should return to eating only that which grows in the Wild. But I guess that is not practically possible. So everybody tries to determine their own ways.

      Reply

      1. If the current Dalai Lama eats meat, then he is not a vegetarian. Also, there are very few natural sources of vitamin D, and beef is not one of them (minus the liver). Cholesterol in our skin (cholesterol helps give our cells structure) is a precursor for vitamin D, and is converted into vitamin D through direct contact to sun light.
        Sustainable farming is our way of using what our beautiful-life-giving Earth has to offer without destroying it. So, farming is not bad as long as it doesn’t upset the Earth’s natural balances. I grow organic vegetables in a space I made in my garden. Does that make me a “demon farmer” that’s destroying our planet? No. That’s Monsanto’s job.

        Reply

    3. Yes humans evolved eating meat, but only when it didn’t eat them first, and they didn’t eat it on a daily basis, and only after countless years of not eating meat, and it was real game, not the industrialized, genetically modified, hormone induced meat we eat today. And no, not all societies eat meat; India and China eat very little meat today, yet they have the lowest rates of heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, diabetes, angina, obesity. If you think it’s just a freaky coincedence, buy more stock in McDonald’s.

      Reply

  127. I don’t have time to review every comment but did quickly scan the text. This analysis seems very impressive, especially given the writer’s young age with no training in nutritional science (see her web page).

    She claims to have no biases–either for or against–but nonetheless liberally uses adjectives and cutesy expressions that leaves me wondering.

    As far as her substantive comments are concerned, almost all are based on her citing univariate correlations in the China project that can easily mislead, especially if one of the two variables does not have a sufficient range, is too low to be useful and/or is known to be a very different level of exposure at the time of the survey than it would have been years before when disease was developing. There is a number of these univariate correlations in the China project (associations of 2 variables only) that do not fit the model (out of 8000, there would be) and most can be explained by one of these limitations.

    A more appropriate method is to search for aggregate groups of data, as in the ‘affluent’ vs. ‘poverty’ disease groups, then examine whether there is any consistency within groups of biomarkers, as in considering various cholesterol fractions. This is rather like using metanalysis to obtain a better overview of possible associations. I actually had written material for our book, elaborating some of these issues but was told that I had already exceeded what is a resonable number of pages. There simply were not enough pages to go into the lengthy discussions that would have been required–and I had to drop what I had already written. This book was not meant to be an exhaustive scientific treatise. It was meant for the public, while including about as much scientific data and discussion that the average reader would tolerate.

    She also makes big issues out of some matters that we had no intent to include because we knew well certain limitations with the data. For example, only 3 counties (of the 65) consumed dairy and the kind of dairy consumed (much of it very hard sun-dried cheese) was much different from dairy in the West. It makes no sense to do that kind of analysis and we did none, both because of the limited number of sample points and because we discovered after the project was completed that meat consumption for one of the counties, Tuoli, was clearly not accurate on the 3 days that the data were being collected. On those days, they were essentially eating as if it were a feast to impress the survey team but on the question of frequency of consumption over the course of a year, it was very different. Still, the reviewer makes a big issue of our not including the data for this county as if I were being devious.

    In short, she has done what she claims that should not be done–focusing on narrowly defined data rather than searching for overarching messages, focusing on the trees instead of the forest.

    I very carefully stated in the book that there are some correlations that are not consistent with the message and, knowing this, I suggested to the reader that he/she need not accept what is said in the book. In this very complex business it is possible to focus on the details and make widely divergent interpretations but, in so doing, miss the much more important general message. In the final analysis, I simply asked the reader to try it and see for themselves. And the results that people have achieved have been truly overwhelming.

    One final note: she repeatedly uses the ‘V’ words (vegan, vegetarian) in a way that disingenuously suggests that this was my main motive. I am not aware that I used either of these words in the book, not once. I wanted to focus on the science, not on these ideologies.

    I find it very puzzling that someone with virtually no training in this science can do such a lengthy and detailed analysis in their supposedly spare time. I know how agricultural lobbying organizations do it–like the Weston A Price Foundation with many chapters around the country and untold amounts of financial resources. Someone takes the lead in doing a draft of an article, then has access to a large number of commentators to check out the details, technical and literal, of the drafts as they are produced.

    I have no proof, of course, whether this young girl is anything other than who she says she is, but I find it very difficult to accept her statement that this was her innocent and objective reasoning, and hers alone. If she did this alone, based on her personal experiences from age 7 (as she describes it), I am more than impressed. But she suffers one major flaw that seeps into her entire analysis by focusing on the selection of univariate correlations to make her arguments (univariate correlations in a study like this means, for example, comparing 2 variables–like dietary fat and breast cancer–within a very large database where there will undoubtedly be many factors that could incorrectly negate or enhance a possible correlation). She acknowledges this problem in several places but still turns around and displays data sets of univariate correlations. One further flaw, just like the Weston Price enthusiasts, is her assumption that it was the China project itself, almost standing alone, that determined my conclusions for the book (it was only one chapter!). She, and others like her, ignore much of the rest of the book. Can any other diet match the findings of Drs. Esslestyn, Ornish and McDougall, who were interviewed for our book (and now an increasing of other physicians have done with their patients)? No diet or any other medical strategy comes close to the benefits that can be achieved with a whole foods, plant based diet.

    I also know that critics like her would like nothing better than to get me to spend all my time answering detailed questions, but I simply will not do this. As we said in our book, no one needs to accept at face value what I say. Rather, as we said in the book, “Try it” and the results will be what they are. So far, the reports of positive benefits have been nothing less than overwhelming.

    I hope this helps, although it was written in haste.

    Colin
    http://tynan.net/chinastudyresponse

    Reply

    1. Young girl? She looks like an adult to me. How would you like being called “gramps”? Ageism cuts both ways. If Denise Minger is a “young girl,” then your co-author of the China Study was a ‘young boy” when he helped you write the book, Dr. Campbell.

      Reply

    2. Mark/Colin says: “I know how agricultural lobbying organizations do it–like the Weston A Price Foundation with many chapters around the country and untold amounts of financial resources.”

      The Weston A Price Foundation is a non-profit. As such, their books are open to the public. Their budget for 2009 was…$1,406,000. This hardly qualifies as “untold amounts of financial resources”.

      http://www.westonaprice.org/funding-3.html

      (or check their actual IRS filing).

      The fact that you failed to check the facts on this, and instead resorted to ad hominem (feminem?) attacks, undermines any claim you might have to objectivity or sound research methodology.

      Reply

      1. Yup, he’s definitely taking the low road. Not only by attacking the Weston A. Price Foundation, which is a tiny, underfunded, understaffed group composed mainly of volunteers, but by insinuating that the author of this piece is a shill. I wonder how much he’s being paid by the soy/corn/cotton industry?

        Reply

    3. The harshness of the comments directed at this book are quite suspect. To ignore the “whole sum of the book” with flippant demeaning statements is more diversion than science. … ? Trying to elevate one-self by putting down others perhaps?

      Campbell’s work looks at some real anomalies in the health/nutrition /science fields of today, and they are not minor, and should not be dismissed. Thank you Colin Campbell for your science, and your bravery in revealing some of these situations to the public. I’m aware of more such actions, and I think you may have understated it.

      I think some of your analyses are intriguing, Denise. I hope the statistical methods suggested by others will strengthen and refine your observations, and further good scientific findings.

      Reply

  128. You know, instead of worrying about WPF boogey-men and telling people to just try the diet espoused in the book and see if it works, it would be nice if Campbell simply explained how he performed his analysis of this particular data set and reached his conclusions, and then he could make this publicly available, say in a scientific journal where it could undergo peer-review…or at least on the internet so that interested parties could review his methods. Just sayin’…

    Reply

    1. LOL! I agree CPM! I was just about ready to make a similar point, but you beat me to the punch. His post was mostly hand-waving and ad hominem attacks, as Alex stated. I do think he made some valid points, too bad it was surrounded by nonsense.

      Reply

    2. Ms. Minger, thank you for sharing the fruits of your study of this research. It has clearly generated a great deal of conversation and that usually is a good thing. I hope that it helps you move towards the graduate studies in nutrition that you state elsewhere on your blog interest you and that you might become equipped with a professional toolbox for this kind of analysis.

      @CPM – I’m not interested in taking “sides” in the conclusions that people are debating here, but regarding your comment Campbell has published extensively on these topics. You might start with “Diet and chronic degenerative diseases: perspectives from China” by Campbell and Junshi, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 59, 1153S-1161S, available for free download at http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/59/5/1153S . Unlike the third party summary of results without discussion of methodology that Ms. Minger used to structure her analysis, a choice that makes sense for presentation purposes, this summary of research includes description of the analyses and some reasoning behind the choices made in them, as well as references to the individual studies for further study.

      There’s room for discussion and debate about the conclusions reached based on any experimental results, but Dr. Campbell has been exceedingly transparent and professional in carrying out his research and there is no cause for accusations of obfuscation or fraud as I see in many of these comments.

      Reply

      1. Interesting to see that Campbell’s own published work seems to rely on nothing but univariate correlations. At one point, he says, “based on an overview of the univariate correlations, colon and rectal cancer mortality rates were consistently inversely correlated with all fiber and complex carbohydrate fractions except for pectin.” He never mentions any terms or concepts (such as “regression” or “multivariate”) anywhere else that suggest anything other than univariate correlations.

        Reply

      2. Hi N,

        I’m not that experienced at this sort of thing, but in the paper you reference it appears all of his correlations are univariate. That has been a criticism by some of Minger. There has been the implication in some of Campbell’s responses to critics that he used a more sophisticated analysis than his critics did, but as of yet no one has pointed out any evidence of this as far as I can tell.

        Like I said, I’m not that experienced in this sort of stuff and I might be missing something, but the paper you referenced appears to be very lacking in the epidemiological requirements that some are demanding of Minger and in fact appears less sophisticated than Minger in the analysis of confounding variables.

        Reply

      3. With the amount of research in discussion here there’s no way around looking at specific studies if that is the level of detail you desire. A summary can be only that. I provided that citation as more detailed summary (but still only a general summery) that also included references that would allow one to identify the literature where these studies were discussed in full detail. It is simply a more informative starting point than the paper Ms. Minger used for presentation purposes.

        For example, using the academic summary rather than the popular one, it is easy to follow up with “Nonassociation of Aflatoxin with Primary Liver Cancer in a Cross-Sectional Ecological Survey in the People’s Republic of China”, in CANCER RESEARCH 50, 6882-6893, and see the multivariate regression analysis that examines the relationship between the variables of interest that cannot be answered by the univariate approaches given in the summary and examined in further detail by Ms. Minger.

        While methods such as this multivariate regression analysis can be found in several of those specific studies, I do think that Dr. Campbell relies a bit heavily on simple correlations. However he is attempting to map out mechanisms of disease that are not easily modeled with conventional statistics alone, and this employs other areas of expertise in addition to the simple data analysis. Again, his conclusions are open for debate, but his approach here is uncontroversial. There is a whole discipline of computational biology dedicated to that kind of modeling that came of age after Dr. Campbell’s research career came to a close that might further explore these ideas in a more data intensive way. At the level of the individual study, however, his methods meet professional standards and are described in detail that should be taken into account before leveling the kinds of accusations seen throughout this discussion.

        Reply

      4. N — the fact that Campbell used multiple regression in a previous article on alfatoxins doesn’t excuse his failure to do so as to The China Study; it makes it even more inexplicable.

        Moreover, this just doesn’t make sense: “However he is attempting to map out mechanisms of disease that are not easily modeled with conventional statistics alone.” Not true at all.

        Reply

      5. @JD The paper mentioned *is* part of The China Study. The China Study is not a single work, except perhaps as a reference to the data set gathered. Whatever summary of The China Study we look at, whether it is the popular book, the popular summary on the Cornell website that Ms. Minger used, or the journal article I provided, in the end it hangs on those individual studies such as the article an alflatoxins. It is a large body of work.

        And quite I’m curious why you would say that the complex systems involved in disease development are easily modeled by conventional statistics alone.

        Reply

      6. OK, so what you’re saying is that Campbell was somehow able to use multiple regression for the aflatoxin part of the China Study, but when it came to his much-publicized conclusions about plants vs. meat, he was suddenly forced to use univariate correlations because of . . . something about conventional statistics? Unbelievable. Univariate correlations are conventional statistics themselves, just of a fairly worthless sort. Nor is there anything about disease development that prevented Campbell from controlling for numerous other factors.

        Reply

      7. @JD No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. And it’s become clear that you’re not interested in real discussion on the matter. But I will clarify one last time. He’s clearly fond of summarizing information with correlations, and I suggested that this was perhaps overdone, but he is able to back that up with references to the in-depth analysis on which his conclusions are based. Those lists of sources at the end of these articles and taking up a good 35 pages at the end of his book aren’t for decoration, they provide supporting information. Debate his conclusions, but these methods are not suspect.

        Reply

        1. Actually, many of Campbell’s references don’t actually support what he cites them for. For example, in Chapter 1, Campbell states “Heart disease can be prevented and even reversed by a healthy diet” and lists two references. Both those references are for studies that use diet *in conjunction* with other lifestyle changes (quitting smoking, stress management, exercise) or drugs (cholesterol lowering medications), making it unclear whether diet alone or the other changes improved heart health. And both studies were merely preliminary. Other examples of misleading citations abound in the book. Footnotes make things look authoritative, but even they require further investigation to validate.

          Reply

      8. Indeed, attention to references is always a must. Both for the information they provide and the information may they fail to provide. In my attempts to clarify my meaning I probably overstated the confidence one could place in the unchecked content of any given reference in order to explain that they are present to provide information that cannot be included in such a high level summary of results. My point is simply that there is room to debate his conclusions, but that this should be done based on a full appraisal of the work and not just the summarized information. I think this should be a pretty uncontroversial position!

        Reply

  130. “Can you please increase the font size? Very difficult to read and hard on eyes.”

    Mark, you can use your browser’s ‘zoom’ function to increase the text size on your end.

    Reply

  131. LOL. Classic Campbell there. Can you imagine anyone else in a position of prominence behaving the way he does? How can anyone take this buffoon seriously?

    Reply
  132. Pingback: AgingBoomersBlog.com » China Study Unmasked
  133. Pingback: Yet another independent debunking of "The China Study" book

  134. Hi all,

    Once again — a gigantic “thank you!” for the feedback, questions, and other comments that keep pouring in. I’m up to my nose in a sea of emails (anyone have a snorkel handy?), and if you’ve written to me, I do promise a response is on the way! Maybe not very soon. But it’ll come. Cross my heart.

    I was thrilled to see that Mr. Campbell took the time to reply to my critique. Also thrilled to see he called it “impressive” and insinuated I may have a research team (nope, just me), although I wish he had gotten a little deeper into the methodology he himself used. I’ll be addressing all of the points he raised in my next blog post, which will be a combination of responses to both his reply and to some questions I’ve received from readers.

    It seems the main criticisms against my review so far are that I’m using raw data and univariate correlations. This misses the point completely, as I’m trying to point out that it’s Campbell whose claims, in every single instance, align perfectly with the raw data but become erroneous once major confounders have been adjusted for. I’ll try to explain this point better in my reply, as perhaps I didn’t make it clear enough in the critique.

    In addition, as I’ll explain in my reply, univariate correlations weren’t the only ones I used in my analysis — they’re just the only ones I chose to include in this post. I felt they’d be effective for getting my message across to a standard audience who may not be too interested in stats jargon, since they’re a simple way to illustrate the effects of confounding variables and they’re easy to graph visually. I also ran multiple variable regressions on the data I used and it corroborated with what I achieved through the more “crude” methods highlighted in this critique. In the not-too-distant future, I’ll be writing a separate post with the results of these regressions — and maybe including downloadable spreadsheets with some data, so any skeptics can test for themselves what I’ve done.

    Again, I can’t even express how grateful I am for all the responses. I have not replied to most of the comments left on this post due to time constraints, but I *have* read each and every one of them.

    So, thank you. And stay tuned. 🙂

    Reply

  135. I am disappointed that Campbell decided to make rude insinuations instead of simply explaining how he got his numbers. My prediction is he and some associates will be creating a continuous stream of hoops for Ms Minger to jump through which they will claim are needed in order to be ‘professional.’ They will claim they are doing this as a kind favor to ‘help’ her. The more hoops she jumps through, the more byzantine and laborious the hoops that will be presented. Meanwhile, they themselves will continue to not give any explanation for their own erroneous looking conclusions. But hey I could be wrong and if the truth varies greatly from that prediction, it should become vastly more interesting. I will stay tuned to see how it comes out!

    Reply

  137. As one who tends to ‘glaze over’when it comes to long winded posts,i (almost ) read every word you wrote..Again Denise you are freakn amazing woman,finally some one with a balanced view point on that stinking China study,thanks for a balanced view point you are sharing with us here.
    I am also a reformed raw vegan,thank goodness,before my health totally melted in a puddle in front of me!
    keep up the good work babe 🙂

    Reply

  138. there goes my, planned, internet hiatus 😦 :D:D

    i was pretty sure you wouldn’t have put so much work into this without first checking that you had something more to offer, in terms of critique, than previous attempts

    maybe you showed your hand too early and maybe it was a mistake to pander to those, like myself, who needed the simplified version 🙂 but at least we got the rather disappointing and inevitable (and dismissive/patronising) campbell ‘rebuttal’ out of the way

    to watch the masses scurry around on the sidelines condemning you at all stages, disregarding your – stated – intention and your, still, valid doubts regarding campbell’s own methodology is more than a little amusing….such entertainment and no one is charging for tickets

    whatever the outcome, it is inspirational to see the huge effort you have put into this and the way you have handled yourself through it all….

    it seems there is more to come…looking forward to it

    Reply

  139. Fantastic job Denise! I’ve finally gotten through your material and I’m glad you’ve taken the critiques offered thus far to a new and much more in-depth level. I’ve posted a link to your work on my blog.

    Chris

    Reply

  140. Hello Denise,

    Thank you for sharing your analysis. A question: did you use age adjusted data, that is, compare the prevalence of diseases in similarly aged participants across counties and countries?

    Reply

    1. Does anyone recall reading whether Denise used age-adjusted data for her analysis? I’ve looked, but haven’t been able to find any reference to this on the site. Thanks.

      Reply
  141. Pingback: Fat Head » Outstanding Critique of The China Study

  143. I was a vegetarian/vegan for over a decade and have nothing but respect for those who choose a plant-based diet, even though I’ve chosen to eat animal products for health reasons. My goal, with the “The China Study” analysis and elsewhere, is to figure out the truth about nutrition and health without the interference of biases and dogma. I have no agenda to promote.
    ———————–

    If you had said, data doesn’t support the plant based diet’s claim, would have been fine by me. Here you are saying you’ve chosen to eat animal products for health reasons. Animal products are dangerous to neutral is one thing, you infact go to an extent of terming them as healthy. Can you tell us how animal protein is health protective?

    You write you’ve respect for those who follow plant based diet but wouldn’t do it yourself. I smell some fish here!

    Reply

    1. Hi Mark,

      That’s not quite what I said. “I eat animal products for health reasons” means I reintroduced them into my diet and discovered the health problems I experienced as a vegan vanished. In repeated experiments of going back to veganism and then back to non-veganism, I’ve found that, for me, the animal products are the factor keeping those problems from cropping up again. I prefer to eat whole foods than to supplement, so non-vegan is the route I’ve gone rather than stuffing my cupboard with pills.

      For me, this is what helped. I also believe the human body is incredibly adaptable and can survive on numerous combinations of foods, so I don’t feel I have the authority to say that what does (or doesn’t) work for me will (or won’t) work for others.

      I just want to give people access to information, and then let them use it how they wish. I have no interest in delineating a single optimal diet. There are plenty of other folks tackling that goal. 🙂

      Reply

    2. I have respect for people who choose to live their life as Buddhist monks, but I wouldn’t do it myself. I have respect for firefighters, but I wouldn’t do it myself.

      Reply

  144. After reading Lynne McTaggart’s book The Field, I’d have to agree with your end summary that Campbell, and all researchers to some degree, find what they are looking for. The fact that they are looking for results skews the possibility on non-biased data. Thank you for the very comprehensive breakdown. Impressive.

    Reply

  145. “…In fact, when running MRA the protective trends for animal foods were even more accentuated in most cases (I recall a -70 between animal protein and cardiovascular diseases) ”

    I find this very interesting. Campbell’s dug his own grave with his response and can’t wait for more on this series. I also find his claims of the Tuoli data being unreliable to be disingenuous, as if they spent an entire year in every other county to get their raw data. Also, thanks to the innanets, we now have visual proof of what some these nomadic tribesmen actually eat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZMCZo9TPNs

    Granted this is Mongolia and not Tuoli but I’d imagine the diet is similar all across the wide swath of land from Mongolia to the Central Asian countries. Great work, as usual Denise!

    Reply

  146. Amazing work Denise! A very outstanding analysis of the China Study. I am amazed by the amount of work you put into this. I’ve read critiques of the study but your work is the best so far in my opinion.

    While I somewhat agree with your skeptics that it would be ideal to use multiple regression analysis on your data and show it to us, it would be better for them to prove to us that Campbell used only or mainly multiple regressions to construct his conclusions, and also show us that by using multiple regression on the data, it will lead to a different conclusion than your’s.

    Reply

  147. A number of people have pointed out that the criticisms of Denise’s analysis apply to Campbell as well, and since they seem to be at least somewhat familiar with statistics, I’ll expand on my initial critique (Denise, I hope this will be helpful to you as you build on your initial analysis).

    First and foremost Denise did not take into account potential confounders. I think everyone understands at this point that confounders can bias the observed correlation towards or away from the null (i.e., correlation=0). She only *partially* took schistosomiasis into account by restricting her analysis to counties without schistosomiasis. Her p-values only reflect the test of whether the correlation was significantly different from zero. *Not* if there was a statistically significant change in the exposure-outcome correlation after taking schistomiasis into account.

    Let me repeat that. The p-values Denise provides reflect whether correlation=0. They do not tell us whether or not schistosomiasis is a potential confounder. To determine this, we need to know if the correlation of +33 for all counties was statistically significantly different from the correlation of +13 for just the counties without schistosomiasis. This is where 95% confidence intervals would be helpful, but Denise doesn’t provide these. Nor does she tell us what the correlation is only among counties *with* schistosomiasis. There are several ways to tease out whether we should include a factor in our analysis, but here are two commonly used methods, using the schistosomiasis/cholesterol/colorectal cancer example:

    Method 1:
    1. Calculate correlation for entire sample
    –> Denise calculated this to be +33.

    2. Now stratify on the variable you think is a potential confounder, i.e., schistosomiasis, and calculate the correlation within each stratum.
    –> Denise stratified on county but we’ll let this slide b/c this was probably her only choice. For counties with no schistosomiasis, the correlation was +13. What about the correlation for counties with schistosomiasis? Denise does not provide this.

    3. Compare the within-strata correlations (+13 and ??) to the correlation for the the entire sample (+33), and test whether they are statistically significantly different from each other (not whether they are significantly different from 0). One should first perform a global test, and if the result is significant, proceed with pair-wise tests.
    –> Denise did not do this.

    4. If the correlations are significantly different from each other, then there is evidence that there may be confounding. If they are not significantly different from each other, there is evidence for no confounding.
    –> Denise did not do this.

    5. Bonus step: if the pair-wise tests between stratum-specific correlations are significant, this is evidence for effect modification.
    –> Denise did not do this.

    Method 2:
    1. Run a full model that includes cholesterol and schistosomiasis as exposures (ideally, the model would include more than just this, but we’ll keep it simple) and colorectal cancer as the outcome. Obtain the adjusted correlation, and make a note of the residual deviance or log likelihood for the model.

    2. Run a reduced model that does not include the variable you think is a potential confounder, i.e., just include cholesterol as an exposure. Make a note of the residual deviance or log likelihood for this reduced model.

    3. Now take the difference of the deviance or the -2 times the difference in the log likelihoods. This is your chi-square test statistic with k degrees of freedom (in our example, the degrees of freedom=1). Calculate the corresponding p-value. A significant/small p-value strongly suggests that the we should stick with the full model (i.e., the one with cholesterol and schistosomiasis). A large/non-significant p-value suggests that the full model doesn’t add much more information and therefore we would opt for the more parsimonious model. In other words, the reduced model (i.e., the one with cholesterol only) is probably sufficient.

    I’m assuming Denise did none of this since there was no mention of it. To her credit, Denise does mention why she took a look at schistosomiasis.

    When people criticize Campbell for not including schistomiasis, it is very possible that upon further inspection, it was *not* a potential confounder as Denise concluded based on her results. A factor is a confounder if and only if it:
    1. Is associated with the exposure (cholesterol)
    2. Is a risk factor or protective factor for the outcome (colorectal cancer), and
    3. Is not on the causal pathway between the exposure and outcome.

    Perhaps criterion 1 was not met and therefore not included in Campbell’s final analysis. Only Campbell and colleagues know for sure what the detailed analyses were; a final presentation will always include only the most salient points.

    As for many of Campbell’s conclusions being drawn from purely ecologic data, I think this ignores the fact that while the China-Cornell-Oxford Project was a large component of the book “The China Study,” the book’s thesis is based on hundreds (in fact, nearly 1000) of additional references that corroborate the Project’s findings.

    Reply

    1. This is all very interesting, but it does nothing to disprove Minger’s criticisms of Campbell’s findings.

      Nor is this accurate:

      the book’s thesis is based on hundreds (in fact, nearly 1000) of additional references that corroborate the Project’s findings.

      Impossible. There are not hundreds or 1,000 valid studies that would corroborate the conclusion that plants are so superior to meat. For example, a recent systematic review of valid studies found no evidence that meat, eggs, dairy, or saturated fat have any relation to heart disease. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19364995?dopt=Abstract

      Reply

    2. Seriously?

      Does your browser not show italicized text? Maybe the font size is too small? Perhaps you simply lack the ability to read or comprehend the intent?

      No offense if it wasn’t your intent (or rather, no offense at all- just take this as an opportunity to reevaluate your critical thinking skills and writing style)- Your observations are nothing more than pedantic bigotry. Logically, pigeonholing only works if you do so relative to the intent. You don’t seem to show an understanding of her intent, so your pigeonholing seems disingenuous and rude.

      If you understand the intent, you might recognize that she is using a similar methodology as Campbell. Campbell doesn’t explicitly outline how he comes to his conclusions, but it is possible to extrapolate his methodology based upon his final numbers and the original data set. Campbell uses data acquired using a specific methodology and then uses that data to support a claim. Denise seems to be emulating the same methodology

      Reply

      1. Oops, premature ‘enter’ing–

        … same methodology and found that there is plenty of data contrary to Campbell’s claims.

        Your observations, by derivative, only suggest that Campbell’s methodology wasn’t sufficient to begin with, which support Denise’s findings. I find it hard to believe that you are some kind of champion of proper analysis when you have little foresight in the logical conclusion of your own observations.

        Reply

        1. The health authorities are fully aware of the serious flaws and omissions in this meta-analysis. This study was funded by the National Dairy Council, dairy being the number one contributor of saturated fat in the U.S. and many other parts of the world. It was also conveniently published just before the USDA lowered the dietary recommendations of saturated fat for the first time in 20 years, from 10% to 7% of total calories.

          Below is a section from the statement released by the European Heart Network in regards to their opinion of this meta-analysis, titled “European Heart Network position piece: Impact of saturated fat on cardiovascular disease obscured by over‐adjustment in recent meta‐analysis”

          “However, the meta‐analysis (and an accompanying opinion piece by the same authors (4)) is compromised by a number of serious flaws and omissions. These are enumerated and discussed in detail in an editorial from Jeremiah Stamler (5). The most serious of these flaws is an over‐adjustment for serum cholesterol levels. The meta‐analysis involves data from 16 studies that evaluate the impact of saturated fat intake on CHD incidence or mortality, and 8 studies that evaluate the impact of saturated fat intake on stroke incidence or mortality. The authors state that ‘wherever possible, risk estimates from the most fully adjusted models were used in the estimation of the pooled [relative risks]’. It is well‐established that saturated fat intake is associated with increased level of serum cholesterol (6), and that serum cholesterol levels are associated with CHD and CVD (7). Therefore, serum cholesterol levels lie on the causal chain between saturated fat intake and CHD and CVD, and to adjust for serum cholesterol levels in a meta‐analysis will obscure the impact of saturated fat intake on these health outcomes. Yet 7 of the 16 studies included in the meta‐analysis of CHD events, and 4 of the 8 studies included in the meta‐analysis of stroke events were adjusted for serum cholesterol levels. These studies accounted for nearly half of all CHD and CVD events included in the meta‐analyses. Adjustment for serum cholesterol levels will inevitably bias the results of the meta‐analyses towards finding no association between dietary saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease, but the authors do not mention this limitation in their article. As Jeremiah Stamler asserts in his editorial, what was actually found by the meta‐analysis was ‘a statistically non‐significant relation of SFA [saturated fat] to CHD… independent of other dietary lipids, serum lipids, and other covariates’ (5). A more appropriate and informative analysis would have included non‐adjusted associations between saturated fat and cardiovascular disease. An examination of the forest plots provided in the article shows that those cohort studies that did not adjust for serum cholesterol levels were more likely to find a positive association between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease, suggesting that a meta‐analysis of unadjusted data would likely produce positive results. “

          References 5-7
          (5) Stamler J. Diet‐heart: a problematic revisit. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2010; 91: 497‐499.
          (6) Clarke R, Frost C, Collins R, Appleby P, Peto R. Dietary lipids and blood cholesterol: quantitative meta‐analysis of metabolic ward studies. BMJ, 1997; 314: 112.
          (7) Prospective Studies Collaboration. Blood cholesterol and vascular mortality by age, sex, and blood pressure: a meta‐analysis of individual data from 61 prospective studies with 55,000 vascular deaths. The Lancet, 2007; 370: 1829‐1839.

          The full statement from the European Heart Network can be found here:

          Click to access EHN%20position%20piece%20-%20sats%20meta%20analysis.pdf

          Below is a published study showing reversal of severe heart disease backed up with angiogram evidence.
          http://www.heartattackproof.com/resolving_cade.htm

          Reply

    3. r, will you be demanding the same of Campbell? Or is this just a bunch of intimidation and hand-waving?

      Reply

  148. It is amazing how many vegans are insistent that Denise do her analysis their way, while, for Campbell, opacity and “just trust me” serve just fine.

    “r”, you’d be waiting forever before Campbell could jump through those hoops…in his recent “defense”, he relies on conspiracy theorizing, snarky remarks about girlishness and — his big finish! — “try it; you’ll like it.”

    (Of course, his defense was “written in haste” — no doubt he would demolish Denise with actual data if only he weren’t so very, very busy.)

    Reply

    1. It seems to me that there are not many only one. They all seem to reason in the same way. It maybe that they all are into group think.

      When I was reading the 30BAD site. I noticed that Apple-Man (the second poster to this article) was trying to reason with the people there. It was so funny and saddening. I am not sure how he felt about banging his head into the void. I can only pity the pure vegans as to what it does to their brains. I am surprised that some eventually survive with their critical thinking abilities still alive.

      Lierre Kieth’s book The Vegetarian Myth is amazing when you understand that she survived the crippling effects of Tofu.

      Reply

  149. still confused as to why criticisms of campbell’s findings would be answered by critiquing denise’s work, further….

    Reply

  150. —>”It is amazing how many vegans are insistent that Denise do her analysis their way, while, for Campbell, opacity and “just trust me” serve just fine.””n his recent “defense”, he relies on conspiracy theorizing, snarky remarks about girlishness and — his big finish! — “try it; you’ll like it.”<—-

    makes my hair stand on end

    Reply

  151. Thanks for the highly informative post. I have two hopefully simple questions – first, it seems that the data in the study regarding cancer rates was actually rates of mortality from various cancers. Even in the 1970s, I believe some cancers were successfully treated, but that there would have been quite a strong effect of access to regular medical care (ie, early diagnosis) that would favour populations in industrialized areas. Is this accounted for, or is the assumption in the analyses (both Minger’s and Campbell’s) that mortality rate from cancer = incidence of cancer? Is this also the case for other diseases referenced?

    Second, my impression from both the China Study book and Minger’s post was that individual data was not actually available to be used in the manner suggested by the previous poster? I thought that aggregate data was all that existed; ie, individuals were surveyed regarding dietary habits, and this data was plotted against data from hospitals and health authorities on cancer and disease rates for the local populations as a whole. If this is the case, then surely no more accurate analysis can be done because there is no data on what the individuals who developed cancer or various cardiovascular ailments typically ate. I’m no expert in any of this – I took stats in university so I can follow the arguments – but it seems that the data itself, while certainly suggestive of further lines of inquiry, is insufficient for even identifying real correlations, because there only established link between individuals who participated in the dietary survey and individuals who suffered from various diseases is geographical. How big are the counties? Do they have similar population sizes? China is certainly not a genetically homogeneous country, either – were differences in ethnic distributions accounted for?

    I guess what I’m saying is that I’m unconvinced that this data set deserves all the attention it’s been given. I think Minger’s analysis is good in that it points out the shortcomings of “The China Study”, but it should NOT be used (and I believe she would agree) to argue the opposite point. In the same way that the data doesn’t really support the assertion that an all-plant diet is healthy, neither does it support the assertion that an omnivorous, high-meat, or any other type of diet is healthy.

    Reply

  153. Denise. Such a great effort.

    Why don’t you submit a paper on your findings to a respected peer reviewed journal? Given the popularity of your blog, it probably won’t be hard for you to collect enough money from readers (donations!) to fund the expenses required for the whole process, if your paper successfully ends up being published.

    In science, peer review by qualified, relatively unbiased judges is the most important process. You haven’t proven anything unless your work stands that test. Unfortunately blog is just about the worst place for this kind of process, since most are just interested in promoting their agenda. I cannot trust any of the commenter here, because I have no way of knowing their qualifications.

    The implication of nutrition science is huge for the public. As such, if your critique of the China Study really stands the test of rigorous scientific reviews, that would be very important. Since I have no knowledge of nutrition, I wish to see how your work is received in the nutrition science community.

    Please do consider my suggestion seriously.

    Reply

    1. I whole heartedly agree. Upon peer review, I don’t think there would be much of Ms. Minger’s study left standing. Sorry about that.

      Reply
  154. Pingback: Disputing the China Study | Cooking Blog

  155. nomo17k,

    you apparently think that a review of someone’s published conclusions (not peer reviewed) have to be peer reviewed.

    those of us that reside on planet earth find this somewhat odd.

    the book is in the public domain.

    denise minger reviews the book.

    you demand peer review???????????????

    you appear to be a particularly bad pr flack for vegans.

    oh, btw, “nutrition science” is a non sequiter.

    I am bemused by the thought that book reviews have to be “peer reviewed”.

    I doubt that any book review has ever involved new research.

    the book is there ,we can all read it.
    the review is there, we can all read it.

    you want “peer review”?

    time you started eating meat and getting the brain cells activated.

    Reply

    1. Let me just say a junk comment like yours only serves to taint the serious work that Denise is trying to do — exactly the reason why peer review by qualified experts instills a bit more confidence in people who want real information, not religious beliefs from zealots.

      By the way I eat meat. Just not the kinds of shit you may be eating at McDonald’s.

      Reply

  156. While Denise’s effort is excellent, she too may be biased. As she states, she wanted to critique Campbell’s China study. So you can not rule some element of bias, without malicious intent.

    I’m not smart enough and stat wizard to tell where Denise is making mistake if at all she made any mistake. Her thought process is pretty cool though i.e. If high meat and dairy = high cholesterol = higher rate of chronic diseases such as cancer and CVD then high rate of meat consumption should be equal to high rate of chronic diseases.

    Mathematically speaking, if A=B=C then A should be equal to C.

    Other way to look at this stuff is, there are many world class nutritionist believe that high cholesterol is a risk factor for CVD. Many health organizations specifically focuses and advises people to use less meat, less saturated fat, less dairy along with exercises to reduce the risk of CVD. Framing ham study specifically established risk between high cholesterol and higher rate of CVD.. so Independent of Campbell’s China Study..how come Denise’s analysis show it otherwise? Logically thinking it sounds something is a miss? Isn’t it?

    Reply

    2. Mark, I think you are trying to mean “A=>B and B=>C”, so A=>C. So are you trying to say “Meat and saturated fat leads to a higher LDL, High LDL leads to a higher incidence of heart diseases” so “meat and saturates fat leads to a higher incidence of heart disease”?

      Is not exactly A=B=C. From this logic we cannot really deduce “no meat and saturated fat => no heart disease”. There could also be other factors that cause heart disease. Not to mention that meat or saturated fat actually increases the large fluffy LDL which is harmless and not the small dense ones. Here’s a meta-analysis on saturated fats:
      http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2009.27725v1

      The reason why these authorities are advising people to cut out meat and dairy is because of the Ancel Key’s 7 countries study which like Campbell’s study, is guilty of some omissions. Countries like France that consumed a large amount of animal products has less CVD than in the US for example.

      Reply

  157. Hey Denise,

    you might want to give vegetarianism a go again with sprouting + boiling grains(specifically brown rice – GBR) and legumes before consuming them to dilute the phytic acid concentration in them which might be inhibiting the micro nutrient uptake by your body .

    The idea of veganism is mainly practised in the east but sometimes the west takes it without considering the traditional eastern processes prior to consuming the grains and pulses.

    Conclusions which do not consider the traditional cooking practices can’t be entirely relied on!

    Reply

    1. Pallav, I am an Indian too. And no I don’t believe that the Vegetarianism of India can apply to other people.

      There are three very distinct qualities that are required for being a vegetarian.
      1) You must live in a tropical place with year round sun. Vitamin D3 is an absolute requirement. And if you don’t get it from sun you must get it from Meat. This applies to people staying indoors and to people living in Northern Climates or high altitudes. This is not negotiable. Nowadays you can supplement.

      2) You need to eat a lot of Dairy. The dairy will provide a lot of missing nutrients, like Vitamin B12, Zinc, Iron, Vitamin K2, etc. If you cannot handle Dairy you cannot be vegetarian period. This is also not negotiable.

      3) You need to eat a lot of vegetables, particularly greens.

      Rest of all is fluff. Even Indians in this age are not taking care of the 3 points. You should know that heart disease, cancer and diabetes are growing like a wild fire in India.

      The reason is the lack of the above 3 cultural necessities, which people have stopped, due to changed occupations, and doctor’s advice. Unfortunately you cannot even get good quality dairy in the cities.

      Bottomline you remain Vegetarian in the present circumstances at a great peril. Move to a village and take up some job that requires staying in the sun most of the day, get a source of grassfed dairy, eat a lot of traditionally grown vegetables, and eat less, then you can be a vegetarian.

      Incidently eating less calories, but highly dense nutrients helps get rid of a lot of problems. The way Denise is structuring her diet contains a lot of eating less calories (although it involves eating a lot of quantity of food).

      Reply

      1. Hi Anand,

        It’s good to see other indians taking interest in nutrition and understanding doctors advice is not always right. For all the points you raise i’m on the side of population aware of them from health blogs like this!

        Why i bring eastern cooking practises in the debate is because like a sea saw we are move in favour of plant based diets or animal based diets. weston price versus campbell.

        Considering the effort put in this research i’d certainly hope a more balanced take on nutrition can be had giving due credit to both plant and animal based diet (a combination of both) and not allow irrational reductionism to creep in.

        Giving plant portion of the diet credit is not possible without considering the holistic traditional cooking practice which goes into making it nutritious.

        Reply

      2. @Pallav – Since you brought it up, are you aware that the WAPF doesn’t endorse a carnivorous, but rather, omnivorous, diet? That it encourages people to eat grains that have been soaked, sprouted, or fermented, just like you recommend?

        I often hear people talk about the WAPF as if they were advocating an exclusively meat-based diet. That is simply not true. It makes me wonder if people who think that have actually bothered to read their literature.

        Reply

  158. “In contrast, the variable “Green vegetable intake, grams per day” has a correlation of only -16 with aridity and +5 with latitude, indicating much looser associations with southern geography. The folks who eat lots of green veggies don’t necessarily live in climates with a year-round growing season, but when green vegetables are available, they eat a lot of them.”

    I’m wondering how you got that correlation. According to monograph maps and data for green vegetable intake per day, the counties with the highest intakes, Wuhua (monograph code UF 434.9g), Echeng (OB 360.4g), Panyu (UB 341.9g), and Qianshan (JB 311.2) are all located at mid to low latitudes. On the other hand, counties with the very highest latitudes, Baoching (GA 98.0g), Tuoli (WA 26.0g), Changling (FA 86.3g), xinyuan (WB 69.2g), all have very low daily intakes. There are some ups and downs. Some counties at higher latitudes have higher consumption than counties at lower latitudes, and some counties near each other have very different consumption amounts.

    Speaking as someone who grew up in Michigan and ate out of a garden every summer and as someone who lived in northern China, I cannot visualize how people in a northerly climate with a three-month growing season could possibly eat more green vegetables per day on average than people with access to vegetables year round. Of course, vegetables can be canned and pickled, but salted vegetables are a separate category in the monograph. I’m interested in knowing how you got that correlation.

    Reply

    1. I’m wondering how you got that correlation.

      It’s already calculated on the “Green vegetable intake (per day)” page in the monograph. Look in the table on the most far-right column next to the variable for latitude.

      Reply

    2. According to the monograph, p557, titled D043 GREENVEG

      -33 G001 LATITUDE

      Look at the dots on the map on the preceding page, p556, diet survey GREEN VEGETABLE INTAKE (g/day/reference man, fresh weight). The black dots representing highest intake are concentrated on or near the coast at mid to lower latitudes with a few further inland at mid to lower latitudes. The two mid inland dots are around Beijing, I believe. I notice that the clusters of black dots representing high intakes are around Shanghai and Guangzhou. As I recall from the monograph, while most counties were rural, some suburban counties were included.

      Reply

      1. Hi Whatsonthemenu,

        Any chance you’re looking at the book “Mortality, Biochemistry, Diet and Lifestyle in Rural China” rather than “Diet, Life-style and Mortality in China?” The former actually features the China Project II, which studies additional counties and Taiwan, rather than the first China Project. Many of the numbers may be different.

        If you’re not looking at a book but using the data from Oxford’s website, this is also the China Study II data and will be different than what I (and Campbell) used. The overall trends should mostly be the same, but specific correlations could be different between the data sets. I’ll put a disclaimer about that on the page where I link to it.

        If you are using “Diet, Life-style and Mortality in China,” let me know and I’ll check to see if I’ve made an error. I try to be scrupulous about that and check my work 80 times, so I’m hoping this isn’t the case. 😉

        Reply

      2. Yes, I am. That explains the discrepancy.

        You might want to revisit this hypothesis, however:

        “Since only frequency and not actual quantity of greens seems protective of heart disease and stroke, it’s safe to say that greens probably aren’t the true protective factor.”

        Would you agree that foods which confer some health benefits, such as omega-3 rich fish, offer more protection if eaten regularly than if eaten only a few months of the year? Eating, say, 2 servings of fresh green vegetables a day for four months isn’t the same as eating those 2 servings for a period of 10 months.

        If you believe that latitude-dependent vitamin D is a protective factor, I would agree with you completely. However, regular consumption of fresh green vegetables may also offer some protection.

        Reply

  159. Now all Denise has to answer is http://www.drmcdougall.com‘s anecdotal evidence that moving from meat eating to vegan diet helps many people get off diabetes and heart medication. Watch the testimonial videos…

    Meanwhile, she’s still got to answer all the global warming problems with the way we raise livestock now (according to a recent U.N. report, raising livestock accounts for more global warming than all human transportation combined…see: http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=775299 for one footnote).

    Reply

    1. Too much of anything is bad! balance between plant/animal diet has to be maintained. people on either extreme of the spectrum will suffer a variety of problems.

      Reply

    2. I think we can call agree that there are big problems with the way we raise livestock now–environmental problems and health problems.

      I disagree that Denise has to answer those issues in the present article. That’s a whole other issue.

      Having said that, I would add that raising livestock using non-CAFO, polyculture methods, grass-fed for cattle, is better in every respect than what most animal operations are doing now. Managed properly, animals are a net positive for the environment, not a net negative. And we have the “technology”–we’ve had it for thousands of years. We just don’t have the political will and proper economic incentives to make the changes.

      Reply
  160. Pingback: Alternative Medicine Expertise from Aspire Natural Health » Blog Archive » More (and probably the last) on the China Study

  161. Back again. The green vegetable page on the monograph lists a correlation of -33 with latitude. This shocked me. Some southwest inland provinces are extremely poor, and I wondered if some very poor lower latitude outliers are throwing the statistics. I noticed that the correlation with elevation is almost the same at -30. Rocky, acidic soils are not good for crop cultivation. Looking at provinces with extremely low green vegetable intakes, I noticed Huguan (CB 0.0, midnorth inland), Shangshui (DA 15.3 mid inland), Xuanwei (RA 6.8 low inland), Longde (XB 17.6 midnorth inland), and Jingxing (BB 8.4, midnorth, listed as in a coastal province but appears to be inland on map). By looking at the locations on a map, I know that some of these counties with very low daily green vegetable intakes are located in mountainous areas, but I do not know their exact elevations, and I’m not ambitious enough to check them out.

    My point is that I think we can learn more by looking at the trees than the forest with regard to daily green vegetable intake and many other food items as well.

    Reply

    1. Oops, I misinterpreted latitude. A negative correlation is expected for green vegetables if people consume less of them the further north they live.

      Reply

  162. Here is a rebuttal to Denise’s article that accuses her of a naive understanding of statistical analysis. Here is one of the most damning of the criticisms: “when she refers to “statistical significance”, all that’s being tested is the “null hypothesis” that there is no correlation (i.e. correlation = 0). it is not testing whether an exposure is or is not a risk factor for the outcome, even though Denise uses this term loosely.” Also, we all know that correlation is not causality and risk factors are not the same as causes.

    http://www.30bananasaday.com/group/debunkingthechinastudycritics/forum/topics/a-cancer-epidemiologist/

    Reply

    1. As I’ll explain better in my next post (hopefully up by tomorrow), I’m simply replicating the methods Campbell used — which were mainly univariate correlations straight from the raw data — and showing how they failed to account for confounders. The criticisms RE: my statistical methods apply directly to him. They can nail me for taking a too simplistic approach, but in doing so, they’re cutting of their foot to spite their leg, so to speak. 😉

      Reply

      1. “I’m simply replicating the methods Campbell used, which were mainly univariate correlations. The criticisms RE: my statistical methods apply directly to him.”

        Not according to the article I cited. Campbell did not perform his analysis on raw data and any good scientist would adjust for confounding variables. Are you saying Campbell didn’t do that? Campbell’s study is flawed, but that has already been noted by Anthony Colpo, Chris Masterjohn, and many others. The article also accused you of deleting a comment.

        QUOTE. Your analysis is completely OVER-SIMPLIFIED. Every good epidemiologist/statistician will tell you that a correlation does NOT equal an association. By running a series of correlations, you’ve merely pointed out linear, non-directional, and unadjusted relationships between two factors. I suggest you pick up a basic biostatistics book, download a free copy of “R” (an open-source statistical software program), and learn how to analyze data properly. I’m a PhD cancer epidemiologist, and would be happy to help you do this properly. While I’m impressed by your crude, and – at best – preliminary analyses, it is quite irresponsible of you to draw conclusions based on these results alone. At the very least, you need to model the data using regression analyses so that you can account for multiple factors at one time. UNQUOTE

        Reply

        1. Not according to the article I cited. Campbell did not perform his analysis on raw data and any good scientist would adjust for confounding variables. Are you saying Campbell didn’t do that?

          Yes. For the most part, anyway. As I’ll show you in the next post, Campbell’s correlations all perfectly match the raw data. I don’t know how I can state that any more clearly…

          His way of ‘adjusting’ was primarily to separate disease groups into two clusters (diseases of affluence and diseases of poverty), and cite the (raw) correlations between those disease groups and various blood markers and foods as a way of linking them to diet. He zeroed in on the (raw) correlations with cholesterol and disease, and based many conclusions about animal food consumption off of that. He did not thoroughly adjust for confounders for the disease groups, as far as I can tell, presumably because he was more interested in the “forest” than the “trees,” as he himself stated in his response to me.

          I will be discussing all of this in the post I’m working on, so just sit tight, ‘kay?

          I haven’t deleted a single comment, by the way, although I’ve had to “free” a couple of valid ones from the spam folder.

          Reply

      2. Hi Ian,

        The person that you claim to be defending Campbell has not said that she has reviewed any of his papers. There is one available free online at : http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/59/5/1153S

        If you look at this paper, and then look at your comment about “any good scientist would adjust for confounding variables”, you must deduce that Campbell is not a good scientist because there is no mention of confounding variables.

        And as has been said over and over and over again, the only documentation that seems to be available shows that Campbell performed simple univariate correlations on the RAW DATA.

        Reply

      3. @CPM That is a high level summary where, for good or for bad, Campbell has chosen to summarize information with simple correlations. What is important is that where appropriate the studies in question are carried out including more sophisticated methods. And in general, where I’ve followed the references in that article, he does.

        Reply

      4. Hi N,

        The thing is, he did use those simple correlations without mention of confounding variables, and Ian just damned Denise for this (even though she did use confounding variables to a degree) and said that a good scientist would never do this. I think people are going a little overboard in their defense of Campbell.

        I believe he chose to use these simple correlations in his book as well, and these have been given a certain weight by the general public because the publisher chose to make a big deal about the China data.

        The thing is, if someone has problems with Campbell’s conclusions and think he might be overly biased, you have to begin your critique somewhere, and you have to kind of take it one argument at a time.

        Many of his defenders are claiming that these are more than simple correlations, and he himself has said or strongly implied this when replying to critics. You have to address these simple correlations that he did choose to use or people will keep throwing them out there like they mean something.

        Reply

      6. Hi N,

        It depends. The China Study was a book for the general public. Some of the arguments in the book were based on studies (and apparently some of the studies did not exactly say what Campbell claimed), but apparently some of the arguments in the book were just simple correlations from raw China data.

        Most of Denise’s critics won’t even admit that Campbell ever used simple correlations in any manner.

        I also think if one of your larger arguments is going to be that Campbell is misusing science in this book, it is a valid point to discuss his use of simple correlations to support his points when apparently other correlations are contradictory. Some people are apparently ready to burn other people at the stake for using simple correlations, so maybe this is a worthwhile topic for a critic to at least explore.

        Reply

      7. Well, I’m much more interested in cutting through the noise and addressing the scientific matters at hand than letting angry mobs dictate how analysis should or should not be done.

        There’s nothing inherently wrong with using correlations, although care must be exercised. Like any statistic they must be used with demonstration that some understanding of what is conveyed is had. But people generally understand what a correlation means. In my experience that often dictates usage more than what may or may not be the most mathematically appropriate statistic for a given task even among scientists. Campbell uses simple correlation often, especially when summarizing results, probably for these very reasons. Where appropriate, as would be demanded in any of the peer reviewed setting where his individual studies are published, more sophisticated methods are used when necessary to demonstrate a given relationship. Being able to back up a relationship described using a correlation with a study that contains more in depth analysis is a perfectly valid way of conveying scientific information. A lack of such demonstration would be much more suspect. Along these lines, I hope Ms. Minger will follow up with the additional analysis that she has mentioned a few times now is coming.

        A book targeted toward a lay population is going to be even more casual in its descriptions of experimental results, although to his credit he still provides complete references. I have not found his references to be of poorer quality than average in the scientific community, although that is not to say I’m surprised to hear that some can be found that seem questionable. But on the topic of the book, as far as I can tell Ms. Minger’s discussion is not about the book but a Cornell news article summarizing a presentation given that summarized a wide range of research. Unfortunately this is even less informative, lacking references or any description of methodology at all. That is why I have suggested that the academic summary linked a few times here be used to advance the discussion, because at least it allows one to follow up with the appropriate studies in question.

        And to be sure at times Campbell does use correlations alone. Sometimes documenting an association is all that the situation requires. At other times complex mechanisms may not have conventional statistics that are well designed for testing them. An unproven computational or statistical model may be even more suspect than an expert’s manual mapping out of the most parsimonious relationship between associations. This isn’t to say that it’s at all foolproof, but there comes a point where we approach the limits of our ability to extract and share information from a complex dataset. It’s perfectly reasonable to set one’s level of skepticism in the results accordingly.

        Skepticism in Campbell’s conclusions is healthy. I am by no means convinced that the evidence convincingly brings us to the end point he suggests. But Campbell has been exceeding transparent and professional in his work. To assert otherwise is an insult to the whole scientific community.

        Reply

      8. Babe,don’t exhaust yourself.Rest and recover you are putting so much effort in here.I for one appreciate every single word you have written,you are very enlightening,others may not and it’s not worth wearing yourself out for,ever!

        Reply

  164. Guys,

    I didn’t mean to say Denise said if A=b and B=c then A has to be equal to C. This is what Dr Campbell is accused of doing. I don’t fully understand Dr Cambell’s methodology so I can’t say for sure whether he simply used above logic or there was more than this that was involved that led him to implicate animal protein.

    What Denise has done is from Raw data she tried to see if A equals C or if there is positive correlation between A and C. Just want to make sure I’m understood properly.

    Reply

  165. And one more thing regarding the weak positive and negative correlations between average green vegetable intake and heart diseases and stroke. You wondered why average intake does not have strong negative correlations indicative of a protective effect but frequency of green vegetable consumption does. You speculated geography might hold the answer, but then you headed in the direction of latitude. As I clarifed, the correct correlation between average green veggie intake and latitude is -33, not +5. Geography holds the answer, but it’s differences in latitude. It’s suburban versus rural. Look at the green veggie intake map on p556. Notice the black dot clusters on the coast in the middle and in the south. The midcoastal cluster is around Shanghai. The south coastal cluster is around Guangzhou. If you check out these two hot spots on other maps, you’ll see these folks ate a varied diet with a bit of everything back in the 70s and 80s, and they still do today. The area that appears to have eaten a diet approaching a modern one with processed foods is around Shanghai with the highest consumption of added sugars and starches (like cornstarch as a sauce thickener) and of vegetable oils, no surprise to anyone who’s been served a plate of bokchoy drowning in oily sauce.

    If you’re still interested in the green veggie paradox – why frequency is negatively correlated with those disease but average intake is not – you might explore differences between suburban and rural veggie eaters.

    Reply

  166. “But Campbell has been exceeding transparent and professional in his work. To assert otherwise is an insult to the whole scientific community.”

    My answer: An insult to one man is not an insult to all men. An insult to one violin player is not an insult to all violin players. And an insult to one researcher is certainly not in any way an insult to a whole scientific community. And if Campbell wants to be transparent, then he can tell us how he came to his conclusions instead of making excuses for doing the exact opposite.

    I have nothing but respect for those who try to do what is morally right and those who care about animals, but the predator/prey relationship is a natural part of the animal ecosystem and we are animals too. If we are to truly understand what is healthiest, we cannot think of diet as a religion and researchers that got some papers published as Gods that cannot be questioned. Vegans can be the best vegans only if they are willing to be totally objective about what may or may not be true. What you eat is a choice. What we are designed to eat is not. Maybe in a perfect world, we would always be designed exactly for what we think we should be designed for, but this may not be a perfect world. If we are designed to eat some meat, then understanding that will only help vegans understand better how to avoid problems when they choose not to eat those things anymore. It will allow them to find better vegan substitutes. It will allow them to be healthier.

    Diet issues are particularly tricky to understand because the addition of any type of food necesarily means the reduction in other foods. If you eat more fish, and your caloric intake remains the same, then you are eating less of something else. Is it meat that is healthier or is it less grains that are healthier? Or maybe it is saturated fat that is healthier? There are plenty of vegan sources of saturated fat. None of us know all the answers yet. SOme of what we now think will later turn out to be wrong. But which parts? Now is not the time to think we have all the answers and attack all who disagree with religious zeal. Both the meateaters and the vegans still have a lot to learn. The sooner we all admit that, the faster we will learn more about the truth.

    Reply
  167. Pingback: Low Carb Diet – Health & Weight Loss (Publication) « Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.

  168. I am looking forward to your next post. I am very interested by the connection of wheat with health in China. By the way, I found this in the amazon comment section to the book China Study. Richard Kroker, an engineer with a PHD, has done a multiple variable regression analysis on the China Study raw data. Did you obtain a similar result?

    Reply

  169. Might Denise be employed by T Colin Campbell in order to drum up publicity and sales of The China Study?

    Nothing sells books like a good controversy.

    I find it hard to believe that an untrained blogger could come up with such a rigorous analysis without professional help, and who better to provide that help than TCC himself. Also, the “beginner mistakes” in stats that Denise makes are probably a setup so that later T Colin Campbell can write a scathing defense of the book and sell even more copies.

    Reply

    2. *Sigh*

      I admit it. You caught me.

      I’m actually a Japanese spy who infiltrates the meat and dairy industry headquarters Monday through Wednesday, collaborates with T. Colin Campbell Thursday and Friday, and spends Saturday fashioning my top-secret plans for world domination (which include implanting dairy cows with human embryos to breed an army of half-bovine ninja children).

      On Sundays I rest.

      It’s a tough life, I tell ya.

      😉

      Reply

    3. The world is full of autodidactic folks, and thank God for them. This is why I specifically tackled the credential issue in my post about Denise’s work.

      Reply

  170. Denise,

    Once you said, you introduced meat for health reasons, that really stopped many folks from reading it any further. This is what I read at some other forum where I frequent. Take it for whatever it is worth.

    Reply

    1. Probably a good thing Mark. An inability to read a critique of one’s position usually means you are still knee deep in the grip of ideology. Of course it doesn’t mean if you do read you aren’t, but for those can’t or won’t it almost certainly means that.

      Reply

      1. An inability to read a critique of one’s position usually means you are still knee deep in the grip of ideology.

        Damn good words of wisdom

        Reply

  171. I haven’t been this entertained in a geeky statistics way since grad school. And the fight in the comments reminds me of many a technical conference between two parties whose entire existence apparently revolved around their hypothesis being the One True Way, which require all doubters to be struck down.

    Congrats Denise on a simple and elegant (though no doubt time-consuming and painstaking) analysis. Your post lives up to exactly what you said you were doing – no more, no less, whereas the people posting “helpful hints” are out there tap-dancing on the edge of the stage.

    Reply

  172. oooops, sorry denise

    just discovered that you were only 23 years old (one of campbell’s criticisms that actually finds its way to print)…all bets are off..

    you are far too young to have anything of value to say….i mean campbell’s gotta be 40 years your senior….ever heard of respecting your elders

    trust, and respect, automatically defaults to the older dude

    sorry, that’s just how it is

    i’m sure this essay of yours will look good in your scrapbook, denise, but leave the science to the older folk

    :o)

    Reply

  173. Denise,

    I just wanted to show some support for what you’re doing here, and say a big “thanks!” I’m impressed with what you’ve done so far and look forward to your upcoming posts. I think it’s sad that the 30bad folks clearly don’t understand what your work is showing (or even what you set out to do), and insist you jump through hoops. I can tell you that nothing short of peer review will satisfy them (they’re really geared up about this, and apparently Campbell is going to offer up a more detailed–and let’s hope less snarky and more professional–reply). I would recommend you didn’t waste your time if I weren’t so interested in what your analysis shows! Anyway, don’t let the haters get you down!

    Best wishes –
    Kat

    Reply

  174. Denise, you concluded your article with: “It’s no surprise “The China Study” has been so widely embraced within the vegan and vegetarian community: It says point-blank what any vegan wants to hear—that there’s scientific rationale for avoiding all animal foods. That even small amounts of animal protein are harmful. That an ethical ideal can be completely wed with health. These are exciting things to hear for anyone trying to justify a plant-only diet, and it’s for this reason I believe “The China Study” has not received as much critical analysis as it deserves, especially from some of the great thinkers in the vegetarian world. Hopefully this critique has shed some light on the book’s problems and will lead others to examine the data for themselves.”

    However, The China Study, on page 243 states in pertinent part that salmon, tuna, and cod may be eaten; only meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs should be avoided. Moreover, The China Study plainly states that the science shows that animal protein may be eaten without causing adverse health problems if the amount is 10% or less of one’s daily calories; for the typical 2000 calorie eater that means that 50 grams of animal protein may be eaten daily.

    I do agree however that on page 242 of his book Dr. Campbell makes a leap when he opines that “it’s not unreasonable to assume that the optimum percentage of animal-based products is zero, at least for anyone with a predisposition for a degenerative disease. But this has not been absolutely proven. Certainly it is true that most of the health benefits are realized at very low but non-zero levels of animal-based foods.” Why he wrote the foregoing and advises the reader “to try to eliminate all animal-based products from your diet, but not obsess over it,” is beyond me.

    We read The China Study and find example after example of why it is okay to eat 50+ grams of animal-based protein daily without jeopardizing our health, and why we should eat a variety of whole, unrefined plant-based foods, and in his list of foods to eat, he includes in pertinent part salmon, tuna, cod (fish), but then he throws in his “assumptions” which he admits “has not been absolutely proven” that we should avoid animal-based protein. What? This assumption without any scientific basis should not have been included in The China Study — I don’t know why Dr. Campbell threw this in his book on pages 242 – 244. In answer to his questions, “What Does Minimize Mean?” and “Should You Eliminate Meat Completely?” the research in The China Study answers: minimize means eating a serving of animal-based protein daily, and no, we should not eliminate meat completely.

    So The China Study does support Denise’s hypotheses; it does not support a vegan life-style! I think Denise would do us all a service if she pointed out the foregoing regarding Dr. Campbell’s advice to eat salmon, etc.

    Reply

    1. Hey Mike:

      While I congratulate you on the large weight loss and it’s certainly got to be healthier than where you were, man have you lost a LOT of lean mass.

      Those wanting to lose fat while PRESERVING, even building lean mass & strength might want to consider a paleo-styled diet including lots of animal protein & fat.

      Here’s my 60 lb weight loss, but it was 100% fat loss.

      http://freetheanimal.com/2009/09/interim-progress-update.html

      That’s of about a year ago. Here’s yesterday 6th & 7th pictures down:

      http://freetheanimal.com/2010/07/movnat-day-4-integrating-and-combining-skills.html

      y’know, long as we’re haulin’ out anecdotes & all.

      Reply

    2. Mike T,

      Been there, done that and came to the same conclusion as Denise. Reintroduction of animal foods, albeit less in volume than in previous years, has resulted in an improved state of health and one I think is optimal for me. My diet is plant-based with some meat to supplement it plus a drastic reduction in grain consumption. Glad you found something that works for you.

      Rob

      Reply

  176. Hi everyone,

    Quick update: I’ll be posting my response to Campbell either tonight or tomorrow. Alas, “day job” duties have stood in the way of cranking this out as quickly as I’d hoped.

    I’ve also been informed that Campbell is writing a more thorough response to my critique and will be posting it on his website, http://www.tcolincampbell.org, in the next day or so. Mr. Campbell has also released a newsletter asking the graduates of his course in plant-based nutrition to come to my blog (and others linking to it) and “read and respond in a way befitting of Dr. Campbell and his message,” so for those of you arriving here via that avenue, welcome!

    Thanks again for the comments, feedback, and occasional seething, embittered character attacks; I appreciate all of it. 😉

    Denise

    Reply

  177. I anxiously await the updates from both Denise and TCC.

    I hope TCC will refrain from:

    1) Any mention of his own qualifications and experience.
    2) Any reference to Denise’s age and/or qualifications.

    If TCC has good science on his side (and I believe he probably does), he need not clutter up the argument with storytelling. Just the facts, please!

    This is not a typical lay audience. This is an audience that craves understanding. We don’t want to be persuaded you’re a credible source. We want to UNDERSTAND The China Study. Help us understand exactly how you analyzed the data. Help us understand what you found. Help us understand what you did not find.

    Advice for Denise: Please refrain from any snarky comments or little jabs at TCC. You might even owe the man an apology.

    Maxwell

    Reply

    1. Denise has been elegant throughout. It was Campbell who sank to ad hominems.

      BTW, “You might even owe the man an apology” is pretty snotty yourself.

      Reply

  178. I enjoy snarky, so please don’t refrain, and it is your blog after all.

    Apology? I don’t think so. If TCC had presented and defended all of his findings in a much more transparent manner from the get go this wouldn’t be an issue at all. If his findings and conclusion are indeed all justified and scientifically correct great, I’m sure Denise will be more than civil about it.

    “I’m sorry you didn’t give us all the information the first time around.”

    That might work though.

    Reply

  179. I am glad that you feel you have found a diet that works for you, however, I must question how a 23 year old English major has the knowledge or qualifications to even begin to evaluate epidemiological studies and scientific research?

    I believe that each individual should research health and nutrition and try to find accurate information and well conducted studies to support that information. However, It is also important to recognize your own limitations in interpreting data and research and avoid proclaiming yourself an expert who can adequately evaluate research when you clearly do not have the education or experience to do so.

    The statistical analysis you have tried to accomplish is extremely misleading not to mention inaccurate and naive. You do not have any experience in epidemiological research and therefore do not even begin to understand how data is to be evaluated and how conclusions should be drawn. To believe you can discredit scientific research based on personal nutrition study is arrogant to say the least.

    While I applaud your persistence in striving to justify your own personal beliefs about an optimal diet, this analysis is far from ‘proof’ that the China Study is a fallacy. You don’t have any experience in scientific research or epidemiological studies so how can you even begin to proclaim that you can prove any scientific research to be valid or invalid?

    Dr. Campbell has conducted research for over 40 years. Dr. Campbell is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University. He has more than seventy grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding and authored more than 300 research papers. What credentials do you have that qualify you to discredit his research? What credentials do you have that qualify you to even evaluate this research?

    I realize that you want to justify your own dietary beliefs but it is irresponsible to try to discredit scientific research merely because it goes against your own personal beliefs, when you clearly do not have the knowledge, education or experience to do so. I believe you owe Dr. Campbell a sincere apology for recklessly and naively disparaging his work without any knowledge, education, qualifications or experience to do so.

    Reply

    1. Hi Tandi,

      Credentials blah, blah, blah…Campbell used simple correlations of the raw data to make some of his key arguments; you don’t need any experience in epidemiological studies and scientific research to see that. Denise simply took it one step further and introduced confounding variables to show how flawed the simple correlations were. She was not publishing her own epidemiology study; she was using hard numbers to criticize the one that had been published.

      If Campbell had just come out and said,” yes, I used simple correlations and this is my reason why (and maybe in hindsight I should not have used these in my book)” in replying to his critics maybe he would not catch so much flak, but instead he has belittled anybody who has questioned his use of these simple correlations, called them agents of the Weston Price Foundation, and claimed that his simple correlations of raw data were not in fact simple correlations of the raw data. How esteemed is that?

      The possibly bigger issue though is if Campbell has misrepresented the findings of his references, which Denise and others have claimed he has done. From what I understand that is almost a mortal sin among scientists. A rational person would have a hard time defending this, but many of his defenders do not seem to be so rational sometimes.

      Reply

      2. Hi N,

        I don’t have access to most of the scientific papers, and I don’t have time to really look into it in that great of detail. Hopefully as Denise proceeds she can maybe go in that direction.

        Using the paper that has been used here before http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/59/5/1153S ,
        I can however pick out a few statements such as the one below where it appears to me that while references might be important information, they do not represent a more in-depth analysis of the China data beyond Campbell’s simple correlations. I could be wrong without accessing the actual papers (just sometimes very limited abstracts), but I believe for example one of the studies referenced below is for Israeli data.

        “Plasma cholesterol concentration was associated directly with all-cancer mortality rates measured in this study. Most notably, these associations were statistically significant for eight different cancers, including colon cancer (P < 0.01 for males and P < 0.001 for females) (55, 56, 66)."

        Some of his correlations may have better analysis to back them up, but some of them don't.

        Again, you can maybe argue whether the use of simple correlations were justified or not, but Campbell has bashed other people for doing this when they come up with contradictory correlations to his own, and he has said or implied that he has not used simple correlations of the raw data.

        As I said before, you got to start somewhere (and I know we disagree on where to start), but Campbell has seemingly always responded to his critics by claiming that he has always used a more sophisticated analysis than them and that his critics cannot be trusted because they used simple correlations of the raw data (and that they are all possibly agents of the Weston Price Foundation out to get him).

        Reply

      3. PS –

        “Are you unwilling or unable to follow references to supporting studies?

        According to the person I originally responded to, I am not qualified to even look at his Campbell’s scientific papers anyway. I am not epidemiologist or a scientific researcher.

        Reply

      4. Some of us have spent long hours in libraries to become familiar with these matters, and so don’t see a lack of personal access as a reason not to investigate as far as it takes to answer these questions. And nobody said you weren’t qualified to read about this. A few statistics courses allow interpretation of results. I would hope that a student coming out of one of my statistics classes could recognize some of the problems in Ms. Minger’s analysis for example. To do it yourself is another matter. Even with years of statistical expertise I do not have the epidemiological skills to carry out a proper analysis on this data.

        Reply

      5. ” I would hope that a student coming out of one of my statistics classes could recognize some of the problems in Ms. Minger’s analysis for example. ”

        I would hope that someone who supposedly teaches statistics classes would realize that Denise isn’t the one with the problem here — she’s just pointing out that Campbell’s univariate correlations are bunk.

        Reply

    2. Tandi and others,

      Pointing out someone’s age or credentials is generally an implicit admission that one cannot competently address the person’s argument. Denise has been extremely respectful of Dr. Campbell in a personal sense and has dealt with data. I think she deserves equal respect and those criticizing her should criticize her data and data analysis directly.

      It does not take a long time, not even a few statistics classes, to learn how to generate pearson correlation coefficients and multiple linear regression models. One can gain a very excellent understanding of these things from reading half of a statistics book, and one can gain sufficient understanding to perform them correctly by purchasing software and reading the tutorials. Besides which, someone who began college at 16 as stated on her web site and is now 23 could easily have taken plenty of statistics courses if she so chose to do, again, not that it would have been necessary.

      It is clear to me that the “cancer epidemiologist” that you are quoting, who has posted here and has been quoted many times over, neither read the China Study nor read Denise’s review, except perhaps by casual skim. This epidemiologist critcizes Denise for using ecological data and analyzing by county, conceding at one point that perhaps this is all she had access to. Had this person read either the book The China Study or read the original monograph, they would know that the China Study is an ecological study and pooled all the blood of all individuals’ in a local unit into a large vat so the investigators could measure more biochemical markers.

      Had Dr. Campbell only published in peer-reviewed journals, the discussion of his work would be limited primarily to peer-reviewed journals. When he chose to write a best-selling book, however, he opened up his arguments to criticism by the public. This was the course he chose.

      As he acknoweldges in his own brief response to Denise that has been posted in the comments section here, he believes the better choice is to correlate animal food intake, cholesterol levels, and so on, with multiple depenedent variables such as “diseases of poverty” and “diseases of affluence,” but this was excised from the book due to space. Obviously, this is a novel approach, debatable, and would be controversial among researchers. In any case, it is not the same thing as adjusting for confounding variables by having multiple independent variables — and that type of data was also not presented in The China Study. One need not follow 700 references to find this out. It is up to Campbell to state in the text “after adjusting for…” when he presents his correlations, and he never states this because it isn’t true.

      Denise’s analysis was very simple, and that is part of its strength. Many people have been floating the idea that any reputable scientist would “adjust for confounding variables.” This is, first, nonsense. Any reputable scientist would first and foremost present raw data. Look in ANY peer-reviewed publication where multiple regression is used and you will see that the first thing presented is the unadjusted data. As the “cancer epidemiologist” pointed out, one of the criteria of a confounding variable is that it must not be on the chain of causation between the thing whose effect it is confounding and the dependent variable. This is not something that can be determined by statistics. It requires discussion, argumentation, and subjective judgment. Ten researchers will present ten judgments on what may or may not lie in a chain of causation because frequently we just don’t know. Adjusting for confounding variables is a partially subjective process subject to much uncertainty and disagreement, and this is why usually in a peer-reviewed paper the raw correlations are presented along with several different multiple regression models.

      In The China Study, there are over 8000 statistically significant correlations. There are many different factors one could put into a multiple regression model. Which ones do you pick? Ten researchers will give ten answers. There is no “correct” multiple regression model.

      Before one adjusts, one must make a case for it.

      What Denise did here is take simple correlations that Campbell was using and make a strong, well-developed argument that Campbell did not take into account many compelling confounding factors.

      And she did, contrary to many statements found within the comments section, analyze some of his references. The most remarkable of these was showing that his claim that animal protein uniquely promotes cancer in aflatoxin-treated animals is based on his own study showing that plant protein is just as effective as animal protein as long as the missing amino acids are provided as would occur on a mixed vegetarian diet.

      My analysis of why this contribution of Denise’s was so important can be found here:

      http://westonaprice.org/blogs/denise-minger-refutes-the-china-study-once-and-for-all.html

      Chris

      Reply

      1. Nicely done Chris, you have taken some of the words right out of my mouth, as you will see in my follow up article on Denise’s work.

        Reply

    3. I think Dr. Campbell owes me an apology for ostensibly being a scientist and penning his hack, biased conclusions in “The China Study,” and also for being a total unhealthy-appearing asshole in any video I’ve seen of him. Also, his whole argument about “The China Study” being only one chapter of his book – it was the TITLE of his book. Also, let’s examine the subtitle: “the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted and the startling implications for diet, weight loss and long-term health” – PARDON ME if we take that seriously, Dr. Campbell. Seems that your argument that the actual study itself was fairly unimportant seems, well, disingenuous.

      Reply

      2. RICH said: “his whole argument about “The China Study” being only one chapter of his book – it was the TITLE of his book.”>>

        DAR
        It’s very common for author’s to have the title of their books chosen by their publisher (who chose titles to be provocative and sell books, which is their only goal). As Dr. Campbell notes, they submitted 200 title suggestions, not one of them was the title the publisher chose to use. To quote:

        “We suggested 200 possible titles, not one of which was ‘The China Study’. But when we objected, he said that we already had signed the contract and this was his right and responsibility.”

        Click to access finalmingercritique.pdf

        Reply

    4. @Tandi – Your attitude is a tad elitist, don’t you think? So the “experts” are there to tell us lowly peons how to eat and think and live our lives and we must never question their advice, uh?

      Reply

    5. This is why most people are confused by what they read in the papers. English majors writing about subjects they do not understand. If data is something that makes Denise happy than she should learn how to use it. Correlation is not Causation. If it was wearing clothes would be the cause of urination. The simple fact that the monograph is available and all of the data is contained in it will allow many more of these fools to come up with ridiculous correlations and claim they are causes.

      Reply

      1. @ SupremePundit

        It is kind of funny you talking about other people being confused by what they read…Dunning-Kruger…

        P.S. While Denise has said repeatedly that “Correlation is not Causation”, the eminent Dr. Campbell has said that he can cherry-pick simple correlations to prove that his hypotheses are correct (not just develop hypotheses, but to prove that hypotheses are correct.)

        Reply

    6. A title after your name, a degree and $1 will buy you a soda at McDonalds.

      My great grandfather who had a third grade education, was one of the smartest men my father ever knew. People who had no formal education came up with all kinds of scientific discoveries. Until recently that is, when all of a sudden it doesn’t matter how smart you are, or how much you study on your own, but instead “credentials” are dragged out as if it means something. It doesn’t mean shit though. I’ve seen plenty of men who have PhDs who couldn’t really think their way out of a paper bag.

      Reply

  180. Tandy, it is just as irresponsible to take Campbell’s word as is without question. Do you take Campbell’s word as is without question?

    Reply

    1. One doesn’t need to take his word for it when following references to the specific studies in question to answer further questions. Most researchers are also much more responsive to questions when it’s evident that you’ve done this too.

      Reply

      1. But when one follows the references and finds they refute the word, as Denise has done, then one must start to doubt the word. Most researchers would soon realize that one doesn’t need to be a researcher to figure that one out.

        Reply

  182. Did I take Dr. Campbell’s research alone and decide that was all the evidence I needed, absolutely not. Research scientists are not all honest, and you can pretty much get any conclusion you want if you set it up correctly. So obviously you cannot just take a study at face value. However, I wouldn’t necessarily blindly believe an oversimplified evaluation of research by some random person either.

    Quote from an epidemiologist on this evaluation:

    “Your analysis is completely OVER-SIMPLIFIED. Every good epidemiologist/statistician will tell you that a correlation does NOT equal an association. By running a series of correlations, you’ve merely pointed out linear, non-directional, and unadjusted relationships between two factors. I suggest you pick up a basic biostatistics book, download a free copy of “R” (an open-source statistical software program), and learn how to analyze data properly. I’m a PhD cancer epidemiologist, and would be happy to help you do this properly.

    While I’m impressed by your crude, and – at best – preliminary analyses, it is quite irresponsible of you to draw conclusions based on these results alone. At the very least, you need to model the data using regression analyses so that you can account for multiple factors at one time.”

    Reply

    2. Is the book that Ms. Minger is analyzing a compendium of observational studies?
      If I understand her logic correctly she’s not making assertions that certain variables have causal relationships, quite the contrary, she’s highlighting the fact that the associations between those variables are weak.

      Moreover she’s quite clearly outlining her methods which, while simple, don’t seem egregiously flawed.

      Per the suggestion she should be using regression…. check out the definition of “correlation”, (wikipedia is excellent).

      “…account for multiple factors at one time.”, please explain, especially why this is _necessary_ for her critique.

      I have to say that I’m strongly put off by the suggestion that expert supervision is necessary for a clean statistical analysis…. but if she wants help….

      On a more positive note I (a random stranger) also heartily endorse R. It’s awesome: http://cran.r-project.org/

      Reply

      1. ///“…account for multiple factors at one time.”, please explain, especially why this is _necessary_ for her critique.///

        It’s necessary so they can make data look like it’s something it isn’t.

        They do it in real estate and unemployment statistics too. They “adjust” the numbers so that they take the season (or some other factor) into account. It can make the data look better or worse. And I don’t need a math degree or a science degree to figure that one out.

        Reply

    3. A correlation _is_ an “association”, in particular a simple linear association. I think what you mean is “Correlation does not imply causation.” In many, if not most, if not all (I’d have to reread) of the cases above she was pointing out a _lack_ of correlation…

      Reply

  183. Denise,
    You also forget some possible relationships. Quite normal, because it is impossible to see/know everything.
    f.i.: you correlate wheat-consumption with the occurence of cancers.
    But how do we consume wheat:
    – bread is consumed with meat/cheese, containing preservatives, colouring agents and other suspicious stuff, or with sweet stuffs – wich also correlate to cancers.
    – there is a big difference between ‘old fashioned’ bread with sourdough, and bread with yeast.
    – cereals contain additives, maybe in overdose (f.i. Kellog’s All-Bran contains metallic (!) iron and other stuff ) and are consumed with milk (a bad combination, because nutrientuptake, other then calcium is inhibited)

    So also your story is far from (statistical) complete…

    Reply

    1. Yes, Denise, your analysis is invalid because you did not do a multiple regression analysis of the consumption of Kellogg’s All-Bran in Xuanwei province.

      Reply

      1. anon: you don’t mention the other 2 points I pinpointed.
        beside that:
        – bread also contains additives like cysteine that may influence the results (the thiol side chain often participates in enzymatic reactions)
        – wheat in non-western countries is (often) more contaminated with aflatoxins.

        Reply
  184. Pingback: Saturday Link Love: Edition 4

  185. denise, i read your reply to campbell first and was stunned, then i read this and was even more stunned. i think you might be the smartest 23 year old person i’ve ever seen. your writing style is also fantastic. if you wrote a book i would buy it immediately no matter what it was about.

    any chance you’re single? heh heh heh… 🙂

    Reply

  186. Say Hey-

    Nice work. Beware the truism “no good deed goes unpunished”.

    It was a shock to me at first to find out the depth of the chasm between what is known and what is accepted wisdom. After some time I got over it, as this is (sadly) not the only area of knowledge under assault by emotionally involved people with a predetermined answer. Those of us who do this type of work (data analysis) for a living are trained to see this bias in ourselves and we try hard to use tools that are resistant to manipulation. Just bear in mind that no honest researcher will withhold the raw data (nor their methods) from you.

    There is one thing I see mentioned above that I wanted to expand upon a bit. While this data set was a massive amount of work to accumulate, and even though it may be the best data generally available on mortality and nutrition; the data set does not hold answers so much as it helps us form the right questions. It is easy to over analyze a data set with fancy math tools; the hard work is to follow up on the initial (clear and obvious) questions.

    A correlation is a correlation. We are actually after cause and effect. You see this caution repeated many times above in one form or another. The heart of this issue is that the answers we seek can not be found in the numbers. The numbers guide you as to how to spend your limited time available in investigating cause and effect in matters of interest to you.

    This data set screams “wheat is bad for you.” After chasing previously formed questions about plant vs animal protein issues, cholesterol, vitamins and the like – you have to come back the the big surprise; “wheat is bad”.
    At first you may not want to believe it – even if you have a gluten allergy that has progressed to celiac disease. To make progress on this issue you have to go outside the data set to find a well supported mechanism that explains the nature of the problem.

    If you think the argument about plant vs animal foods is “difficult”, you don’t know the meaning of the word. I have been studying the problem with wheat for two years now. Good luck with your quick follow up in a “few days”. I fell down the rabbit hole. The problem is not that nobody knows why wheat is bad for you. The problem is that “we” have not been listening.

    Check out the relationship in the china data set between Vitamin C blood levels and wheat consumption. I missed its importance at first, but it is very helpful in understanding why wheat has to be fortified with vitamins. But depleting vitamins is not the only problem with wheat; those who are interested should check out the newly discovered hormone zonulin that wheat can mimic. I also recommend “Dangerous Grains” by James Braly.

    The core of the issue with wheat are polypeptides that we can not digest completely. We are known to be rapidly genetically adapting to wheat – and there is no clearer proof that it is a dangerous thing to eat.

    After two years (and counting…) of investigating the health effects of wheat consumption I am fully aware of one salient fact. Assuming plant foods are naturally good for you is absolutely childish. Put in a very general way, all food kills you. The problem is just that you die much faster if you don’t eat any. Your particular genes allow you to digest your “historic foods” better that “novel foods”. There isn’t going to be one right answer.

    -Rich

    PS. I also recommend Sally Fallon and Mary Enig’s simple discussions about why it is necessary to wash seeds (such as wheat) before eating them.

    Reply
  187. Pingback: Moving forward « The Red Pill

  188. Brava! This is one of the most objective and honest analyses I have read in many years. Denise, you have the heart and mind of a TRUE scientist. Please, disregard the snooty comments of those fools who confuse credentials with capability or integrity. As a layperson (non-statistician) who has read many medical studies while researching personal issues, I have encountered many an epidemiological study where the conclusion drawn did not account for many variables that could potentially affect the results. It is a pleasure to read the results of your hard work, that provide an effective counterbalance to shoddy science.

    Thank you.

    Reply

  189. I’m SO glad that you did this. Just before finding the Paleo diet and lifestyle, I bought and read Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s books, Eat to Live etc., which are heavily based on the China Study data. I felt pretty confused, knowing that I eat butter, dairy, and meats and have perfect blood pressure and cholesterol. Thank you for cutting through the BS, and pointing out what should have been obvious. I hadn’t gotten as far as reading the China Study itself, and most likely would have had a very hard time wading through it to draw the conclusions that you did in such a clear unbiased way! thank you, thankyou!

    Reply
  190. Pingback: Tuesday 7/20/2010 ***20k & 14k*** « Crossfit Denver 303-482-2420 > Colorado’s first Crossfit affiliate and best personal training

  191. Absolutely brilliant!!
    I have been looking for an intelligent, objective critique of the China study for a long time and this definitely fits the description, without some of the biases of the surprisingly few other critiques to date. I used to be a big fan of Dr. Campbell and the China Study, having read it three times, believing that such an extensive and comprehensive study led by a Scientist with Dr. Campbells credentials had finally revealed the “truth” abiut diet, nutrition and disease. Having recently looked into the other side of the issue; paleolithic nutrition, low carb, high fat etc.. I started to have many questions and the direct correlation between animal protein and cancer made less and less sense. I was therefore very pleased to find this critique that meticulously takes apart Dr. Campbells theory by using the actual data from the original China Study itself. From this we can see that the conclusions Dr. Campbell arrives at and which he repeats incessantly in his book, namely that animal protein causes or rather facilitates the progression of cancer, are selective conclusions with no statistical basis from the data of the actual China Study.
    I would therefore like to thank Denise for her excellent work in helping to expose yet another hidden agenda attempt at misinformation.

    Reply

    1. Moox, just keep eating animals and you will learn the truth the hard way. Denise Minger is a rank amateur and not even close to Dr. Campbells league. The China Study is a peer review work that we are fortunate to have available to us.

      Reply

      1. Hi Frank,

        Campbell’s book, the China Study, is not a peer-reviewed work. It is just a book where some guy argues his hypothesis, one that he did not feel was getting enough ‘air-time’ in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

        Reply

    2. I said the China Study, not his book. His hands were tied on the title. And he is not some guy, he is a true scientist, he does not need “air time”. If you want vibrant health read his book, be grateful he produced something for you to criticize when you should instead be quiet if that is all you have to offer.

      Reply
  192. Pingback: Some Things to Read « DC Skeptics

    1. Vegans do not need to hear there’s “scientific rationale for avoiding all animal foods.” They know from living it and enjoy excellent health and do not need to rely on the propaganda of the monied interests that have made this country the sickest nation on the planet. Here is a clue for you: have you noticed that all the name calling and inflammatory words couple with personal attacks never come from the ones providing information like that found in the China Study? That speaks volumes.

      Reply

      2. “have you noticed that all the name calling and inflammatory words couple with personal attacks never come from the ones providing information like that found in the China Study? That speaks volumes”

        actually no, I have not noticed any such thing.

        Go back and read any rebuttal written by TCC himself. Count the ad-hominem attacks. (btw, that means attacks on the messenger not the message). He works fromt the same template every time. 1) Question the credentials of his critic 2) Remind you of his own impressive CV 3) Mention that his diet has been proven to eliminate disease 4) Belittle the critic some more 5) Complain about being called names like buffoon (that one seems to have really gotten to him 6) Implore you to “just try it? and most importantly 7) Never, ever respond to the actual criticisms in any meaningful way.

        step away from the kool-aid dude…

        Reply

      5. Correct that: accurate. But I think it is obvious that my statement is true. It’s something I noticed over 30 years ago when I first got into this; it stuck out like a sore thumb. As i said; it speaks volumes.

        Reply

      6. Wow, you are in all the way. You can have the last comment if you need it, this will be my last. You comment makes me think you are reading something else all together and there is no way to reach you. After 30 years of vibrant health i think I’ll keep drinking the kool-aid dude.

        Reply

      8. If vegans have “excellent health,” then why is it every vegan I’ve ever known — and I’ve known at least a dozen — looked like they were on the verge of dying, sometimes after only a few weeks on their new diet?

        Reply

  193. I have to commend your effort and time spent studying the data behind Campbell’s book, and you do raise some very good points (such as Campbell being unable to prove a direct link between animal proteins and cancer).

    I have not read the book yet, but have ordered a copy and am looking forward to making up my own mind about the study.

    What I would really like to know, but have been unable to find in any source, is whether Campbell was a vegan/vegetarian before embarking on this nutritional study. Many detractors imply this as a way of reducing Campbell’s credibility, accusing him of going into the project with an agenda. The accounts of his life I have read seemed to suggest that he was originally a believer in the meat and dairy industry due to family ties, but it was this research that changed his mind, which is not suggestive of going into the project with bias, but rather the opposite. I really wish there was a credible source which stated when he became a vegetarian/vegan.

    I also wish nutrition didn’t need to be such a political minefield…

    Reply

    1. What you will find out after recieving your book, is that he was neither vegetarian or vegan when he started all this. He grew up on a dairy farm, eating the very foods that are considered “American”. He also started out trying to find better sources of protein to fix an apperant “defiency”.

      It’s great that Mrs. Minger set out to work so hard at refuting Dr. Campbell’s work, but she is no scientist with no credentials and no peer reviewed work. This is her opinion and her alone. I will gladly follow the doctors and scientists that not only have all those above, but live the life and are healthy for doing so. Not one takes medication for a chronic disease like so many others in the nation.

      Nutrition wouldnt be such a political minefield if it were left up to the dietians and doctors. Government and politicians let big dairy, meat, egg and pharma control most of what we read and hear and how we hear it through the regualr media.

      Reply

      1. Hi Deb,

        There are plenty of doctors and scientists that think eating meat and fat is beneficial, and they live the life and are healthy doing so too.

        Campbell said that basically one of the reasons that he published the book is because he felt that similar views were under-represented in the scientific literature. In essence, Campbell is saying the majority of scientists don’t share his views. That does not mean his hypothesis is wrong, but it does mean that credentials are kind of a pointless issue to bring to the argument.

        Especially when all Denise has done is point out flaws in his arguments and evidence in his book used to support his hypothesis. The book is not peer-reviewed scientific literature. It is some guy arguing his hypothesis to a jury of laypeople.

        Reply

      2. Hi CPM. I agree with your statement. I’d like to add that “lay-people” should also read and (loudly) critique “peer reviewed” literature.

        Reply

      3. She did not point out flaws. Read Dr. Cambells reply. And there were plenty of doctors and scientists who told us smoking was good for us too. They live the life and are healthy doing so too? Who are they. If they consume meat and dairy for years and years it will degrade their health; they are not immune to the laws of phisiology.

        Reply

      4. Frank,

        Campbell is not an omnipotent being so of course there will be flaws in his work, and Denise pointed out quite a few. You can’t hope to understand that, and the weakness of Campbell’s response, if you don’t read this post and the next. Read really slow if you have to. Just read it. Oh wait that’s right, you don’t need scientific rationale to defend a vegan diet. Seems strange you would even bother spamming up the comments if that truly were the case.

        Reply

      5. Try this Kat,

        These attacks are a clear sign of the widespread success of Dr Campbell’s work. His 35 years of research is nothing to sneeze at. And the positive results so many have had from changing to a plant-based diet after reading his book, is frightening to his opponents. The results are real and undeniable…backed up by standard medical tests. Remove the cause of illnesses & they go away. An animal food-based diet is the cause of the majority of common diseases. A low-fat plant-based diet is the answer.

        His findings on the direct effect of dairy casein
        on cancer markers is astounding…add casein, markers go up, subtract casein, the markers go down. It doesn’t get any clearer than that. Get dairy completely off your plate if you want to be well. And while you’re at it, remove the dead carcasses as well.

        Dr Campbell is a gentle & humble man, with all the best intentions of sharing his findings with the world, in order to help people. He is not out for fame or wealth. He simply is sharing the truth.

        Reply

      6. Frank,

        Seriously man, read the post. It’s obvious that you haven’t. If you want to debate the issues that Denise raised then cool, we’ll do that. But you simply can’t do that without first reading the post. Coming here and trying to discuss these things based off of Campbell’s response is like trying to discuss Crime and Punishment by reading a cliff notes version of Romeo and Juliet. It ain’t the same.

        “Dr Campbell is a gentle & humble man…” Well now I’m not so sure you’ve actually read his responses, either.

        Reply

      7. Seriously man, I read them both. What Denise raised really amounts to somebody wanting attention, there is nothing to discuss. As VegSource.com wrote “we were mildly surprised that Dr. Campbell felt he needed to take the time to dignify Minger’s musings with a response”.

        Reply

      9. @deb,

        Yes, the dietitians and doctors are doing a wonderful job. Just look at the amazingly slim and healthy people all around! I’m glad we’re not in the midst of any sort of chronic illness epidemic, like diabetes, obesity, cancer, and heart disease.

        Reply

      10. @Frank,

        I don’t suppose you have any actual scientific points to make, as opposed to vague inferences about sociology and psychology?

        Reply

  195. What is up with that obsession with WAPF? Too bad he didn’t read Minger’s response to his initial response! And that he hangs his hat on the “mysterious missing comment” that never really went missing. Who does his fact-finding? Unimpressive.

    Reply
  197. Pingback: Thursday, July 22nd: Hunger and Obesity are 1 issue « SouthBaltimore CrossFit

  198. I mentioned some points before, here are some others:

    1: relativism: the ‘fact’ that wheat (in some form, in a certain context) causes relative more cancers doesn’t mean that meat (in larger quantities) won’t.
    And what is meat ? There is a difference between USA and EU (Chinese ?) meat, between fresh meat and ‘fabricated’ meat.
    Or between organic and ‘conventional’. What other products do consumers (who consume a lot of, or less, meat/wheat) eat, that are’nt taken into account ? (legumes & fruit, nuts, (un)refined oils, diary), have they been adapted to the ‘western’ way of life ?

    2: environment: what are the environmental factors ? Living in an unhealthy environment may be correlated to wheat consumption. Environmental factors play a very important role in the development of cancers.

    3: smoking: do the big wheat consumers in China also smoke more ?

    So again my point: Denise (with all respect for her energy and superiour intelligence),
    you cannot make any definite conclusions from this data – and you have to explain this limitations and possible other correlations in your publication to be taken serious in your ‘overall’ analysis.

    Reply

      1. ok. ‘definite’ is too hard. the definite conclusions are taken by others…
        but with Denise’s analysis as excuse.
        When you’re trying to superevaluate statistical data analysis, you have to break through the boundaries of the data themselves – and through your own boundaries.
        Because life is very complex – in all respects. And you have to account for that in your conclusions.

        ps
        Can someone tell me, why the so (scientifically) praised ‘Mediterrenean’ diet is that healthy ? They consume a lot of wheat overthere (what I saw): bread, macaroni, cous-cous, bulgur…
        Some other factors play a role….

        Reply

  199. Dr Campbell has done an amazing job with the China Study exposing the dangerous of consuming animal products.

    Just answer me one question , how long does meat stay in your body before is eliminated, and how long does vegetables take before they come out. I work at a cancer clinic and see the results of poor diet. kids as little as 5 years old already with cancer. Once the patient is switch to a plant base diet Miracles they get better!!!

    I myself I’m a cancer survivor. I grow up in farm in Nicaragua My mother force me to eat meat not realizing the damage she was causing me. I had asthma, constipation , depression , parasites. And many other illness associated with meat and dairy. First time I had cancer was 17 and later at 27. I made the switch to plant base diet and my world change .

    Meat causes inflammation, constipation , retardation, meat has not fiber. How can this be good.

    If the number and chart are not right who cares the bottom line is plant base diet is best for any one who is looking for good health . I think that some times we complicate thing. Specially when it comes to food!!!.
    Even in the bible talks about a plant base diet. The test of the food if you care to look is on the book of Daniel.

    Reply

    2. Actually sugar and refined carbohydrates cause inflammation. Low carb and paleo diets are anti-inflammation.

      Fiber may irritate the lining of the colon and bowels. We’re not cows or horses after all and cannot digest it.

      To say that people are sick from eating meat when they’re eating a standard American diet that is high in both sugar and refined carbs is naive. People in the bible ate copious meat. I suggest you not cherry pick verses.

      Reply

  200. Denise,
    You are 23 years old.
    Who wrote this material for you?
    Your extracts from The China Study (book), which is just a meta analysis, is not working with all the data. Your critique is therefore a distortion.

    Note I don’t know Campbell, nor do I particularly care about whether he is right or wrong – I have been doing research independently in this field for 35 years myself and have no answers or any axe to grind.

    However, he is a person who has worked his life to help people be healthy.

    As a professional researcher however, I believe certain protocols must be followed or the field of nutrition on the web will become like a Rush Limbaugh hour – full of ugly insinuations with very bad fact finding.

    I am surprised that if you are truly interested in fact finding, you would attack like this. Campbell is neither a crank nor crazy. He is a 72 year old scientist who has taught at MIT, Cornell and worked for the National Institute of Health.

    Where are your credentials? Just being a web blogger hardly qualifies you to make these conclusions, as nicely as you write.

    I hope you take your conscience into account before you publish material provided by others in the future.

    I am quite sure that your materials are well intended, but they are completely unscientific in their methodology and their conclusions – as with Mr. Limbaugh.

    NES

    Reply

    1. Hi Elizabeth,

      Rational thought requires no credentials. The results speak for themselves. The same goes for reading comprehension ability…

      Also, it is very scientific of you to criticize Denise’s age, claim that somebody else wrote this for her with no evidence at all, and harp on credentials instead of content. You must be a student of Campbell’s.

      It is also very scientific of many of Campbell’s supporters such as yourself that feel that the intended audience of Campbell’s book are unqualified to judge its merits and must simply bow down to his credentials as though he is the only scientist in the world that has every published a book on nutrition, let alone published a scientific paper.

      Reply

    2. Elizabeth,

      What has Campbell offered you in exchange for smearing his critics? Are you one of his grad students? Are you sleeping with him?

      Reply

    3. Your credentials and $.75 will buy you a cup of coffee.

      You don’t critique anything she wrote, you don’t say it’s wrong. You resort to ad hominem attack, equating her to Rush Limbaugh and accusing her of plagiarism.

      You say you’re a researcher? Heh. No surprise there.

      Reply

  201. Denise and everyone else,

    Please just read TCC’s response and it is CLEAR that he is the expert and Denise is 23 with no qualifications! Has Denise ever been in a lab? Has Denise ever conducted a scientific study? I mean, PPPLLLLEEEAAASSEE!!!

    Reply

    1. Hi Julie,

      I see that like Campbell himself, his supporters come well equipped to debate the merits of the issues at hand. It is very important when discussing scientific merit not to use your own brain or a little bit of critical thinking and instead rely on what some random scientist told you (and be sure to mention age and credentials.) You have failed to account for the Weston Price boogeymen though, so your brilliant rebuttal is not a total success.

      Reply

  202. Atkins diet all over again. I started a weight loss regime, I didn’t follow Atkin’s diet but I basically cut way back on starch and thereby went way up on meat. I happened to have a full physical scheduled in month 2 of the diet: Lowest bad cholesterol scores I’ve ever had, highest good.

    I suspect a lot of our health issues are less about meat and more about lack of exercise. I don’t try to eat a lot of meat, but I eat it for taste … and the taste can be exquisitely good. Or to quote whomever really said it:

    “Eating healthy doesn’t make you live longer, it just seems like it.”

    Reply

  203. Thanks for such a detailed analysis. When I was in school my teacher used to say with statistics you can prove anything. In these kind of studies no matter how good your parameters are and how reliable is the data collected you can never eliminate foreign factors. Then there are big profit making companies who have stake in these researches.
    I believe more reliable way of doing analysis is following:
    1. We need to understand our evolution.
    2. We need to understand traditional diet world over. As we live in more secured environment i.e. we don’t have insect byte, we eat clean food, we have good health care etc. But diseases like heart problems, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, autism, infertility etc are growing.
    Following is more elaborate:
    1.Farming is not more than 10000 years old. How much we are adapted to it depends a lot on ancestory. So she cannot ignore this factor while doing her research.
    2. We evolved from chimps 4 million years back. Chimps are not pure veg, they are 90% veg. Our gut got simplified to eat more non-veg.
    3. Why humans have teeth decay and labor pain? This is another important question.
    4. Are we getting all required minerals and vitamins? As we used to get in older times.

    We don’t need these studies to understand what is good for humans. We just need to invest some time thinking and trying to find answers.

    Reply

    1. “When I was in school my teacher used to say with statistics you can prove anything.”

      I don’t think your teacher understood statistics. Statistics is just math. You can’t “prove anything” with math, as this would imply that two people working on the same problem would get different answers. The whole point of math is to have a self-consistent formal system for solving problems.

      The issue here isn’t statistics, but people. People can “prove” anything to themselves, precisely because they don’t use a rigorous reasoning system (and yes, I include myself in that group). That’s why we have mathematical methods for trying to understand the real world. The problem is that scientists don’t properly apply those methods.

      Denise has not demonstrated much evidence for any particular hypothesis here. Instead, she has shown that the data contains remarkably weak support for just about everything that Dr. Campbell has said (or just about any other statement you could draw, apart from “these variables are correlated”). That doesn’t mean Dr. Campbell does not have other evidence to support his views, but sadly he is choosing to not share this evidence with us, and so all we have to go on is the China Study.

      Reply

      1. ‘You can’t “prove anything” with math, as this would imply that two people working on the same problem would get different answers.’
        Oh Really, then how do you prove?
        I said with statistics you can prove anything that also means you can really prove nothing. People keep on giving reference of studies which are based on statistics. I have zero faith in them.

        Reply

    2. Paleolithic people didn’t have tooth decay. They didn’t eat sugar or wheat.

      Saturated fat is required for brain development. We are not chimps, obviously. Our meat consumption as hunter gatherers is probably why.

      Reply
  204. Pingback: NaturGym » Blog Archive » What’s evolution got to do with it? (Part 1 — Why is evolution important?)

  205. The China Study conspicuously leaves out grains/gluten as Framingham study does women/sugar and many studies are cited by opposing sides as proving their point because no one understands the data or the implications. Well done Denise!

    Reply

  206. I can’t believe I read not only the entire post but also about 60% of the comments. Clearly I have not much to do with my time on a Monday afternoon 🙂 The post was well worth it, though. I’ve read so much material on both sides (whatever you want to label those sides) and I’ve also been on both sides, too! In the end I usually appeal to the fact that no society or cultural group has ever existed on zero animal products. That there answers any and all questions I might have.
    Great work.

    Reply

  207. 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 further confusion and misleading conclusions.

    Reply

    1. I’m not interested in how this diet is working out for you and your friends over a period of a few months or even a few years. What is of interest is how you’ll fare over a lifetime of eating this way.

      My prediction is you’ll eventually learn “the hard way” that you need some animal foods in your diet to stay healthy.

      Reply

  208. Friends,
    Here’s Dr. Eades reaction to reading the China Study, and all this recent commotion-it’s a doozy!

    http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/cancer/the-china-study-vs-the-china-study/#more-4213

    here’s a little nugget:

    “In fact, in my studied opinion, The China Study is a masterpiece of obfuscation.

    It is obfuscatory in so many ways it could truly qualify as a work of obfuscatory genius. It would be difficult for a mere mortal to pen so much confusion, ambiguity, distortion and misunderstanding in what is basically a book-length argument for a personal opinion masquerading as hard science.”

    Reply

    1. mrfreddy,
      thanks for the link to Dr Eades reaction and a great big thank you to Dr. Eades for his excellent commentary! Yet another massive blow to Dr. Campbells shameful attempt to use his credentials not for the cause of scientific truth, but rather further his or rather PCRM’s idealogical agenda.
      It is one thing to say that a whole foods plant based diet is the helthiest diet around (which it probably is, minus the grains, plus a little or moderate amount of animal protein) and quite another to demonize all animal protein and linking all modern degenerative dieseases to its consumption. What makes it worse was Dr. Campbells attempt to masquerade his desired outcome as credible science.

      Reply
  210. Pingback: The China Study vs the China study | The Blog of Michael R. Eades, M.D.

  211. I am glad you wrote this post. Too many vegetarians and vegans hold up this book as scientific evidence to support their decisions. Campbell’s highlighting of nonexistent correlations in data while omitting actual correlations to propel his war on casein are evidence that this book is pure science fiction. I personally eat plant-based and actually habitually live vegan (except for rare occasions) and love it, but I do not hold up “The China Study” as a reason to live this way.

    Reply

  212. This post and the time you are wasting is what happens when any idiot gets a computer and internet access. enjoy your fat and yuor early debilitative disease. and your picture is ugly too, whats with the caterpillars crawled up and died over your eyes.

    Reply
  213. Pingback: Thursday, July 29th: Fad Diets, Bad Diets « SouthBaltimore CrossFit

  214. It is mind-blowing that so many people out there seem to think Denise’s few week/months of data reduction is equivalent or superior to the rigorous ongoing research done by a scientist of the highest calibre and his research team for several decades. These are the same people that read a ‘health’ book based largely on the opinion of someone claiming to be a researcher and some scattered poorly designed studies that appear to back up their claims. These books are all too often completely lacking in references and statistically valid analyses for the claims that they expouse, unlike the China Study, which backs up every claim with a reference (frequently from a peer-reviewed publication) and displays only statistically relevant data. I think it is important to question what you read, but it is equally important to understand the context of the information you’re reading, specifically how it was gathered, reduced, and interpreted. I’d like to see Denise try to publish her ‘study’ according to the same rigorous standards that academic researchers face today…I doubt anyone encouraging her to do so in this blog is qualified to judge the real implications of Denise’s ‘work’ for the nutrition community.

    Reply

    1. Are you qualified? Do you have a degree? Where’s you back pass? Ticket please? This ain’t about qualification, it’s about validity.

      Is Denise’s critique of Campbell’s work valid?

      Reply

    2. “I’d like to see Denise try to publish her ‘study’ according to the same rigorous standards that academic researchers face today”

      Denise did not write a study. It was a critique of Campbell. Your defense of Campbell is worthless talk when your own words prove your lack of reading and thinking fundamentals.

      You have to separate the scientist from the salesman shopping around his hypothesis. You have to separate his scietific papers from his claims of hearing the right ‘symphony’. You have to separate the science from the science abuse.

      It is science to discuss a study that shows feeding rodents sucrose, aflatoxin, and a complete protein causes a quicker spread of cancer than feeding them sucrose, aflatoxin, and an incomplete protein. It is science abuse though to say this one little study proves that animal protein causes cancer and plant protein does not.

      It is fair game to point out science abuse where ever it occurs. You don’t have to publish your own paper. It is not like Campbell’s book is peer-reviewed anyway.

      Reply

      1. I completely agree with MA. Your data is worthless. You did not conduct a 35-year study and are just a meat loving person who doesn’t want to face the reality of the harmful effects of animal protein and milk products. I completely agree with Dr. Campbell, and all of the information that he discusses has been reiterated in numerous studies and documentaries. Thanks for the terrible critique

        Reply

    3. Dude, it’s not a “study”. It’s a criticism on someone’s blog of a book published for a mass audience.

      What’s with you guys? It’s like you’re all sharing the same template (are you?).

      Reply
  215. Pingback: Stuff You Should Read : The Home of BSP Training & Nutrition

  216. You may not like my comment but it is true. God created Adam/Eve to eat from the Garden of Eden (all plant based diet). They were strickly vegetarians and Adam lived to be 930 yrs old. After the flood, and during the time the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, they petitioned God to allow them to eat meat. God granted their request and pointed out what animals and fowl/birds they could eat and which ones they should stay away from for the sake of their own health. After meat was introduced into the diet the life span drastically reduced. Moses only lived 130 yrs and at the beginning of the 20th century (6000 yrs since Adam), the lifespan of mankind was somewhere in the mid 30’s. So, whether you believe in plant based or animal inclusion in your diet, perhaps we should consider and understand that God’s wisdom is higher than mans. Every element of the human body can be found in dirt not in meat. From a scientists point of view, my conclusion supports Dr Campbell and his research is right on. Denise makes some good points as well, but I can not accept that eating meat or fowl of any kind at any time is conducive to a healthy body. Everything the human body needs for nourishment is in a plant based diet especially a raw organic one and it is the most bioavailable source of nutrients known to promote healthy cell growth. When you take into consideration the body’s pH balance, meat and dairy are high on the acidic side and we know that an acidic body gets sick where as a more alkaline body stays well. Also note that raw plant based food comes with its own digestive enzymes which break down and provide fast nourishment whereas meat does not provide any type of nourishment that the body can use – it pulls enzymes from the body putting more stress on the digestive system. Give me salad and a fruit bowl, please. My 2 cents for what it’s worth.

    Reply

    1. Bobby,

      It is possible that the Earth is only 7000 years old, but this has nothing to do with science. It may be true, but the scientific evidence says otherwise.

      By the same token it may be true that animals are bad for you, but this has nothing to do with science.

      It is disturbing when a scientist comes out and says that this is scientific fact. He should know better. He is abusing science to advance his own agenda. It is fine to have an agenda, but he needs to leave out the science abuse and the ‘hocus pocus’.

      He keeps insisting though that he is using superior science and he keeps making claims such as that it is pure scientific fact that all animal protein causes cancer. What he is doing is not science. It is science abuse.

      Reply

    2. Hey Bobby, how come the Original Sin is the eating of the apple but not the fish, chicken or beef? How come God killed the guy who gave him fruits and vegetables but not the guy who gave him meat? Seems to me God wanted us to keep eating meat and stay away from the fruits and the vegetables.

      By the way, did you see the movie Religulous? It’s quite interesting to learn that the Bible is just a copy of some other religion 1000 years older. In fact, many religions are just copies of each other. Makes me wonder if God wanted to spread his wisdom to as many people as possible or if this religion thing is just pure bullshit.

      Just imagine if it was all just bullshit. We couldn’t truthfully rely on the Bible or any other religious book now could we? We’d really have to figure things out on our own wouldn’t we?

      Just saying. Peace out.

      Reply

    3. Actually in Genesis 9 shortly after the flood God says to Noah, “Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the the green plants, I now give you the everything.” Thats quite a bit before the part in Exodus where the Israelites were wandering the in the desert with nothing but mana to eat and started grumbling about having no meat. Based on your own statements that “God’s wisdom is higher than mans” it seems to me he has given you the animals to eat.

      There is a lot of question about why only after the flood did God tell Noah that he should eat animals as well as plants. The best rational I have heard what that it was easy before the flood to get enough nutrition from plant sources only but the flood so drastically altered the world that it now was necessary to eat some meat. Meat probably was eaten before this command as Abel, Adams son, was keeping flocks before he was murdered. I suppose it could have been for the wool but . .

      I’ve been reading the comments and would like to say as many have said. Campbell need only show us his math and we can stop this debate one way or the other.

      I find all these comments about age and credentials very disappointing.

      Reply

      1. You believe in Noah and his boat? No wonder you’re disappointed with talk of “credentials.”

        Did Noah take the 2,000 plus species of carpenter ants and termites aboard his wooden ark?

        That would be a neat trick.

        Reply

      2. It’s amazing that in this age of reason that there is still belief in this fantasy. The whole garden of eden is a myth.

        Reply

  217. 3 years ago, a friend who had been diagnosed with cancer, described to me a book, The China Study, which had changed his life. After reading it, and changing his diet, his cancer went into remission. His cancer is still in remission. Since then, after reading the China Study, and then other books by Esselstyn, McDougall, Furhman, N. Barnard, Ornish, and others, my husband and I changed our diets. I had suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome and multiple allergies. Today, my digestion works perfectly, and I no longer need medications for allergies.

    A recommendation to those interested in the debate about whether Dr. Campbell’s findings are valid: Try eating a plant-based diet for a couple of weeks, and see how you feel.

    Do your own experiment; it’s easy, and there is lots of great advice on how to get started: Try the web site of Dr. McDougall’s Website http://www.drmcdougall.com/index.html.

    Reply

    1. So, Mel, your argument is “never mind that Campbell completley botched the science, a whole plant food diet works, it cures cancer, it cures IBM, try it, you’ll like it!”

      That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?

      Well, the whole point of doing science properly is to get to the truth. And the truth may we be that a different diet, say, paleo, offers the same results. And there is plenty of evidence on that front, especially for IBM. And therefore you and everyone else listening to TCC may be avoiding meat for no good reason. And doing damage to yourself in the process.

      There are lots of people doing good science in this arena. T. C. Campbell isn’t one of them.

      And btw, I did try the Ornish diet many years ago. Lost lots of weight, but I was miserably hungry ALL of the time. Never again.

      Reply

    2. Gibson, a few years ago, I read Gary Taubes Good Calories Bad Calories and another book by Weston Price called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. It changed my life. I cut out all carbs from my diet and selected only meat, or mostly meat and cheese. I still eat like that today. I lost at least 50lbs in one year and returned to good health even more quickly. But unlike you, I know what I needed to cut out from my diet to return to good health. You, you just cut out all meat, sugar and whatever refined and processed crap you used to eat. No wonder you got sick before and no wonder you returned to fair health when you cut all that out. However, you didn’t need to cut out meat since that’s not what made you sick in the first place. What made you sick is all the refined and easily digestible carbohydrates like white sugar, HFCS, starch and grains of all kinds.

      So what’s the difference between you and me? Well, you cut out everything not knowing what made you sick. I cut out only what made me sick. We both returned to fair or good health but your health will continue to degrade since meat is the only thing that contains an essential nutrient for humans: Vitamin B12. And without this vitamin, we get sick, sometimes irreversibly so. But the worst thing about it is that we can keep going for a long time before we realize that we’re deficient in that vitamin.

      Reply

      1. In all fairness, you don’t need to eat meat to get B12 (you can get it from eggs or dairy, though apparently eggs contain a substance which blocks its absorption), and you don’t need a lot of B12 to avoid a deficiency.

        What B12 does indicate though is that it’s utter nonsense to claim that veganism is the natural diet of our species since we wouldn’t need a vitamin that can only be obtained through animal foods if that were the case.

        Reply

        1. “No foods naturally contain vitamin B12 – neither animal or plant foods. Vitamin B12 is a microbe – a bacteria – it is produced by microorganisms.”

          “All of the Vitamin B12 in the world ultimately comes from bacteria. Neither plants nor animals can synthesize it. But plants can be contaminated with B12 when they come in contact with soil bacteria that produce it. Animal foods are rich in B12 only because animals eat foods that are contaminated with it or because bacteria living in an animal’s intestines make it.” Human animals have the same capabalities.

          An ideal way for us to get B12 is where the animal obtained it: from the soil. Apparently it is supplying enough for the animal if the meat is rich in it. It makes sense it would be sufficient for us then too.
          B12 concerns are the result of overcleaning everything including our food. Everyone who has a their own garden knows that sometimes a little dirt will inevitably be ingested with the food.
          This is not the case for overcleaned produce from the grocery store.

          Just a heads up, refined foods and high protein diets deplete B12.

          Reply

          1. I don’t know where you got your information on B12 but according to this, B12 comes from bacteria that lives inside the animals we eat, not from dirt:

            “Ultimately, animals must obtain vitamin B12 directly or indirectly from bacteria, and these bacteria may inhabit a section of the gut which is posterior to the section where B12 is absorbed. Thus, herbivorous animals must either obtain B12 from bacteria in their rumens, or (if fermenting plant material in the hindgut) by reingestion of cecotrope fæces.”

            So, if you must get your B12 from dirt, it’s only because some animal crapped in the dirt you’re eating. Why not just eat the animal outright and be done with it. Well, it seems we’ve been doing just that for the last couple million years anyway.

            Where did you get your information about B12 anyway?

            Reply

              1. “Most people consume enough B12 through animal products or fortified foods in their diet. On the other hand, animals that do not eat other animal products acquire the nutrient from bacteria in their guts or from bacteria-infected dirt on their plant food. An estimated one-quarter of people older than 60 in this country have trouble absorbing B12. B12 deficiency can lead to nerve damage, anemia, and forgetfulness. ”

                http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-02/hhmi-sce022106.php

                I think the logic that most people forget when they say, “if a diet absent of meat is natural, B12 wouldn’t only be in animal foods,” is that the animals that don’t eat meat, that people eat which is so rich in B12, obtained their vitamin B12 from sources that were not animal. Humans, being animals oursevles, have the same exact capabilities. Therefore to say that meat from an herbivore is high in B12, is to say that B12 is easily obtained through non-animal means. Do you see what I’m saying?

                B12 is found in dirt, feces, in the liver and intestines. Our body store it to use later.

                “So, if you must get your B12 from dirt, it’s only because some animal crapped in the dirt you’re eating.”I’m not sure that this is the only reason dirt is rich in B12. But this is exactly what manure, is which many plants are grown in. Bacteria can be good. I think living in modern times we forget the whole cycle of life and food etc.

                You said, “B12 comes from bacteria that lives inside the animals we eat, not from dirt” because of this quote, “Ultimately, animals must obtain vitamin B12 directly or indirectly from bacteria, and these bacteria may inhabit a section of the gut which is posterior to the section where B12 is absorbed. Thus, herbivorous animals must either obtain B12 from bacteria in their rumens, or (if fermenting plant material in the hindgut) by reingestion of cecotrope fæces.”

                This quote is saying that herbivorous animals obtain the B12 (from outer bacteria sources) and then those bacteria/B12 inhabit and get stored in the gut, where the animal then obtains it to use it by the body. Please read it again.

                Sure, you can eat the animal to obtain the B12, but I think people must be aware that that animal obtained it by non-animal means. If they can, we can to. There are many reasons why people prefer to eat lower on the food chain so it’s not as simple as “just eat the animal and be done with it.”

                “B12 is not present IN foods so much as ON them within the dirt or bacteria. Because animals eat plant forms complete with the dirt, they are able to store B12 in their tissues. Meat eaters are then able to obtain this nutrient in their food, whereas vegans must obtain it in a supplemental form — unless, of course, they adhere to the old saying “everyone must eat a peck of dirt in their lifetime.” Still, it is advisable to take supplements in this case. When plant foods are cleaned, the bacteria and the B12 are removed. Modern farming techniques also deplete the soil of this nutrient unless “organic” methods are used” http://www.innvista.com/health/nutrition/vitamins/b12.htm

                Reply

                1. I recently blogged on the B12 issue here, with refs:

                  http://freetheanimal.com/2010/09/dr-seale-any-b12-present-in-animal-foods-is-only-because-of-bacterial-contamination.html

                  In short, ruminants produce a lot of B12 in the rumen, well ahead of the small intestine where it’s absorbed, hits the portal vein and goes straight to the liver. Ruminant liver is nature’s b12 vitamin, as well as it’s natural muti vitamin. Ruminant liver is, ounce for ounce the most nutritionally dense food on the planet.

                  The error is in conflating the human digestive tract with that of other animals and in particular, ruminants with a very complex stomach, just for the purpose of converting all that plant material into nutrients we can’t, or do very poorly.

                  They eat the plants, we eat them, just as evolution worked out through the logic of natural selection.

                  Reply

              2. You quoted “Ultimately, animals must obtain vitamin B12 directly or indirectly from bacteria, and these bacteria may inhabit a section of the gut which is posterior to the section where B12 is absorbed. Thus, herbivorous animals must either obtain B12 from bacteria in their rumens, or (if fermenting plant material in the hindgut) by reingestion of cecotrope fæces.”

                Please read this again. Wki is stating that animals must obtain their B12 from bacteria (from outside sources or from another animal-direcly or indirecly) then the bacteria/B12 that they ingest inhabits and is stored in the gut and liver to be used when the body needs it.

                “Most people consume enough B12 through animal products or fortified foods in their diet. On the other hand, animals that do not eat other animal products acquire the nutrient from bacteria in their guts or from bacteria-infected dirt on their plant food.”

                http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-02/hhmi-sce022106.php

                I think the logic that most people forget is that if the herbivorous animal was able to obtain enough B12, by not eating meat, to supply it’s meat-for you- with enough B12, then human animals naturally have the same exact capabalities of obtaining B12 through non-animal ways.

                When people state that meat (from a cow or such) is high in B12, they are then affirming, without even realizing it, that B12 can easily be obtained from non-animal sources. Do you see the flaw now in the popular, “B12 is only found in meat, that is why a non-meat diet is not natural?”

                You talk about the animal crapping on the soil and us obtaining B12 that way. Soil is made up of a mixture of poop and other substances which we grow our crops in. Extremely beneficial bacteria. In addition, manure is used to grow many crops, manure is poop. I think the germophobic mentality of today is causing more harm than good.

                B12 is found in the bacteria in dirt, stored in the liver, intestines and present in high amounts in the feces. Probably the reason why many dogs eat poop!

                “B12 is not present IN foods so much as ON them within the dirt or bacteria. Because animals eat plantforms complete with the dirt, they are able to store B12 in their tissues. Meat eaters are then able to obtain this nutrient in their food, whereas vegans must obtain it in a supplemental form — unless, of course, they adhere to the old saying “everyone must eat a peck of dirt in their lifetime.” Still, it is advisable to take supplements in this case. When plant foods are cleaned, the bacteria and the B12 are removed. Modern farming techniques also deplete the soil of this nutrient unless “organic” methods are used.”

                http://www.innvista.com/health/nutrition/vitamins/b12.htm

                It is not as easy as, “Why not just eat the animal outright and be done with it.” Many people believe that eating lower on the food chain is optimal. There are many reasons that someone would choose not to obtain their B12 from animals.

                Reply

                1. Your logic is faulty because it does not take into account that humans who do not eat animal flesh, or some adequate substitute like dairy, will suffer the consequence, and do suffer the consequence.

                  Your logic is faulty because it’s based on the assumption that the quantity and quality of the B12 that exists anywhere else but in the animal flesh humans eat is adequate for humans.

                  If the B12 that exists elsewhere was adequate, then humans would not suffer the consequence of not eating meat or an adequate substitute like dairy.

                  Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story though.

                  PS. Don’t confuse “news” with “truth”. Further, don’t confuse “sales pitch” with “news”. Your two links are “news” and “sales pitch” respectively. None can be characterized as “truth”.

                  Where did you get your information from B12?

                  Reply

                  1. Martin-Did you even read what I wrote? or the quoted bits??? I and they agree that vegans most certainly can suffer from B12 deficiency-the consequences of not eating getting the bacteria through animal products, or other means.

                    But that simpy doesn’t negate the fact that B12 is found in bacteria in the dirt. Most people-vegans included-do not eat vegetables straight from the earth. The food at the grocery store is 100% sterile. It’s triple washed with bleach to kill bacteria, among other invasive procedures. Root vegetables such as carrots, potatoes and beets that could have a glowing chance to supply B12 bacteria, get the same invasive procedures, and then add insult to injury, they are also routinely peeled, therefore even if one picks it straight from the garden, they’re taking away all traces of B12.
                    Ultamitely, once food from the grocery store is finally eaten, all B12 is completely, 100% gone.

                    I posted my sources already. Search and you will find that B12 is from bacteria, this bacteria exists on soil. I think my links are fine. You can always find others yourself that fit your criteria. I’m not looking for vegan pushing sites that give vegans B12 hope with soil. The fact is that B12 is present in baceria rich dirt and noone can dispute that.

                    That’s a good question though-can the B12 from dirt be adequatly absorbed into the body? I’m not sure. I know we need much less the ruminant animals as Richard was talking about. Our requirements are very small and it does get stored in our bodies.
                    Other good questions are is B12 destroyed by cooking? I do know that microwave cooking destroys much of it but what about other forms? Also, does the B12 from conventional meat get aborbed well into our bodies? What about from conventional milk? What makes someone absorb B12 well? I think people with stomach or intenstinal problems have trouble.

                    This is interesting:
                    “A study that came out of Tufts University last year found that as many as 40 percent of healthy men and women have low levels of B-12 — and those levels were deficient even though the people were eating diets tht has amuch as three times the recommended daily intake of this critical vitamin.”

                    This study shows clearly that B12 adequacy is more than just shoving the appropriate B12-rich things into your mouth. There is more that meets the eye.

                    lastly, did someone say that eggs weren’t a good source for B12?

                    Richard, I’ll definitely read your article. Thank you.

                    Reply

                    1. I read what you wrote. However, I did not read only what you wrote. Relax, you are not the Holder of The Truth. The intarweb is hugelol. In fact, a vegan person wrote something here believeitornot:

                      http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?18297-The-myth-about-B12-dirt-and-stools

                      “I don’t know what’s worst, really, 480 billion bugs or 1 kg stools/soil mixture pr. day…”

                      It’s interesting that a vegan person would be smart in this matter. Yet the same vegan person would imply that you could still get enough adequate B12 from plant matter such as algae.

                      You did post your sources. However, neither source you posted have any value. Because, if you didn’t know already, news and sales pitch is not synonymous with truth. But if you want to believe in it, that’s just fine by me.

                      Eh waitaminute. Are you saying this discussion is just a matter of belief? That would just be sad.

                    2. Martin- please address the study I posted and the questions I asked. That would be great.

                      This isn’t a discussion about belief, but fact.

                      The links I posted were not sites selling products. As for news sites, they can offer legitimate information and studies. According to this site, wikipedia is not an ideal source:
                      http://library.williams.edu/citing/wikipedia.php

                      It is interesting to note that there are many cultures who practice geogphagy (such as iranian vegans, Africans..) to obtain nutrients, including B12.

                      Also pregnant women and children crave dirt and may eat it for the nutrients.

                      Also interesting to note that many farm animals, contained indoors, are fed a diet fortified with B12 to prevent common deficiency. Therefore, one could ask, “why not just take the b12 vitamin, rather then eat the whole animal.”

                      Effect of soil ingestion on B12 in sheep:
                      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16528394?dopt=Citation

                      “strict vegetarians who do not practice thorough hand washing or vegetable cleaning may be untroubled by vitamin B-12 deficiencies.”

                      Click to access cv576.pdf

                      “Pernicious anemia appears to arise not from shortage in the diet, but from impairment of the ability to absorb Vitamin B-12.”[Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 71st Scientific Meeting, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, January 5, 1952, p. 295]

                      this is of interest:
                      B12 is present in water.

                      Click to access 0151.pdf

                      If we’re going with wiki information, here is this interesting tidbit:
                      “The world’s largest group of professional dietitians says the form of vitamin B12 sourced from animal-products is protein-bound and not as easily digested, especially as people age, and therefore recommends B12 supplementation for everyone over the age of 50”

                      “Another bacterial source happens to be that plants and edible fungi (like mushrooms) on farms or in the wild may absorb vitamin B12 from bacteria in soil, but since modern pesticides kill most B12 in the soil (including on organic farms to some degree, as the pesticides spread, via hydrology, from non-organic farms to organic ones), the B12 in these plants is not considered a reliable dietary source,[32] whereas B12 supplements from bacteria grown under controlled conditions are considered reliable amounts of B12. There is a patent for a cultivating vitamin B12 from plants.”

                      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarian_nutrition#Vitamin_B12

                      “This crop [comfrey] has been used as a salad green and potherb because it was considered a good source of protein and a rare plant-derived source of vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 is produced usually by soil bacteria and fungi or in the small intestines of some animals.”
                      http://www.appropedia.org/Comfrey

                      Not about B12, but interesting nonetheless:
                      http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/66838.php

                    3. Wait a minute, are you trying to convince me that humans don’t suffer deficiency when they don’t eat meat or dairy? But I’d have to ignore a bunch of stuff about the subject. That just won’t do.

                      Here’s a link to an actual scientific study which outlines the consequences of eating too little meat:

                      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment

                      The result? Emaciation and neurosis. You tell me how good that is. Oh and that’s an actual clinical trial where they fed humans foodstuff just to see what happens. Whaddyaknow, an actual science experiment. Believeitornot, a single experiment like that can refute a mountain of bullshit like the crap you posted.

                      Don’t believe me? Try the Biosphere 2 project for confirmation of the same evidence. Don’t believe either paper? Well then I guess you’re fucked.

                    4. I think I have some very useful, thought provoking links. You really should take the time to click into them and read them.
                      Vegans most certainly can get B12 deficiency. I’m not sure I said otherwise ?
                      What is odd though is that heavy meat eaters also have the risk of being B-12 deficient. There is more to B12 than meets the eye. Much more. It’s not so cut and dry.

                      Regardless, I am a huge proponent of starting a garden and getting in the habit of eating those slightly dirty veggies, for omnivores and vegetarians alike!

                      Regarding your study. I wouldn’t view it as the “consequences of eating too little meat.” That is a hasty conclusion to come to, in my opinion. You could just as easily come to the conlusion that it was the consequences of not eating enough plant foods. The participants were eating cabbage, bread, and rutubaga (with small amounts of meat and dairy) two times a day and walking 22 miles in a week! The goal was to lose 25% of their weight, if they didn’t lose weight fast enough their portions were cut back evenmoreso. I would view this as not getting adequate calories (especially) in relation to physical activitity. As well as not getting enough nutrients, and variety in the diet. If you starved yourself on a 100% meat diet, you would experience the same health detriments. Think of Christopher Johnson McCandless, as one example.
                      That study proves nothing but the fact that adequate nutrition and calories-in other words FOOD is vital to the human body. This study is not anti-vegetarian or pro-meat. I’m surprised that you would come to the conclusion you did.

                      “Don’t believe me? Try the Biosphere 2 project for confirmation of the same evidence.”
                      What I found for this project was that the parcipiants were severely lacking in oxygen inside the facility (the equivalant to being at an elevation of 13,400 ft) which resulted in some health problems.

                      but as for their diet, this website says this: http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/57/6/B211.abstract
                      “We conclude that healthy nonobese humans on a low-calorie, nutrient-dense diet show physiologic, hematologic, hormonal, and biochemical changes resembling those of rodents and monkeys on such diets. With regard to the health of humans on such a diet, we observed that despite the selective restriction in calories and marked weight loss, all crew members remained in excellent health and sustained a high level of physical and mental activity throughout the entire 2 years.”

                    5. If you are new to nutritional science, you must be made aware of a common fact regarding semi-starvation experiments, every single one of them reports continuous, persistent deep hunger in all participants. Why would the Biosphere 2 project be any different? The answer is that it isn’t any different, they just scantly reported it in the multitude of papers written on it. Deep persistent hunger is one of the defining features of semi-starvation. In other words, if you don’t eat enough, you will suffer deep persistent hunger.

                      Not to be confused with starvation, which is entirely different from semi-starvation. In these studies, hunger is not characteristic. In fact, the opposite is true. Once we stop eating altogether, hunger increases for a short time, then after a few days, hunger just disappears completely.

                      Again, why would the Biosphere 2 project not report such a characteristic aspect? Maybe they took it for granted. Maybe it’s because it was a capital venture and not a scientific experiment.

                      Do you know what we don’t tell you when we tell you that you must eat less to lose weight? We don’t tell you that you will be continuously hungry. That’s what we don’t tell you.

                      But in the end, it doesn’t matter. The effects of eating not enough meat and the effects of eating not enough food are the same. That’s because for humans, meat and food are synonymous. They are one and the same.

                      The “hasty conclusion” I came to is obvious. That’s because it’s true. They did, in fact, eat very little meat, and they did, in fact, suffer emaciation and neurosis. Would you rather conclude that they suffered because they ate mostly plants? That’s fine by me too. Even then, this means we are not suited to eating a plant based diet. Ergo, eating too little meat will cause deficiency.

                      Or maybe they suffered because they didn’t eat enough food? Well, remember what I told you about outright starvation? Hunger disappears in those studies. What makes semi-starvation different? The intake of foodstuff that does not satisfy hunger. Rather, the intake of foodstuff that causes deep persistent hunger. One, not enough meat, and two, too much plant matter. Those are the facts no matter what you conclude from them.

                      Further explanation. In order to understand the above, we must know what hunger is. Hunger is the physiological signal to eat food. But then we must also define food. What is food but that which satisfies and suppresses hunger. Ergo, if that which you eat does not satisfy hunger, then it’s not food.

                      We must further examine what happens with a ketogenic diet. A ketogenic diet will induce the same physiological response as outright starvation which is to say suppressed hunger. We can therefore conclude that whatever is contained in such a diet is food.

                      And about the Biosphere 2 project, why don’t you go directly to their website, you’ll find a whole page full of papers written on it. I’m sure it’s a much better source of information.

                      Now if you’ll excuse me, there are other gurus on the internet who are just as wrong as you were a moment ago.

    3. “Try eating a plant-based diet for a couple of weeks, and see how you feel.”

      I did. I feel better on a diet which includes both plant and animal foods.

      Your anecdotes are completely meaningless unless you tell us how you were eating before you switched to this diet. If you were eating the Standard American Diet (SAD), then it’s entirely possible that switching to a whole-food plant-based diet would be a temporary improvement.

      Have you tried the type of diet suggested by the Weston A. Price Foundation for a few weeks to see how it makes you feel?

      Reply

  218. Personally, I think any reply to Denise Minger’s blind leap to criticize Dr. Campbell’s work is a wasted effort and risks lending undue credence to her baseless claims. However, I do have this to say: How can she even consider that she possesses the credentials, academic or otherwise, to challenge the findings of a scientist with a PhD in biochemistry and several decades of experience in labs and fieldwork in the area of nutrition? I suppose such research facilities as Cornell and Oxford should reconsider their acceptance of his research findings in support of someone who has absolutely no academic credentials in this arena. In addition, does she think all peer reviews of his work should be reconsidered just because she “likes to crunch numbers”? Please! Give the readers some credit for intellect and common sense.

    Archie L. Tucker
    Certified in:
    Biology, anatomy, health, and astronomy

    Reply

    1. Archie,

      You have to separate when Campbell is talking about science (his peer-reviewed papers) and when he is abusing science with his weak hypothesis (his book and articles) that he is spouting as “Truth”.

      As I said in another comment, James D. Watson has a Nobel Prize and headed up the Human Genome Project. He has a buttload of genetics credentials. He also thinks blacks, women, and fat people are not as smart as skinny white males. If you can’t back up hypotheses, then they are not science.

      If you really want to condemn all meat as carcinogenic because one rat study showed that feeding rats sucrose, aflatoxin, and a complete protein causes cancer to spread more quickly than feeding them sucrose, aflatoxin, and an incomplete protein, then what you are doing is not science.

      If you want to believe this because some guy with a PhD says this, then maybe you are the one lacking “intellect and common sense.”

      If you are still caught up on credentials, you might also consider the fact that Campbell’s hypothesis is not well accepted within his the scientific community or even among many of his colleagues. He wrote his book to appeal to the general public because nobody in the scientific community would believe it. There is too much contradictory evidence. (You know, he could use his money to fund a very definitive study instead of pointing at his one rat study.)

      He is abusing science, and he is persuading his followers to abuse science. It is a disgrace for someone who used to be a scientist to be doing this. The same people defending Campbell could be using the very same arguments to defend “Creation Science”. Campbell needs to take a step back and see what he has taught his minions about science by ignoring the process of science and instead insisting on his own “Truth.”

      Reply

    2. What’s up with the idiots on the Campbell camp? There’s so many of them. Why don’t we have as many idiots?

      Oh right. Never mind.

      Reply

    3. Wow, Archie, are you for real? Your reply had not one single substantive idea in it…just more ad hominem and appeal to authority. Why so much of that when discussing Denise’s posts? Nothing you wrote had anything to do with what Denise posted, not any little part of it. Can’t we just stick to what she or Dr. Campbell SAY ABOUT THE DATA as the topic?

      (Also, what does “certified in” mean in relation to those fields? Since you’re bringing it up presumably to speak to your own credentials…)

      Reply

  219. Shorter Archie L. Tucker:

    What is of far less importance than who says it.

    Archie L. Tucker
    Certified in:
    ad hominem

    ~~~

    Personally I love how all the Campbell sycophants are exposing themselves as total regurgitative fools.

    I think many of them might do well to read this.

    http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/072717-2010-07-26-valedictorian-speaks-out-against-schooling-in-graduation-speech.htm

    “I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience,
    especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I
    cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest
    that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system.
    Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed
    this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the
    next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that
    certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human
    being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone
    who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before
    him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave.”

    Reply

  220. There is a lot of responding to spam going on here. Many of the defenders of Campbell are just doing a one off – meaning they are posting the same piece at a number of blogs with no intention of seriously engaging the subject matter. A number of the last few comments here were posted at my blog as well. I don’t even bother approving them anymore.

    Reply

    1. All that spam over more than 700 comments and maybe 1 or 2 Campbellites said anything substantive. It’s the Campbell school of “new science.” Campbellism is the new Creationism.

      Reply

      1. No offense- Creationism is a terrible analogy. If you can explain Baryongenesis, CP asymmetry, and simulate the creation of organic material under primordial conditions then you might have a case against creationism. Otherwise, it’s arrogant to claim that any creationist argument is invalid. From within the scope of studies via the scientific method, we cannot show, scientifically (which is neither absolute nor objective) or hypothetically, that there is no agency responsible for the ordered creation of our visible reality (note that “Creationism” is not limited to the “God making the earth in 7 days” rabble). The ‘origin of existence’ debate is a proxy battle between Theists and Atheists, of which there are very strong and logical arguments on both sides.

        CC and his gang are simply contradictory and wrong by their own words. CC generates income from his misinformation, making it much more appropriate it to compare him to the Sophists of ancient Greece- who literally lectured BS for money.

        Reply

        1. Its called Occam´s razor: It states that among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected. – Wikipedia

          There are certain revolutions in the science, which move the whole paradigm to another level. Theory of evolution is widely (scientifically) accepted. You can show your scepticism, but this scepticism falls on the same level as rejection of Holocaust or presumption.

          The whole logic beneath this 1000 comments discussion is that meat-eaters are desperately trying to argue about scientifically valid and correct research. It is so easy to go vegan. I´m vegan myself for less than one year, and I feel healthier than ever before.

          Reply

          1. Scientifically valid research supporting veganism? Where? Show me the peer-reviewed evidence and show me evidence that it is widely accepted by scientists.

            I don’t see the least bit of desperation from meat-eaters. If and when I am convinced that dietary changes will make me healthier, I will gladly make those changes. I’ve seen nothing remotely convincing yet. And no, other people’s testimonials that they feel better since they stopped eating meat are not convincing. I feel better since I started eating more meat.

            I would be interested in hearing why you find CC to be the “correct” research out of all the conflicting research out there. On what basis did you make that decision?

            Reply

  221. Not to get too far off-topic, but most biblical Creationists see the bible as literal truth. To them it is not a hypothesis, and like Campbellites no amount of evidence in the world will convince them otherwise. I am saying the majority of creationists are only science pretenders (most creationists don’t know what a baryon is and only care if it supports their “Truth”.)

    Creationism is an artifact of separation of church and state in the United States. They are trying to dress-up it with science so that it can be taught in public schools, but it is ultimately just science abuse.

    They don’t mind referencing various scientific studies when it suits them, but if any scientific study does not support the “Truth” then it must be flawed. For most creationists, the truth is that the world is not more than 10000 years old. In Kansas and Texas (at least) they tried to remove all mention of dinosaurs and radioactive dating from textbooks.

    For Campbellites the “Truth” is that animal food is bad and plant food is good. There are numerous studies that contradict this, but Campbell’s “Truth” means these all must be flawed.

    The process of science means nothing to these people. Creationists and Campbellites are just pretenders of science. Most of the pro-Campbellite comments here have had nothing to do with science (let alone common sense or reading comprehension), but they have insisted that their science is superior.

    Reply

    1. Seems like a fun way to kill some time until the heavens begin dueling again ;). Late- excuse the… galoompfingness.

      The most esteemed critical thinkers of both creationism and evolutionary theory are a minority that don’t associate themselves with either side. The radical faction that you are referring to is also a minority that just happens to get the most attention. Even this minority, despite being… insincere, has a valid point (I’m just doing this for fun, mind you).

      Science is nothing more than a series of observable consistencies (or rather, things that we say are consistent because we believe to observe them as such… particle-wave duality is the poster-child of this). The incompleteness theorem(s) require that we assume that every conclusion we make is NOT true (partially for the reason stated previously), even if it is applicable. Any law we “discover” is something that we define, and may be overturned in the future. The process of Science can become deceptively doctrinal and appear to be ‘more right’ than some other idea, but that’s the worst kind of science- the kind that leads you to reject possibilities. No possible truth can be proven to be more right than some other possible truth (doesn’t that sound ridiculously tasty?)- so what value is there rationalizing one truth over the other? A truly scientifically minded person knows that they cannot claim anything that they discover with science to be truth- so why would they ever want to believe anything to be true? (Let’s avoid this huge crux of a question for now and focus on the merit of radical creationists.)

      Is it bad science to use science to push some political agenda? Sure (look at global warming- what a mess). But it’s WORSE science to reject the possibility of something being true. If dissenting arguments are not taught, then we are guilty of indoctrination regardless of what IS taught. The creationist agenda (currently) doesn’t want education to teach one idea exclusively– even if they use bad science to show that some alternative idea is plausable, even if they are disingenuous and evil in their recommendation- their ultimate goal is better than a one-sided school system that shoves processed junk down your throat. A school should probably be a place where students can find inspiration to live full, peaceful, healthy, and productive lives- being exposed to many ideas isn’t a bad way to promote the critical thinking skills that result in a full life. Just as catholic schools of the past were unwilling to teach novel ideas, schools of today are falling into the same trap with archaic ones. There is plenty of truth to be found in the creation myths of old- many of which could be true!

      To get supremely off-meta-topic,
      In regards to science, we ultimately cannot escape the fact that we humans have convictions- there are things that we believe that we don’t really understand. If we follow the trail of our convictions back to the source, before we can believe anything to be true, we must first believe that we can believe things to be true. We can believe that we have free will, but then we do not have the free will to disbelieve in our free will– Science is rittled with these types of metaphysical paradoxes that are neither true nor untrue nor can even be approached scientifically. You can, however, use theology and philosophy to construct a way of life that is rich and full of meaning, despite knowing that you know nothing. The ‘crux’ isn’t just a question of science, but of anything a person believes. It’s definitively unnecessary to tie oneself down to ideas that are not important for you to live happily and to function healthfully, so why do people do it? One could say that evolutionary theory is an arbitrary conviction to have- it does very little to promote the explicit enrichment of one’s life (which, in that sense, atheism would be even stupider… but only in that sense).

      If creationists are pushing for a second perspective to be taught in schools, then, from a scientific point of view, that’s fundamentally a good thing (so long as it isn’t implemented by fundamentalists… that could get scary).

      *ahem* The end result of creationist policy would not win them money directly. Their indoctrination of others would not necessarily result in direct financial gain. Campbell’s church is explicitly a money-making machine driven by sophistry. Radical creationists ALSO use sophistry, but they are not sophists in the way that Campbell is.

      Of course- my original contention was only that it would be “better” to call Campbell a sophist than compare him to creationists because most creationists are not radical nor in it for the money nor intentionally misguiding others.

      Reply

      1. Marco – I’m not sure about “radical creationists” being the minority, but for the most part the only creationists I care about are the ones that want to change textbooks to say or imply that the world is only 10000 years old.

        I think there are probably plenty of alternative views that can be discussed in high school, but if it is a science class or a science textbook it needs to remain relatively close to mainstream science. I think discussing historical paradigm shifts would be probably be more instructive to emphasize “being open to other possibilities” than debating evolution. I also think something like QM interpretation would be a better topic than evolution to discuss metaphysics. Monotheism can actually be a rather limited viewpoint at looking at the universe.

        I also don’t know if high school students have enough of a background to debate the science behind evolution. I think it is important in a science class to emphasize that science is open for discussion and debate, but it does not mean that you can turn any science question into high school debate club without understanding some of the science about it. You have to stick to the science and your arguments have to be supported by science. You have to know what science is to do this.

        Reply

      2. (I’m soooo sorry denise!)

        I pwwwomise they are a minority- Most people on the planet are theists and thus also creationists. Only a small portion believe in the literal word and there are even fewer with an inferiority complex strong enough to stand up and say that it is more true than evolution in a political context.

        Making a textbook read as nonsense would be unfortunate- but the simple fact of the matter is that evolutionary theory is NOT science either. By extrapolating on our knowledge of basic “rules”, we can make sense of evolutionary ideas (and some creationist ideas) only up to the point of pseudoscience. Because you can’t actually teach the scientific process of evolution, evolutionary theory more or less belongs in the historical portion of a science class (all science classes also teach history of science). There are plenty of modern well-composed alternatives that deserve exposure.

        You have to know what science is before you can debate it? Sounds an awful lot like CC :P. I was in HS 7 years ago, I remember having debates with fellow students over just about everything that was said in a class- if you design curriculum based upon the premise that kids won’t understand, then you’re robbing them- we must have faith in our future generations! *ahem* So If it’s truly scientific, then there isn’t much room for debate. It follows that any conjecture should be proposed with a dissenting opinion otherwise it will appear to be scientific. Even if all the science that can be used to support either side is not available and understood, they deserve to be presented with two ideas. The teacher doesn’t need to host a debate- s/he just needs to get the information out there in a way that will help keep their minds open to infinite possibilities.

        Reply

      3. Marco – If you are saying that everybody that believes in a higher power is a creationist, then you are using the term a lot more broadly than I am. I could comment more on some of the other points, but I think we have digressed too much already.

        Reply

      4. Theists are almost definitively creationists. Most people use the term much more broadly than you are which is the only reason why I say it’s unfair to equate Creationists with a charlatan. All-in-all it’s a bunch of unnecessary nitpicking… I mean, after all, it’s obvious that you’re making a joke and obvious that you’re talking about the literal biblical creationists- but that doesn’t mean that it is imprudent of me to point out that Creationism has a much much larger context than the bible bashers.

        Reply

      6. Biggest load of nonsense I’ve read in a long time. To many errors to correct each individually. I’ll just give it a “fail”.

        Reply

        1. Wayne, “to” many errors to correct each individually? I think I rest my case with your misspelled criticisms…maybe not the brightest bulb on the tree?

          Reply
  222. Pingback: 5 Good Reads, 8/4/10 « Primal Bodybuilding
  223. Pingback: Final China Study Response (HTML Version) « Raw Food SOS: Troubleshooting on the Raw Food Diet

  224. According to Dr. Campbells book, in rural China a 143 lb. person averages 64 grams of protein, of which about 5 grams comes from animal sources. When you adjust for completeness of protein and digestability, that’s very close to the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization. That means a significant percentage of people are much lower than the minimum requirement and should benefit from additional protein, animal or otherwise.

    Reply

  225. Fantastic response. You elegantly phrased the thoughts twittering through my head as I read The China Study. I had doubts, and now I understand why after seeing your stats. Kudos.

    Reply
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  227. Excellent analysis! Campbell is a vegan and, like many vegans, is motivated by political belief. His China Study is a textbook example of confirmation bias. The fact that a scientist like Campbell would choose to present such flawed data means he is more concerned with propaganda than science. If anyone is actually interested in the science of diet, read “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes. As Denise so painstakingly pointed out, its all about the variables. I have no doubt the variable we should be focusing on is refined carbohydrates, not meat and dairy.

    Reply

  228. Very impressive research and analysis but, at the end of the day, we all only believe what we WANT to believe. For example, one person may read the bible and think it’s the greatest story ever told and also believe that it’s the truth. Another person may read the bible and conclude that it’s really just the greatest story ever told. So, whilst Debra’s work is impressive for the amount of time and effort she’s put in, as a vegan I am, not surprisingly, very firmly sat in Dr Colin Campbell’s camp. I just believe Dr Campbell.

    Also, there have been a few comments on here from “reformed vegans” (including Debra) who are delighted that, in their eyes, Debra has debunked Dr Campbell’s research and they are now revelling in eating an omnivorous diet once again. If that’s what they truly believe then that’s fine. But what I really don’t understand is just what was their motivation for becoming a vegan in the first place? Was it moral over concerns for the animals, or was it personal health concerns, or just concerns for the environment of the planet as a whole, or maybe all of these reasons? Why did they truly feel the need to start eating animals once again and appear to have become almost vitriolic in their attitude towards veganism? Was it really just to “regain” their lost health because a vegan diet made them “ill”? In my opinion, it’s more than likely they’ve shifted their moral concerns for the animals, and for the planet, just so they can eat animals once again for personal pleasure and without any moral guilt because “it’s for the sake of my health”.

    I truly believe that anyone who has “health issues” AFTER commencing a vegan diet, then it’s completely their own fault and have only themselves to blame for eating a totally un-balanced and malnourished diet. A balanced, plant-based diet is TOTALLY nourishing to human health – I should know, having eaten a plant-based diet for over 30 years and I feel terrific.

    Maybe Denise could do some further research and post the statistics highlighting the pro-rata ratio of sick meat-eaters and sick vegans who are currently in-patients of all the hospitals in the world. I’ll wager that the pro-rata percentage of sick meat-eaters far outweighs the sick vegans.

    Reply

    1. “Very impressive research and analysis but, at the end of the day, we all only believe what we WANT to believe. For example, one person may read the bible and think it’s the greatest story ever told and also believe that it’s the truth. Another person may read the bible and conclude that it’s really just the greatest story ever told. So, whilst Debra’s work is impressive for the amount of time and effort she’s put in, as a vegan I am, not surprisingly, very firmly sat in Dr Colin Campbell’s camp. I just believe Dr Campbell.”

      Thanks for that, Neil. I dumped religion about 20 years ago. Dammed if I’ll ever take it up, again. And of course this is always how I’ve viewed the vegan catechism anyway, so thanks for the confirmation.

      Reply

    2. “Also, there have been a few comments on here from “reformed vegans” (including Debra) who are delighted that, in their eyes, Debra has debunked Dr Campbell’s research”

      The point isn’t that she debunked his research, but that it was never “bunked” to begin with. 8,000 statistical data points can be used to “prove” anything that you want. Just leave out the ones that don’t agree with you pre-formed conclusions and you’re golden.

      “I truly believe that anyone who has “health issues” AFTER commencing a vegan diet, then it’s completely their own fault and have only themselves to blame for eating a totally un-balanced and malnourished diet. ”

      I totally agree. A vegan diet is a totally un-balanced and malnourished diet.

      See what I did there? I took a datum (in this case, a quote, but it works with statistics, too) out of context and made it support a completely different conclusion than it means. It’s so easy, a caveman… never mind.

      And that’s what Denise points out. Data was taken out of context and made to support a conclusion.

      Science is making the conclusions fit the data. Bad science is having a conclusion and finding the data that fits. Denise pointed out bad science. Go, Denise! The world needs more Denises.

      Reply

      1. Oops! Sincere apologies DENISE! Debra is my nagging omnivorous wife.

        Tom, yes I do see what you’ve done now. Much too clever for me. Must be all that animal protein that gives you far superior intelligence to plant eaters. Any stats on this too?

        Reply

        1. No worries, Neil — I’ve been called worse things than Debra. 😉

          But what I really don’t understand is just what was their motivation for becoming a vegan in the first place? Was it moral over concerns for the animals, or was it personal health concerns, or just concerns for the environment of the planet as a whole, or maybe all of these reasons?

          Depending on the person answering this question, it could be any of the above or all or none. Some people become enamored with the idea of saving the planet and reducing suffering, and feel veganism is the best way to do that. Others read books like “The China Study” and grow convinced that veganism is the only healthy diet. Others are led to believe they’re spiritually unclean if they consume meat or animal products (especially folks who get deeply into yoga or embrace the Eastern concept of “ahimsa”). And I’m sure there’s the odd duck or two out there who, for whatever reason, just doesn’t like the taste of meat or fish or eggs.

          Was it really just to “regain” their lost health because a vegan diet made them “ill”?

          Often, it really truly honestly is. I pried myself loose from vegan ideology about six or seven years ago, and in the time since then, I can’t tell you how many struggling vegans I’ve talked to who are losing their hair or facing a mouthful of dental decay or getting sick all the time or feeling lethargic or losing physical strength… on and on and on. You don’t hear about these things as much when you’re a vegan yourself, since there’s so much filtering and idealism and censorship of the “dissenters” — but once you step out of the vegan haze and take your fingers out of your ears, you start really hearing what people have gone through, and often it’s pretty scary.

          I have no doubt that some people are feeling just peachy keen as vegans — especially short-term — but this is not a diet humans have ever eaten at any point in our existence, is not a diet we could logically be adapted to, and is not a diet that could justifiably be prescribed as best for everyone.

          In my opinion, it’s more than likely they’ve shifted their moral concerns for the animals, and for the planet, just so they can eat animals once again for personal pleasure and without any moral guilt because “it’s for the sake of my health”.

          Nah. This is probably the case once in a while, but for the vast majority of vegans-turned-omnivores (especially the ones who were very committed to — and vocal about — the vegan mission), returning to a diet with animal foods is incredibly difficult and is not a decision that comes lightly. When I stopped being vegan, I was completely repulsed by the idea of putting anything animal-derived in my mouth — both physically and ethically. But you know what? Biology won. I got healthier. When you’re watching your body disintegrate and find a remedy that contradicts your current ideology, I don’t think there’s any shame in revising that ideology and finding something that allows you to truly be healthy.

          I truly believe that anyone who has “health issues” AFTER commencing a vegan diet, then it’s completely their own fault and have only themselves to blame for eating a totally un-balanced and malnourished diet.

          *Sigh*

          A balanced, plant-based diet is TOTALLY nourishing to human health – I should know, having eaten a plant-based diet for over 30 years and I feel terrific.

          I’m glad you found something that works for you, Neil. Awesome! Keep thrivin’. But please realize that a single person’s experience can’t be extrapolated to the whole population. If one person lives to the age of 106 smoking a pack a day, does that mean everyone can do the same thing without any problems?

          Maybe Denise could do some further research and post the statistics highlighting the pro-rata ratio of sick meat-eaters and sick vegans who are currently in-patients of all the hospitals in the world. I’ll wager that the pro-rata percentage of sick meat-eaters far outweighs the sick vegans.

          Part of the problem with comparing vegan or vegetarian groups against meat-eaters in general is that, almost always, the vegs are also adopting other lifestyle or diet habits like exercise, a reduction of processed foods, etc. Usually when someone cares enough to change their diet, they also care enough to make other positive changes for their health — so it’d be no surprise if vegans came out ahead when compared to folks eating a standard Western diet (the “omnivorous” component being of lesser importance). A more useful experiment would be to take all the junk food vegans out there (ie, those who cut out the meat but keep noshing on vegan potato chips and refined starches and Coke) and see how they fare in comparison to those on SAD. Or better yet, compare whole-food, health-conscious omnivores with the vegans. Then you’d have a more valid study.

          Reply

          1. i have nothing against anybody. just stating an opinion on vegetarianism being a ‘eastern’ thing which is used willy nilly (not u denise) on many occasions. india became predominantly vegetarian after a period of buddism. prior to that indians ate meat.

            Reply

      2. Neil,

        “Must be all that animal protein that gives you far superior intelligence to plant eaters. Any stats on this too?”

        Since you ask…

        “The recent debate over the importance of meat-eating in human evolution has focused closely on the means of acquirement… but rather less on the quantities involved…

        In considering the evolution of human carnivory it may be that a level of 10-20% of nutritional intake may be sufficient to have major evolutionary consequences…

        Meat-eating, it may be argued, represents an expansion of resource breadth beyond that found in non-human primates…

        Homo, with its associated encephalization, may have been the product of the selection for individuals capable of exploiting these energy- and protein-rich resources as the habitats expanded.

        – Foley RA, Lee PC (1991) “Ecology and energetics of encephalization in hominid evolution.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, vol. 334, pp. 223-232.”

        Mammalian bodies are subject to Kleiber’s Law, which observes that the resting metabolic rate (RMR) of an animal scales to about 3/4 of it’s mass. So (to take an example from Wikipedia) a cat with a mass 100 times greater than a mouse will have a RMR about 31.5 times higher (100 ^ .75).

        But a 100 kg. human and a 100 kg. sheep will have roughly the same RMR.

        Now I think that you will grant that, with the rare exception, humans have larger brains than sheep. And that sheep have larger stomachs than people.

        I bring these two points up because the brain and the gut are the two most metabolically greedy organs in the body. And humans have a much larger brain and smaller gut than

        The theory raised by many anthropologists is that the inclusion of energy- and nutrient-dense meat in the diet of early man enabled our ancestors to develop a larger brain (although it may not be _why_ the brain developed).

        There is a very thorough article on this subject at

        http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-4a.shtml#part%204

        That’s from an evolutionary perspective. From a here and now perspective?

        There was a study in England in the late ’90s that showed that a vegan diet can lead to a shrinking of the brain over time. The cause was linked to a deficiency of vitamin B-12, for which there is no reliable vegan source (yeasts are living organisms, and thus not vegan).

        Reply

  229. Don’t worry Denise I’m sure Neil was just projecting his hatred of his “nagging omnivorous wife” onto you. I’m sure he’s thinking “I have to eat all these damn plants and she gets to eat real food!”

    Reply

    1. EduardoCorrochio,

      Are you David Blaine in disguise? Amazing how you can read my mind so ….inaccurately.

      Just for the record – I do not hate my wife and neither do I hate Denise! How on earth you have deduced this from my comments, I will never know.

      Give me those “fake” plant foods anyday.

      Reply

  230. Hi Denise

    Many thanks for taking the time to respond.

    I really had no intention of posting again but in light of your own response I felt obliged to respond, from a vegan perspective, to some of the points that you’ve raised:

    “I pried myself loose from vegan ideology about six or seven years ago, and in the time since then, I can’t tell you how many struggling vegans I’ve talked to who are losing their hair or facing a mouthful of dental decay or getting sick all the time or feeling lethargic or losing physical strength… on and on and on.”

    I’ve been a vegan much longer than you’ve been alive, Denise, and I’d wager that I’ve met FAR more vegans than you have in your lifetime (or ever will do) and I’ve not met ONE, I repeat NOT ONE SOLITARY, vegan who has bemoaned the fact that they adopted a vegan lifestyle and that they became “ill” or “weak” by eating a vegan diet. I’m really not sure what “type” of vegans you hang out with – but I suspect it might be people with underlying eating disorder issues. I understand from your “About Me” bio that you have a wheat allergy (and other food allergies?), which I’m very sorry to hear about, but I think you’ve been circulating too much with people who were “sick” anyway and were just “trying out” a plant-based diet in search of a cure for their eating disorders. I still maintain that a well-balanced, plant-based diet is TOTALLY nourishing to the human body.

    “You don’t hear about these things as much when you’re a vegan yourself, since there’s so much filtering and idealism and censorship of the “dissenters”…”

    I don’t wear a blindfold or ear-muffs Being vegan doesn’t make me blind or deaf either.

    “…but once you step out of the vegan haze and take your fingers out of your ears, you start really hearing what people have gone through, and often it’s pretty scary.”

    I’m absolutely astonished with this statement and it’s just blatant scaremongering! “WHAT PEOPLE HAVE GONE THROUGH, AND OFTEN IT’S PRETTY SCARY “? Incredulous. Just what did you and your “dissenter” friends eat on a vegan diet? I don’t eat any animal products but pretty much eat anything else that I feel is good for me, and I’ve not “gone through anything that’s scary” – other than maybe an increase in ass-gas which can be quite scary for my wife and kids!

    “I have no doubt that some people are feeling just peachy keen as vegans — especially short-term – but this is not a diet humans have ever eaten at any point in our existence, is not a diet we could logically be adapted to, and is not a diet that could justifiably be prescribed as best for everyone.”

    This is a statement of “absolute truth” by you – but I claim it’s an absolute falsehood! Just Google for information on the diet of early man and there’s documented evidence for AND against early man being herbivores and that the human body is primarily designed to eat an herbivore diet (e.g. http://tinyurl.com/2wylt7a and http://tinyurl.com/39pdkma). We’re back to what I stated in my earlier comment that we only really believe what we WANT to believe. We both have differing opinions on this, but you can’t claim this as the absolute truth when we both just weren’t around in Paleolithic times to know the real truth of what early man ate. You may believe this to be true but we really don’t know who is right or who is wrong. And as for your claim that “this is not a diet humans have ever eaten at any point in our existence, is not a diet we could logically be adapted to” – this, again, is a falsehood! I would counter that I believe there are millions of healthy people on this planet who exist on a vegan diet, me included! After 30 years as a vegan, I think I’ve very logically adapted to a plant-based diet! Eating a healthy plant-based diet really isn’t rocket-science, Denise, it’s a very simple lifestyle to adhere to, and it just is not tortuous on the mind as you appear to suggest.

    And all the BS you read about us being “hunter/gatherers when we were caveman” – move on PLEASE! We now live in the 21st century and killing animals for food is really just killing animals for human pleasure. There are alternatives that don’t harm animals, or the planet or humans!

    “..the vast majority of vegans-turned-omnivores (especially the ones who were very committed to — and vocal about — the vegan mission), returning to a diet with animal foods is incredibly difficult and is not a decision that comes lightly.”

    I beg to differ. I have no stats to back this up but I truly believe that anyone who adopts a vegan diet for “ethical” reasons will not revert back to an omnivore diet. If you truly, truly, believe that it’s WRONG to kill over 56 BILLION animals each and every year for human pleasure, then I don’t see any way back whatsoever. If you’ve adopted a vegan diet for “health” reasons, as the “dissenters” will more than likely have done, then I believe they will fall into the above category that you suggest.

    “When you’re watching your body disintegrate and find a remedy that contradicts your current ideology, I don’t think there’s any shame in revising that ideology and finding something that allows you to truly be healthy.”

    Amazement, yet again, when you state that you watched “your body disintegrate”! I’ve already covered this above by questioning just exactly what you were eating that made you so ill – I’ve just repeated the statement because it truly astounds me. With regards to “ideology” – surely it can’t be wrong to kill animals for food one day and then right the next day? That’s not ideology – that’s just being whimsical.

    “I’m glad you found something that works for you, Neil. Awesome! Keep thrivin’. But please realize that a single person’s experience can’t be extrapolated to the whole population. If one person lives to the age of 106 smoking a pack a day, does that mean everyone can do the same thing without any problems?”

    Many thanks for the compliment – but surely I’m not the most unique vegan on the planet! Am I all alone?

    “Part of the problem with comparing vegan or vegetarian groups against meat-eaters in general is that, almost always, the vegs are also adopting other lifestyle or diet habits like exercise, a reduction of processed foods, etc. Usually when someone cares enough to change their diet, they also care enough to make other positive changes for their health — so it’d be no surprise if vegans came out ahead when compared to folks eating a standard Western diet (the “omnivorous” component being of lesser importance).”

    I don’t see this as a problem – this is just part of adopting a healthy vegan lifestyle as opposed to the SAD lifestyle and I rest my case on this point.

    “A more useful experiment would be to take all the junk food vegans out there (ie, those who cut out the meat but keep noshing on vegan potato chips and refined starches and Coke) and see how they fare in comparison to those on SAD. Or better yet, compare whole-food, health-conscious omnivores with the vegans. Then you’d have a more valid study.”

    I don’t agree – throw everyone into the mix! I’m still confident that, even including “unhealthy” vegans, the number of in-patient hospitalized vegans will still be far less than the number of in-patient hospitalized omnivores.

    Reply

    1. Neil, obviously there’s nothing anybody can say to change your mind. I wonder what we call that kind of person. Stubborn? Maybe it’s due to a vitamin B12 deficiency.

      Reply

      1. Martin, why do I need to change my mind and to what? To agree that it’s ok to slaughter 56 billion animals every year? If being compassionate to all creatures on this planet is being stubborn then that’s EXACTLY what I am. BUT, I actually think the reverse is true of omnivores. Maybe all that animal cholesterol is clogging the arteries to your brain and clouding your own thought processes.

        By the way, I got my annual blood test results 2 weeks ago and you may be pleased to know that my blood is absolutely NORMAL and in great health – including B12 and cholesterol!

        Reply

      2. Somehow Neil, I have My doubts as to your NORMALCY considering the sheer number OF words you write IN all caps!!! Whassamater, can’t you write in such a way that you don’t need caps to make a point? See what I did? I put caps only where convention calls for them and still made my point as clear as day. IF your blood TESTS are indeed within normal RANGES, then there is only two possible reasons. You eat meat which provides you with the said vitamin B12, or you supplement with an adequate source of industrially produced form of the same vitamin. Either way, you admit de facto that animal flesh is essential to your health.

        Bitch and moan, Neil. Bitch and moan.

        Reply

      3. Guilty as charged, Martin, I do take a B12 supplement – maybe once a fortnight – but please forgive me if I’m wrong, I don’t really think the multi-billion dollar supplement industry was created just to supply vegans with B12. Do the math – which section of society is taking the most vitamin supplementation.

        Thanks for all the fun, guys.

        Reply

      4. And this is where the entire vegan argument is exposed as the sham it really is. You want to save the planet? Why not start with your own health then? So you take a B12 supplement? Why not just eat the meat and be done with it? Oh you don’t accept yourself as you are? But that’s just tough. Grow up kid. There’s a bunch of “principles” and “ideals” we grow out of as we mature into adult humans and acknowledge the facts of life and I guess veganism is just one of those things, huh.

        Take the blue pill, Neil.

        Reply

        1. Martin, perhaps Neil takes a b12 supplement out of convenience, but it is by no means necessary. There are vegan ways of obtaining b12. I am raw vegan and take no b12 supplements. I eat raw seaweeds and algae which contain a plethora of b12. I get a blood test every six months or so, and they always come back healthy!

          And this is where your entire anti-vegan argument is exposed as the sham it really is.

          Reply

    2. “…other than maybe an increase in ass-gas which can be quite scary for my wife and kids!”

      Since you mention it Neil, an increase in “ass-gas” is a strong indication that there’s something wrong with your diet. I haven’t had any gas at all since I started following the WAPF guidelines 7 or 8 years ago. People have come to accept having gas as normal but it really isn’t.

      Reply

    3. “If you truly, truly, believe that it’s WRONG to kill over 56 BILLION animals each and every year for human pleasure, then I don’t see any way back whatsoever.”

      You sound like a religious fanatic, which, of course, you in a sense are.

      Animals aren’t killed for human pleasure, they’re killed for human consumption. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Mother Nature who put us on top of the food chain.

      What’s your excuse for mudering trillions of plants, Neil? What’s your excuse for disturbing the natural habitats of billions of animals to grow the plants that you eat?

      Reply

      1. Put yourself in a cage with a lion and I guarantee you that you will not be “top of the food chain” lol. Plants continue to grow :S
        I think if I had around 15 meters square of soil/backyard I would have year-round fruit and veg supply. Although that same space would still not provide enough grass for a cow to feed off, providing maybe a weeks worth of meat. In the wild animals have freedom before they are naturally selected by true carnivores like lions etc for food.

        Reply

      2. “What’s your excuse for disturbing the natural habitats of billions of animals to grow the plants that you eat?”

        Do you realize the majority of cropland is devoted to growing food for livestock? Seems like a silly argument for an omnivore.

        Reply

    4. Neil,

      Your lack of knowledge about our Paleolithic ancestors is astounding! Like most vegans, you still cling to that warm and fuzzy belief that we are herbivores or frugivores (for you fruitarians out there). You really need to stick with your ethical argument and stop there!

      Reply

  231. Oh my. I’m still laughing over the utter ignorance displayed in both of those links. I suppose the fangs on a gorilla mean he’s supposed to be a meat eater. Moreover, the chief weapon of humans is its enormous BRAIN, not claws & fangs.

    This all smacks of the creationist and “intelligent design” catechism. Just religion dressed up as science.

    Anyway, this simply isn’t worth much effort. There is no legitimate question that we required the high nutritional density of animal fat and protein (initially scavenged) to evolve a large brain in combination with a small gut; which, means that a 200# ape and a 200# man have the very same metabolic rate (as do all mammals with the same mass). As to man and ape, all major organs use about the same amount of energy with the exception of two: the brain and gut.

    Here’s a primer on the expensive tissue hypothesis and Kleiber’s Law:

    http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-library/are-we-meat-eaters-or-vegetarians-part-ii/

    More here:

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128849908&sc=emaf

    Reply
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  233. holy cow ( 🙂 ) thanks for that intelligent – no – brilliant deconstruction of yet another goal-oriented manipulation of difficult and complicated data – so appreciate really competent critical analysis!

    Reply
  234. Pingback: animal based protein increases mortality?
  235. Pingback: Dr. Mercola's perspective on The China Study
  236. Pingback: Has anyone read the book"The China Study" ? - Maltese Dogs Forum : Spoiled Maltese Forums

  238. I wonder if Campbell’s results from feeding rats casein is from giving them the A1 variant of casein, which results in a peptide named BCM-7 that targets opioid receptors and is highly correlated with heart attacks, cancers, diabetes, strokes, with numerous studies supporting this effect. If he had fed them A2 casein instead, they might have been fine.

    There is a good book on this by Woodford, Devil in the Milk, highly recommended.

    Reply

    1. From what I’ve read, A2 is well tolerated by humans and is the type found in breast milk/ goats milk, which would answer the paradigm about how nature could eff up breast feeding.

      Reply

  239. One of the great things about blogs is someone like Denise can make a complete fool of herself and just delete it. I am sure we will be hearing a lot more from someone so willing to display their ignorance.

    Reply
  241. Pingback: Quora
  242. Pingback: What Does Research Say About Eating Meat? | Acupuncture and Herbs

  243. For anyone who might be interested, I have a new post on The China Study, showing that what Campbell tells us about his animal experiments is highly misleading. The low-protein diets that protected his rats from aflatoxin-induced cancer also dramatically protected against the acute toxicity of aflatoxin, and the high-protein diets actually provided dramatic protection against cancer when fed before or during the aflatoxin dosing. These and other omissions are discussed here:

    The Curious Case of Campbell’s Rats — Does Protein Deficiency Prevent Cancer?

    http://westonaprice.org/blogs/the-curious-case-of-campbells-rats-does-protein-deficiency-prevent-cancer.html

    Enjoy,
    Chris

    Reply
  244. Pingback: Friday, Oct 1st: It’s Science « SouthBaltimore CrossFit

  245. About 60% of breast milk is whey 40% is casein (sometimes less) Approximately 60-80% of all protein in human milk is whey protein.

    Cow’s milk is 80% casein.

    That is quite a leap there.

    Apparently casein is not something we are supposed to get in enormous amounts, the way a calf is. It’s all about balance. As babies we need the proper balance of whey and casein for optimal health. Cow’s milk doesn’t give us this.

    There is a good reason why all species wean off of milk when we are a certain age.

    We don’t need casein after a certain age, especially in HIGH amounts that you will find in cow’s milk.

    Just look at the breast milk vs cow’s milk data, to find out how harmful cow’s milk is to humans.

    “Casein has a molecular structure that is quite similar to that of gluten. Thus, some gluten-free diets are combined with casein-free diets and referred to as a gluten-free, casein-free diet.”

    This is interesting. Meaning if wheat is not health promoting, it’s safe to say that casein probably isn’t either.

    Reply

    1. Btw, my above comment was in response to this:

      “Also, it seems Campbell never mentions an obvious implication of a casein-cancer connection in humans: breast milk, which contains high levels of casein. Should women stop breastfeeding to reduce their children’s exposure to casein? Did nature really muck it up that much? Are children who are weaned later in life at increased risk for cancer, due to a longer exposure time the casein in their mothers’ milk? It does seem strange that casein, a substance universally consumed by young mammals, is so hazardous for health—especially since it’s designed for a time in life when the immune system is still fragile and developing.”

      “high levels” of casein? I’m surprised that you left out the fact that breastmilk is considerably low in casein, comparatively speaking.

      Reply

  246. Thankyou so, so much for all this neisy, you have asked all the questions that I asked myself but didn’t know where to start to look for the answers. I can’t tell you how great what you’ve done is!! Thanks so much again 🙂

    JL

    Reply
  247. Pingback: China Study Problems of Interpretation | Kealthy

  248. Hitler once said “People will swallow lies….provided they are big enough.” Very few things in this crazy, complex world arrange themselves into clear concise patterns which perfectly fit one type of belief / ideal / agenda. When such a ‘perfect’ fit IS presented….it’s not just LIKELY to be a fake, I promise you, it IS a fake. Cambpell’s book is a literary protempkin village.

    Now, to be sure people who consume LESS animal products and MORE fruits, nuts and veggies WILL have certain healrh benifits, but those who completely ELIMINATE all animal products will suffer various drawbacks, such as a weaker immune system.

    I was thrilled to find this article. Supurbly written and oh SO needed!

    Reply

    1. Larry, Denise precisely showed us that consuming less meat and more fruit-nuts-veggies will not give us health benefits.

      Reply

      1. Denise keeps saying that she’s not making any health claims at all, so I don’t think she’d agree with that. She would probably say that the CS data don’t support a correlation between eating less meat, more fruits/veggies and health benefits.

        Reply

        1. Actually, what Denise showed was a lack of correlation between less meat-more plants and health. If there was a health benefit to eating less meat and more plants, it would show up as a correlation. It didn’t. In fact, the opposite is true. Ergo, there is no benefit to eating less meat and more plants.

          We could analyze this further. For example, if we claim that eating no meat is bad but eating less meat is good, it implies that eating lots of meat is bad. This further implies that a correlation would have to be positive at one end, negative in the middle, then positive again at the other end. How does that work exactly? Well, meat would have to have a very special quality whereby without it meat is bad, with a little of it it’s good, and with a lot of it it’s bad again. Which quality would that be exactly? Let’s say it’s B12 because it would fit the lack of it being a bad thing. So, a little meat gives us a little B12 which is good. But is it better than a lot of B12? We’d have to define the toxic dose for B12 wouldn’t we. What about EFAs, that would fit too. None is bad, some is good, but is more truly bad? Well again, we’d have to define the toxic dose for EFAs. And we’d have to define this dose within the context of a normal diet, not of refined B12 or EFAs. In other words, how much meat would it take for it to give us a toxic dose of either B12 or EFAs? I bet nobody here has actually ever eaten so much meat.

          Reply

          1. Hi Martin,

            I didn’t make it past your first paragraph. I think you are reading too much into this than what you should. Also, a lack of correlation can be result of too many or too strong of confounders and might not mean anything.

            Reply

    3. Such baloney Larry Jr. If you have never tried a proper balanced vegetarian diet you know absolutely nothing and your comments are fodder for the morons. Our family has been plant based for quite some time and our immune systems are extremely well. When everyone around us get the flu, a cold, diarrhea blah blah, we get nothing, if we do get something it is for a very short time and we bounce back 1000% faster and better than all those around us. Proof is living it, not believing the lies from agencies that lie to us every minute of every day.

      Reply

  249. Never mind that you didn’t make it past the first paragraph.

    I don’t understand how I could “read too much into this than what I should”. I could read more than, I could read less than, but how could I read “too much than”? I have to wonder at your reading comprehension capacity. Shit (slaps forehead) now I know why you couldn’t make it past the first paragraph. But I digress.

    A lack of correlation means it just isn’t there. Denise did a pretty good job of taking care of all the confounders so your argument there is bogus. You understand the word bogus don’t you? But I digress some more.

    If something makes us sick, then it shows up in epidemiological studies. If something doesn’t make us sick, then it doesn’t show up in epidemiological studies. What epidemiological studies can do is refute an idea. They can’t confirm it. If the idea says something is bad for us, and if the study shows no correlation or a negative correlation, then the idea is refuted. Denise showed us that there was no correlation or a negative correlation. Ergo, the idea that meat is bad is refuted. However, if the study shows a positive correlation, we can’t confirm the idea yet, we have to test the hypothesis in a clinical setting before we can do that. And wouldn’t you know it, there are such studies and do you know what they show? Eating less meat and more plants is bad for us.

    So as you see, neither the China study nor the clinical studies show that meat is bad for us at any time whatever.

    Reply

    1. I agree with Alex and CPM. There are a number of reasons why a true cause-and-effect relationship would not show up as a correlation, and these include insufficient range within the data set or lack of a linear dose-response relationship. Moreover, this particular data set is ecological, which means that the individual data points are the incidence of mortality from a disease or estimated incidence of a disease within geographical regions. There could be correlations among individuals within geographical areas despite the lack of correlation at the geographical level.

      Chris

      Reply

        1. Hi Martin

          The data can point us in the right direction, but does not definitely answer questions.

          You said “If there was a health benefit to eating less meat and more plants, it would show up as a correlation.” This is not necessarily true. The analysis may be lacking. It does not mean the data is useless, but the correct analysis of the data may be elusive. You have to take this in consideration. You can maybe feel pretty confident, but you cannot claim a definitive answer from correlations or lack of correlations.

          You said “Ergo, there is no benefit to eating less meat and more plants.” Correlations or lack of correlation cannot definitely answer this question. They just point us in a direction.

          You said “Denise precisely showed us that consuming less meat and more fruit-nuts-veggies will not give us health benefits.” Correlations or lack of correlation cannot answer this question definitely. It just points us in a direction. I think you are also putting a broader spin on this than what the correlations she utilized would entail.

          The data is a useful tool, but it is just a tool; you have to understand how to use it appropriately.

          Reply

          1. Hi Martin,

            I also wanted to add that Denise’s motivation was not really to determine if less meat was beneficial or not, she was mainly looking at Campbell’s claims concerning the matter.

            Showing that Campbell’s claims are not supported might be suggestive of the opposite, but maybe he wasn’t using the strongest arguments to begin with.

            Reply

            1. How pretentious of you to imply that I need Denise’s posts explained. You who said you didn’t make it past the first paragraph. Sigh, alright the next time I need something explained to me, I’ll call you. But you gotta promise me you’ll get past the first paragraph kthksby.

              Reply
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  252. Pingback: Heart Disease and the China Study, Post #1.5 « Raw Food SOS: Troubleshooting on the Raw Food Diet

    1. Since it’s a PCRM site, I’d first take anything you read there with a VERY big grain of salt

      I only glanced at one of the references so far, for this:

      In the United States, researchers studied Seventh-day Adventists, a religious group that is remarkable because, although nearly all members avoid tobacco and alcohol and follow generally healthful lifestyles, about half of the Adventist population is vegetarian, while the other half consumes modest amounts of meat. This fact allowed scientists to separate the effects of eating meat from other factors. Overall, these studies showed significant reductions in cancer risk among those who avoided meat.4

      This references a paper by Neal Barnard, a PCRM physician himself, titled “The medical costs attributable to meat consumption.” The abstract says nothing about Adventists, so I’m guessing somewhere in the full text Barnard summarizes the Adventist studies, and the PCRM is referring to his summary rather than the actual studies themselves.

      I’ll try looking at the other references at some point; others are welcome to chime in too.

      Reply

      1. Denise,

        What??? You mistrust the information from the fine folks at the Physicians Committee for Revisionist Medicine? 😉

        Reply

  254. Thanks for the great article and lucid thoughts!

    I always pass “research” through my “common sense” test first.

    Weston Price noted that folks who ate traditional diets (that humans had become genetically adapted to over the last 10’s of thousands of years) had perfect teeth, no cavities, no diseases and what he called an expression of optimum human genetic potential. Common sense says that maybe I should eat that way too!

    My family and I eat PROPERLY raised (ie. old world) meat products and are thriving.

    I am all for valid, unbiased science though….too bad that’s as hard to find as raw milk these days.

    Reply

  255. wasnt Weston A. Price a dentist? so if he is not advising on cavities, but rather a very speculative diet, so why would a sane person listen to any of that pablum?

    their website is rife with puzzling if not totally outrageous and laughable claims, and that is the science used to back up this animal protein ideology?

    wow, just wow.

    I guess we should all stop eating tomatoes, start smoking tobacco, and start using leeches again.

    Reply
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  258. I am sorry, but your sins of omission section, is a more fitting header than I first thought. Why doesn’t he mention the astronomical correlations wheat flour has with various diseases? What kind of flour are we talking here? Hard? Soft? Graham?

    You completely omit the fact that most wheat flour in these correlation studies is refined. Of course if I take a perfectly good grain and strip it of all of its dignity, it is going to lash back.

    I do not have the time now, but there are many flaws and fallacies in your statistical thinking.

    Reply
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  261. Pingback: Colin Campbell, author of "china study", responds to Minger's critique

  262. Statistical methods are vast and varied. A set of studies of this type can be interpreted in many ways. The professionals that collected the information and arrived at the conclusions contained in the book hail from the highest levels of academia. Their conclusions are peer reviewed (checked by other professionals).

    Ms Minger’s analysis is not only impossible to understand, it has not been peer reviewed. I am not doubting her intention or motivation but her methods were of her own invention. She is a blogger with something to say. She uses a lot of words and picks around the edges of the data but does not attempt to evaluate it as a whole and reach an informed conclusion. She is looking at the data to find what she considers points of contention that she inflates to bring the data’s conclusions into doubt.

    My understanding of her motivation involves her having been a strict raw foodist that felt ill as a result then switched to a meat based diet and felt better. This screed of hers is her way to justify her own personal switch and is an excellent example of justification.

    Reply

    1. Campbell’s book was written for the general public and is not peer reviewed, so it’s ridiculous to criticize Denise’s analysis on the basis that it wasn’t peer reviewed. And, judging from some of the responses from the scientific community,

      http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=385

      http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=6092

      Campbell’s new-age hippy pseudo-science would not likely have passed peer review, hence the need to release it to the general public.

      Reply

      1. For one, I never criticized. Secondly, The China Study was, in fact, peer reviewed by many different doctors, nutritional scholars and educators.

        Reply

        1. You are mistaken. The book Denise is reviewing is not an article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It’s a mainstream book published for the general public.

          Reply

          1. A book of which, each individual study was meticulously peer-reviewed, yes. I’m not here to argue. I never criticized, but merely made an observation. I work directly with a Doctor who reviewed multiple studies in the China Study, so yes, I know for a fact that each study was in fact peer-reviewed.

            Reply

  263. Well I am all for the democratization of information that the Web has provided, the reality is that anyone in the blogosphere can now run “analysis” without having an academic foundation, which is what all modern science is based on. I totally agree with the previous comment. Anyone with an agenda can pick-out specific statistics in a study as large as the China Study to “prove” their point.

    That is why we have a peer review system for evaluating scientific conclusions. One person and a bunch of glowing comments from people with an OBVIOUS AGENDA AND CONFIRMATION BIAS, badly intending to prove that their way is THE way does not make good science.

    Quite frankly, I put a little more trust in Dr. Ornish’s rigorous studies on humans conducted over a period of 20 years at one of the most prestigious medical schools in the country, UCSF, peer reviewed in highly-regarded publications like the Journal of the American Medical Assocation, and now supported by the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid as a legitimate medical intervention for the treatment of heart disease, cancer, etc. which they are willing to reimburse for than I an article written on a personal blog with the title “Rawfoodos” (gee I wonder what her beliefs are about diet).

    I mean come-on its not even close….

    Reply

  265. Whoa! How shocking. Ad hominem and appeal to authority?

    That has to be the very fist time we’ve seen that. I’m so used to having Denise’s detractors take apart her analysis piece by piece…

    🙂

    Reply
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  272. There’s a very simple way to find the truth, for instance, to determine water is wet simply make contact with said element. I know we love the intellectual process, sort of a, “Can you top this!” or, my credentials are vast, my journey long, my observations unique, my experience multi-faceted, etc., etc. Here is a way to move on and forget any hope what you say might sway the world in your corner, and when it comes to what to eat or not eat, drink or do, fast forward to this: If you feel good, really good, look good, really good, that is, have energy, desire for the mate of choice and so forth, no psychological problems, or obsessions over food, be it Vegan, Vegetarian, Omnivore, etc., then, at least for now, you’re on the right track. Of course we don’t drink Coke or Pepsi who once used the line, ‘Drink Pepsi for people who think young, or something like that, but in truth drinking such a concoction is for people who don’t think about the harm of such a drink, and we can’t be too critical since Warren Buffett drank a six pack of Pepsi for years, and Warren has proven to be a bright guy, after all you don’t make billions of dollars using only your intelligence and be classified as a non-thinker because you drink Pepsi, however he did quit drinking the stuff. Meanwhile, if we eat organic, drink toxin free water (fluoride and chlorine and if one goggles the water drunk in Washington DC that might tell us why we have politicians who don’t have ethics or commonsense), drink raw milk from Jersey pastured cows if we thrive on milk, or not if we don’t, have a good relationship with our mate of choice, eat a ton of meat if that works or not if it doesn’t, eat pure Vegan and vegetarian if that works, too, and of course cut out the bad stuff like sugar, HFCS, agave, etc., and wheat is not exactly the stuff our bodies are designed to consume, but try telling that to pasta lovers. We can’t change the world, only our world and if you’re healthy, happy (and the two usually go hand in hand), and drink beer or wine, or carrot cake, or a quarter pound of butter in a day (raw butter from Jersey pastured cows), or whatever works, go for it. None of us are stupid, we all want more or less the same thing but the answer is not this way or that way, but certainly not the way someone with an agenda wants us to go, like Big Pharma, industrial farm products, toxic municipal water, the crap processed food manufacturers put out (Is there one, just one, really healthy food product they produce) the FDA, or USDA food pyramid, which is surely ridiculous, or the health food huckster claiming shark calcium supplements will solve all your arthritis and osteoporosis problems. We need sun, pure water, organic food, fun, a tribe that we resonate with and few of us have that, but maybe in our disagreement we are also passionate about the same thing only with different selections, our individual health and longevity, for its hell to think of dying, but dying is easy when we’re tired of living, but we are far from that point or we wouldn’t be writing with such passion on basically the same subject, living well, what really works and what doesn’t. Again, what works is, “If you feel good and look good, you’re on the right track.” If not, you’re a searcher and probably tried vegetarian, meat, fasting, exercise, high protein, and so forth. Read Weston A. Price’s book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration or Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions, or, Natasha Campbell McBride’s, Gut and Psychology Syndrome, that is, for meat eaters mainly, and for vegetarian and Vegans I don’t have any suggestion, you’re on your own and since Chimps and Bonobos are our closest animal connection and both are Omnivores with even more capacity to handle vegetable foods than humans, maybe, just maybe our first priority should be, “What are humans designed to eat according to their gut configuration, if configuration is acceptable in this case.” Personally I suffered eating vegetarian, I lost strength, I felt old and afraid and my age was 27 years old. That was my experience, and it happened in less than thirty days, back on meat, back to normal. But that was me, others may do wonderfully on plant foods, but whether meat eaters or plant eaters or a combination of both, the question must be, “What are homo sapiens designed to eat and does it change as we age or when we’re very young,” after all, babies do well nursing if their mother or source of breast milk is healthy, none do well or as well as they can if given a formula. Go to our greatest source of life and information, Mother Nature, there’s no lab on earth to compare. Regarding credentials, the least knowledgeable or biased people I personally contacted on diet was dieticians in hospitals, little wonder people’s health disintegrates so often in such places, the most knowledgeable by far are persons who lost their health and regained in though nutritional and lifestyle changes. And that, girls and boys, is my contribution, have fun, it really matters and eat well according to what you body tells you, not what Dr. Campbell, or anyone else claims, for your body is much, much wiser than any doctor, or ‘expert.’

    Reply

  273. All the other arguments aside, the detractors here seem to forget that “peer reviewed” and published in peer-reviewed journals doesn’t always mean good science. The study linking autism to vaccines is now known to be a complete fraud, but upon it’s initial release was peer-reviewed and published in the Lancet, one of the most respected medical journals in the world. The Lancet has retracted it, proving that they understand their own fallibility.

    Peer review and being published does not necessarily make someone’s science credible. Many things are peer-reviewed and later shown to be incomplete, wrong, fraudulent, unable to be replicated, etc. Not being published or peer reviewed does not make you an ignorant moron, naive, or unable to use a basic stats program or calculator. If the blogger were trying to draw conclusions about wheat and it’s relationship to disease or some such thing, I would agree she was overreaching. But, she didn’t. In fact, she doesn’t draw any conclusions other than 1) the published book by Campbell doesn’t show what he claims it does using the statistics he gives in that work and 2) his given numbers and some of his sources have contradictions that indicate his hypothesis is either faulty or there’s some information left out that the reader should have been given.

    Reply

    1. “The study linking autism to vaccines is now known to be a complete fraud,”

      Not anymore. As of 1-25-11 the tables have turned. The “usual suspects” have been caught with their pants down. Google it. The “mainstream media” will not touch this as usual.

      The BIG Lie – Wakefield Lancet Paper Alleged Fraud – Was Not Possible For Anyone To Commit
      January 25, 2011

      “The accussed” hadn’t been given an opportunity to defend themselves until now.

      “Lancet, one of the most respected medical journals in the world…”…LOL.

      Reply

    2. Shwankie said: ““peer reviewed” and published in peer-reviewed journals doesn’t always mean good science.”>>

      DAR
      Your comment boils down to showing that peer review is a necessary but not sufficient threshold for accepting scientific claims. If Ms. Minger wishes to have her claims taken seriously, she needs to submit them for peer review in order to reach a minimal threshold of credibility. It’s unlikely this will happen since she clearly has no training in the topic she is simply blogging about.

      This happens over and over in countless other fields where non-experts passing along their denialism about acid rain, climate change, smoking/disease, ozone hole etc.,. We get non experts going on about something they don’t know much about, and for the usual agenda driven reasons. And it fools massive numbers of people who latch onto the material because:

      a) it coincides with their own prejudices
      b) they lack the expertise necessary to, on a complex topic, separate deep truths from deep nonsense.

      The link between meat and cancer is extremely well established. I’ve posted excerpts and links to eight rather large and recent studies here:

      http://fayfreethinkers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=24127#p24127

      D.

      Reply

  274. Denise, inasmuch as the book prompted your analysis and response, i am glad the book was published. thank you for your contribution to the discourse. you are brilliant, driven and dedicated. and a numbers nerd. awesome!

    Reply
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  276. Pingback: The China Study vs the China study « jeopardy
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  278. I think Campbell is an old man who uses Orthorexia to cope with his anxiety about aging and certain death. Now he is using poor science to justify his Orthorexia.

    You can see it in his NYT interview where he says he has no evidence that a 100% vegetarian diet is better than say a 95% vegetable diet, he can just feel how much healthier he is when he eats all vegetables and his whole family can feel it too. The man threw scientific inquiry right out the window if you ask me and is relying on his feelings. Sad, really. He’s a charlatan and a huckster, but he believes his own shtick and is getting rich too. Who’s the one with his pocket book on the line here Professor Campbell? Or do you give the book away out of the goodness of your heart?

    Reply

  279. I’m not sure how this is helpful. I suspect the author has conflicting interests that are not being disclosed. Tell us who you work for and what truly motivates you to criticize this research so thoroughly. Do you think humans should eat more meat? Do you think the American Diet is the best diet for human health? Are you interested in helping people be healthier?

    Do you have anything helpful to contribute to this discussion? A month and a half of critical points versus decades of high dollar research. It seems presumptuous to assume this veteran scientist is being sloppy. What are his motives? Selling a book? It is not a very popular book to sell. If it were promoting the consumption of meat, there would be mass marketing from the special interests. A book about not eating the American way does not seem like the best way to make money.

    And then why would he and his family choose to avoid animal protein? What better testimony is there to his confidence in his research?

    There are, of course, many details to a healthy human. It has always been healthier to eat whole foods. It is also less beneficial for big businesses.

    Your motives are hidden. Surely, you can’t dismiss these findings based on your own flimsy observations. When you can tell me what to eat for best health and why, then you should be helpful to all of humanity and publish your information.

    Your message is irresponsible and deconstructive.

    And to people who think the man is making money from this book and should give it away for free, that is impractical. It would take tens of thousands of dollars. No publisher will print a book for free.

    Reply

    1. Seriously, stop with the character attacks. You mention the observations here are flimsy. Can you please explain why? I’m seriously curious. Campbell does seem to be up for an ongoing debate, understandably so given he need find time to do more research. So it would be great if some skeptics of the skeptics stepped in to his aid with more facts. BTW, I’m a vegetarian for ethical reasons. And I don’t think anyone is concluding that being a vegetarian is bad for health. Perhaps it’s the comments from others here that may be angering the blood. And there does seem to be a lot of reports out there beyond Campbell’s work that red blood is associated with some higher cancer rates. But the consensus so far as I can tell has been that the results presented here are serious and not flimsy, so I’d like to understand why you think so.

      Reply

      1. Wow, awful typing on my part. Where’s an edit button when you need it? Corrections:
        -Campbell doesn’t seem to be up…
        -Its no It’s
        -Red MEAT, not red blood…

        Very sorry…

        Reply

    2. Dr. Campbell’s motives seem clear to me, as stated by Dr. Campbell himself in the Amazon weight loss community thread. He believes meat killed his father at an early age, and he has spent his career seeking revenge on meat, whether consciously or subconsciously. Some may agree that was a noble pursuit, but in the end it is not a terribly good foundation for science, although it is a perfectly good foundation for agendas and politics.

      Reply
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  283. This work here could qualify for a scientific manuscript, perhaps a commentary or opinion piece in Nature. I suggest you find a well-accredited researcher (or they find you), to formally write up your corrective stats. I know some of the anti-establishment types may not like this idea, but it would do at least 2 things: 1. You and any co-authors would have to disclose all potential conflicts of interest under legal requirements; and 2. If written in a high impact journal like Nature, Campbell would likely feel more inclined to respond in turn and in a more comprehensive manner. I understand Campbell’s hesistancies since he likely deals w/ many naysayers and has a job to do (see Lord Monckton and his attacks on global warming. Quite successful cherry picking that scientists simply can’t devote a career to debunking informally. Sorry for the analogy I do not mean to compare you or your science to him). Science has carefully constructed avenues for dealing with informative arguments and good points that unfortunately slip through the handful of peers in the initial review process. My only concern is that an all out critique of Campbell’s entire body of work may feel somewhat spiteful and less likely to be published than focusing on particular papers, but we all know what extraordinary claims require and the debate needs to be had. Taking it to his turf I think is a fair thing for him to ask with it’s built in safeguards. I know he hasn’t asked, but as a scientist I hope he would appreciate any publishable constructive debate. This isn’t my field but I hope that if any publishing scientists out there are listening and interested (and Denise is too), that they’ll take the charge from here or else explain why it’s a bad idea.

    Reply

  284. Denise, You rock! This is a thoughtful & intelligent counter to Campbell’s book. At first, I was impressed with all the data in TCS, it seemed so scientific, but for me, some things just didn’t add up. As for humans & cholesterol…breast milk, the 1st food that EVERYONE is designed to eat, is full of cholesterol. Cholesterol is required for proper brain development & our brain is largely comprised of cholesterol, so there is no way that we’re programmed against it! Eating lots of good lean meats (like we were intended to) & whole foods versus eating grain-fed, hormone & antibiotic laced, high-fat meat along with a good dose trans fats & refined sugars & grains are 2 totally different scenarios & aren’t comparable at all. Vegans & vegetarians (I’m a former vegetarian myself) get so much flack for their food choices, no wonder they want a book that gives them some cred. Too bad this book is so flawed. Honestly, I just want Vegans to stop telling me that I, along with everyone else on the planet, should be Vegan! It’s a personal choice, not a mandate.

    Reply

  285. For all those “Oh, you don’t have a degree and Dr. Campbell does, so clearly he he must be right and all about good health with no agenda,” have any of you bothered to check to see how many people with nutrition degrees work at places that develop and produce packaged food like Kraft dinner? Or, who promote HFCS as “the same as sugar,” despite hard science to the contrary? Or who have spent years studying nutrition and found that a paleo, Atkins, or other (non-vegan/vegetarian) diet is more beneficial than a plant- or grain-based one? Their is science out there to support any diet you want, some of it good, some of it total trip. A degree in nutrition (or anything else) does not mean that someone is immune to having an agenda, that they can’t do bad science, that the can’t draw erroneous conclusions. I have no idea why people assume just because someone has letters behind their name that they must be 100% correct and everyone else must be full of crap, including other people with equal credentials.

    The author of the post is NOT SAYING that Dr. Campbell is totally wrong about anything, just that his science doesn’t hold up. You don’t need a degree in nutrition to do basic statistics, or to know that correlation does not equal causation. Both are basic principals. Dr. Campbell’s study provides some interesting starting points for further study, but because it relies on correlation, it is not hard science. As someone else said, using this same kind of “science,” you can “prove” that human urination happens due to clothing. He may be 100% right, but without double-blind data studies that include a managed diet, socio-economic factors, other lifestyle factors, geography, etc. it’s just a place to start, not a fact.

    Reply
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  287. Correlation is not causation, as I’m sure you well know. Cholesterol is a vital part of life, no one would be alive without it. It repairs damage on a cellular level and is responsible for the stability of cell membranes. To say that it’s very important is an understatement of immense proportions. The fact that it’s present in heart disease and other illness, could be because it’s trying to repair cell damage. That’s an oversimplification, but to look at cholesterol is a waste of time. It can mean there’s something wrong (but maybe not if we’re talking familial hypocholesterolemia), but the cholesterol isn’t the cause of it, since cholesterol levels are largely genetic. Back when I was much younger, I used to eat the standard American diet, and I worked at McDonalds at the time, and got free food because of it. I went for a check-up, and the doctor told me I had the lowest cholesterol he’d ever seen. And now I know that’s probably not so good, as higher cholesterol is associated with living longer.

    Also, I’m always skeptical someone who sets out to prove something. I have a feeling that the author of the China Study, being vegetarian, set out to prove that way of life was best, consciously or unconsciously. Good science is the attempt to prove your hypothesis wrong, not the other way around.

    Speaking of Schistosomiasis and colorectal cancer, there are doctors and researchers who believe that infection, of one type or another, is the cause of nearly all cancers. Some think that most cancer may have to do with mycoplasmas, a type of bacteria that have no cell wall, do not respond to anti-biotics and can mimic your own cells to fool your immune system.

    As for milk casein. I’ve found that vegans and vegetarians (and others) 1.) think that nature is something it isn’t and 2.) think that mother nature is an idiot. Evolution selects for things that protect us, if they occur before maturity. Otherwise, there would be no offspring if things we are exposed to before puberty kill us. Why would milk be selected for (something that we are exposed to before puberty) if it is dangerous to our health. Cancer strikes children after all. If casein increased cancer risk, it would be selected against and mothers would not have it in their milk.

    Reply

  288. Well , i would always trust a study done by a qualified doctor over years than a month and half of reading done by some novice. If all these studies were so simple, and if we as individuals had good common sense with respect to diet etc, this world would not have so many obese people with all the lifestyle diseases. My thoughts on the artcile.

    Reply

    1. Well Roms, it depends on who the doctor is and who the “novice” is, doesn’t it? Here is what the doctor writes in his “China Study”:

      “Eating foods that contain any cholesterol above 0 mg is unhealthy.” — T. Colin Campbell, The China Study

      This flies in the face of what other “qualified” health professionals say. Here is one example from among many sources, re: how to boost HDL (good cholesterol) if yours are too low, and it is on the website of the Mayo Clinic:
      http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hdl-cholesterol/CL00030/NSECTIONGROUP=2

      How do you decide whom to believe? I guess that would be a difficult problem for you since in your opinion both would be “qualified” to make recommendations. Me, I choose based on credibility – of which Campbell has little, given his misinterpretation of his own research statistics. And I have a “novice” to thank for exposing this. For me, it’s Mayo and Minger, all the way!

      Reply

  289. Ah…but a doctor qualified in WHAT?? THat’s the question. The China Stu(pi)dy dosent use any sort of avdanced medicinal-science or bio-chemisrty babble to show it’s points….it uses STATISTICTS. Cambpell isnt a statician, so it’s actually Campbell who’s speaking outside his field.

    Reply

  290. I will try to make this simple
    I remember the cigarette industry discrediting anyone who said smoking is bad for you. They always focused on the data that was faulty or found it to be so by their standards. No person in their right mind would say smoking is good for you or say it will not ham you (unless the person smokes). I do not need anyone telling me that fast food is bad for me; I know that it is and I don’t eat it.
    The way I see this whole debate is based on two questions:
    1) Is a whole food plant based diet better for your body?
    2) Or is the typical American diet consisting of greasy hamburgers, french-fries, cheese curls, nachos, processed white breads, doughnuts, beagles with cream cheese, hotdogs (full of who knows what); lots of processed sugar, etc.
    Let me rephrase: If there is smoke coming out of a barrel, no one need tell me not to inhale the smoke because it is bad for me. Just like no one need tell me if a food is healthy and nutritious or that it should not be consumed; I know it innately and so do you just like we know we should inhale noxious fumes. You just know.
    Oh, I do have a lot of letters behind my name, but I had my commonsense long before any added letters.
    T.I.M.

    Reply

    1. Hi Tim,

      You wrote:

      “The way I see this whole debate is based on two questions:
      1) Is a whole food plant based diet better for your body?
      2) Or is the typical American diet consisting of greasy hamburgers, french-fries, cheese curls, nachos, processed white breads, doughnuts, beagles with cream cheese, hotdogs (full of who knows what); lots of processed sugar, etc.”

      These two questions might be driving a lot of the debate, but I think they’re the wrong ones to be asking. We know the typical American diet sucks. We know a whole-foods, plant-based diet generally has better health outcomes than a steady cuisine of McDonalds. What we need to focus on now is whether the whole-foods, plant-based diet is better because of the plant-based part or because of the whole-foods part. Meat and processed foods are often so heavily correlated that it’s very, very hard to distinguish their separate effects.

      Reply

  291. “I will try to make this simple”

    Mr. McMillen [insert lottsa letters]:

    That is easily among the most non-sequitur of comments yet posted among the 400+ or so.

    If you actually read Denise’s work, it has nothing to do with defending the Standard American Diet in any respect whatsoever. Moreover, neither does her work seek to undermine the potential healthfulness of a plant based diet.

    Quite simply, she shows in black and white, using the very same data as Campbell, in the same way, that you can’t honestly draw the conclusions he has drawn from the data. And even worse, Campbell ignored many stronger correlations than protein (such as wheat), arrived at using the same statistical methods for which he implicates meat.

    The reason cigarettes are probably bad (actually, hand rolled cigs had one of the stronger correlations as protective, and much stronger than protein in the CS data) is because they are a neolithic agent, especially with all the chemical additives. In the same way, modern processed foods, concentrated sugar, junk food et al is likely the problem, when it contains meat or not.

    Reply
  292. Pingback: Denise Minger’s Refutation of Campbell’s "China Study" Generates Continued Debate | Mother Nature Obeyed
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  296. It is important to stop up and seal any place in which rats can enter the home. Rats may be able to access your home through the plumbing or duct work. This is where a professional is very useful s they know exactly where and what to look for.

    Reply

  298. Just wanted to post my thanks to Denise for this very interesting critique. Reading through the comments has been extremely frustrating for me as someone who simply wants to find out what I can do to improve my health.

    I read the China Study a few years ago, at the prompting of a good friend and very knowledgeable vegan. After a year of veganism, I began suffering from depression and weight gain until I cut out carbohydrates and reintroduced fatty meats into my diet. My friend is still a vegan in great health, and I am extremely glad for it. My wish is for everyone to enjoy good health – a common goal which ought to unite us in a quest for truth rather than devolve into bitter feuding between factions.

    After all, anyone advocating veganism or the paleo diet are still “radicals” in the world of mainstream western food. Why not focus on what both groups agree on: we have a food system dominated by large, wealthy and politically-connected industries who use public policy and junk science to perpetuate an unhealthy culture of processed foods. Let’s work out the “meat vs. no meat” question later, rather than spend all of our energy accusing each other of being close-minded fanatics, paid off by special interests.

    Like I said, I just want to know what I can do to improve and preserve my health. As for the other arguments RE: veganism (ethical, environmental, political), I am very sympathetic. But even if veganism is the most ethical, environmentally-sustainable, and politically progressive diet/lifestyle, we shouldn’t be afraid to objectively examine its health benefits or drawbacks.

    There are so many lies, distortions, and agendas (both financial and ideological) out there that it really gets frustrating to try to sort to the bottom of this. Uhhhh.

    Reply

    1. >Healthy vegan

      My experience of vegans is that there are two groups of healthy vegans

      1. Those who only recently became vegans.

      2. Closet consumers of animal products. Bill Clinton is now supposedly a vegan but according to one of the restaurants he frequents, last time he was there he had Fillet Mignon.

      Look at the efforts that native peoples make to get meat. The whole economy of the New Guinea is based on pig meat. The bride price is no many pigs. This does not happen because meat is useless nutritionally.

      My own experiences with a very low-meat diet (30grams/week) bear this out also. Eventually I had to give it away.

      Reply

      1. I have good friends who are healthy and have been vegan for decades.

        Also, indeed, people/cultures may kill/trade/eat animals for reasons other than health,

        Reply

  299. I have found the comments a whole sociology and psychology review on their own. In a larger vision, though, the part I find most odd (or concerning) is that apparently,

    a) nobody expects someone who is 23 to have a serious brain — though much of the world and its history has been made by people far younger than that; by that age throughout history most people have already fought wars, had several children, or been working in industry for many years (not to compare to the interesting ‘extention of childhood’ in current culture, ref John Taylor Gatto’s works);

    b) nobody expects self-education to even exist let alone be worth considering, as if it is incomprehensible that a person who is genuinely interested in something, and has the internet, library and bookstores at hand, could apply intelligent inquiry toward it.

    Why anybody should think when statistics are in play that the Ivory Tower of credential means more than a few stats calculators or spreadsheets. So only the priests could read Latin, and only the PhDs can read numbers, if I have that right.

    Campbell made very clear and unequivocal statements. He used a dataset which as pointed out was used “raw” and “univariate” — that is about as straightforward as you can get (and in some respects as useless, as Minger’s adding even a few other factors in makes obvious). He put something in the public with these and he is giving advice that has profound effects on the health/disease state of a huge number of people. There is nothing that should be scrutinized more than something like this. Had he been more clear from the start on some things, this blog post couldn’t have existed. At worst, he’s some of the things some folks think of him; at best, this young woman’s tire-kicking review isn’t a shred of the critique he should already have faced and merely highlights an opportunity for him to clarify and expand on a few things. Instead he comes in here to comment and removes what existing respect I had for him until then.

    It takes a good brain and interest and time to go through basic stats in the similar manner he did–as noted, he was clearly using the raw data–but it is not particle physics, and the repeated attempts to imply that Minger didn’t really write the review herself (because of her gender? youth? lack of official pedigree? I’m not sure which is the factor which is supposed to bring on the idiocy implied) are humorous but kind of sad.

    I love this kind of thing. Kick the tires. It isn’t personal. Anybody with a serious interest in nutrition finds this stuff interesting. Anybody with an interest in the ‘process of science’ finds reviews of existing science and even reviews of books ‘about’ the science, interesting. The mysterious disappearance of the overwhelming number attached to wheat, combined with the insinuation that nobody should dare question Campbell, let alone some young upstart so to speak, sounds a lot like that fairy tale of “the emperor’s new clothes.”

    PJ

    Reply

  300. just a casual reader following a very interesting dialouge over various sites. on conclusion i found a remark on another website to summarise my whole experience – ”humans are the only animals that need experts to tell them what to eat” – going to pack up reading dr google and go back to sensible balanced diet – meat/veg/fruits naturally sourced and stay away from anything that comes in a wrapper 🙂

    Reply
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  303. “When I first started analyzing the original China Study data, I had no intention of writing up an actual critique of Campbell’s much-lauded book. I’m a data junkie. Numbers, along with strawberries and Audrey Hepburn films, make me a very happy girl. I mainly wanted to see for myself how closely Campbell’s claims aligned with the data he drew from—if only to satisfy my own curiosity.”

    This is the first paragraph of your critique, which is invalid. I would say that this is the basis of your critique which makes the entire critique invalid. Campbell did not draw on the data in the China study. That is false, he just used that data to show that his prior studies were in fact valid. The book might be titled The China Study but it is not at all based on the that one study, in fact there is just one of the 18 chapters that goes into detail of the study.

    Why not just prove that the sun rises in the west and there will be many readers who will believe you. I am not one of them.

    Reply

    1. “…This is the first paragraph of your critique, which is invalid. I would say that this is the basis of your critique which makes the entire critique invalid.”

      Falied logic did you.

      Reply
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  306. Of all the wild wacky diets promoted out there you have dedicated enormous effort on being a critic of a book based on an actual scientific study. It is easy to be a critic and find a different conclusion from another. I find your argument partly right but by no means can you write off many of the conclusions in The China Study. Those who read you article carefully will see a cynicism behind your questions rather than a brilliant critique.
    Seems strange you embrace the Price Foundation groupies. If only they knew what you eat.

    Reply

  307. I don’t find the “holding your breath and stomping your feet” of Dr. Berg enlightening. Dr. Berg is not capable of critical thinking. Dr. Berg, Dr. of what?

    Reply

  308. One word: awesome.

    Thank you for this article. I’ve added you to my RSS reader.

    Reply

  309. I just want to say that I’m amazed at the comments here.

    Almost all of you are picking the data that you want to believe. There are so many statements being made that pretty much prove that many of you like Denise’s blog because you agree with it and not because you understand it. BTW I think Denise did some good work, but I also think she did exactly what most of you are lamenting about….she started with a a hypothesis: The Book Was Wrong…and then cherry picked data to show that it was indeed wrong.

    I’m a computational chemist and modeling data is what I do for a living. Denise is very correct about statistics being used to say anything. It’s very hard to draw perfect conclusions on almost any set of biological data simple because biological systems are so complex.

    My advise to the vast majority of you is this: Admit that you don’t understand the book or Denis’s work and then go live a life of moderation. Eat less red meat, eat more green vegetables, eat more fruit, quit smoking, quit drinking or drink in moderation….

    Personally though. I went vegetarian for 30 day’s as a new years resolution to see what I though about this “hippy” diet. At the end of the 30 day’s I decided that i felt and looked much better. I stayed with it. I’m not a vegan..I eat fish on occasion and on a rare occasion I will also eat turkey or chicken….I’m in much better health today that I was 1.5 years ago when I started….

    Really the only way non scientists can make up their own minds is to try a veg*n diet for a while and see how it makes you feel. You are certainly not going to be less healthy if you cut meat out of your diet for a period. However if you drop meat and and don’t eat a balanced vegetarian diet then your health is going to suffer after awhile.

    Balance and Moderation….whether your a vegetarian or not seems to be the best path for most of us…..but hey if you all want to ignore the vast amounts of nutrition data that suggests a lower meat diet is favorable to health then that’s your prerogative.

    Cheers

    Reply

    1. I think your post makes the most sense out of just about everyone’s here! Yes, just “try” the diet! That’s what elite athlete, Brendan Frazier did when he was trying to decipher which diet would help him out most as an elite athlete. In the end, he chose a high-nutrient, whole, plant-based diet. It gives him faster recovery time and allows him to train harder and more often. When at elite athlete switches to a plant-based diet, the results are pretty amazing.

      Studies or no studies, sometimes you just have to go by what “works.” I personally believe in a plant-based diet, however, I do believe that some people need a small portion of animal products, as not everyone converts plant-proteins as well, particularly older people. I will always eat at least some (less than 12 oz. a week) animal products, just in case, but I believe a high-nutrient, plant-based diet is the way to go for sure.

      Reply

    2. @Furr,
      I wonder if you even read Denise’s blog. In her very first paragraph Denise said that she is a data junkie and that she had no intention of writing an actual critique. She is not declaring a hypothesis, she is pointing out the glaring errors of Campbell by his either ignoring of falsifying data.
      And it was Denise who points out that the only person picking the data that supports a hypothesis is Colin Campbell.
      Most of us understand Denise’s work and we congratulate her on her high standards and her search for truth.
      After reading your response I conclude that you are not the person whose advise we should listen to. When you say eat less red meat makes me think you are just parroting what you have been told over the years. And declaring that you are in much better health today than 1.5 years ago says nothing about your current heath.
      What the heck does moderation mean?

      Reply

      1. How many times are you going to repeat-post this ?

        For one, a pizza, dough and all, is not “red meat”. Unless sugar/carbohydrate intake was controlled (and in observational (meta) studies this is never the case) almost every correlation (nothing causal in these studies) can also be shown to exist for sugar intake. It’s just about what you’re trying to prove.

        It does not matter how often you repeat it, there is NO well established robust link between cancer and meat (which cancer? and what the hell is “meat” anyway? fish? chicken? specific proteins? pork? beef? the saturated fat? the cholesterol? what particular ingredient is implied? “meat causes cancer” is just sensationalist booboo).

        Incidentally, there IS the well established robust fact that most all cancer cells require glucose for their metabolism and can not use ketones/fat. That specifically means: not the meat. (also not the vegetables, it would have to be refined carbs and/or wheat products, so vegans are not curing their cancer (assuming this is true) by not eating meat, but by cutting out processed carbs)

        Reply
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  311. Pingback: The China Study | Meddling Kids

  312. It would be very interesting to find out who is sponsoring you to do this type of work?
    I wish you the best in the future b/c I am really sure you are going to have cancer in the next few years.

    Reply
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  319. Ms. Minger, it seems that you really don’t have any agenda to promote, except proving to your own conscious that it’s OK to be back abusing animals, even though you once had already become totally aware of all that is done to them.

    Reply

  320. While I have yet to read The China Study I can’t help but feel is your data crunching and output not also you’re own interpretation of the data?

    I’ve grown up eating meat and consuming dairy, I was unhealthy, always sick with something and generally tired.

    I went vegan a few years ago and the difference has been quite remarkable. I lost two stone in weight (much needed weight loss). I ceased to get regular headaches, I no longer feel fatigued or weighed down by my food. I don’t get sick. My skin is much better. I heal faster. My monthly cycling doesn’t leave me bed bound for over a week, it’s finally regular and of little pain.

    All the data in the world doesn’t replace the fact that consuming dairy is in contradiction to our human design and when you go against nature (see BSE for details) there are always consequences.

    You can data crunch till the cows come home (pun intended), but the fact of the matter is we don’t have the enzyme beyond infancy to consume dairy let alone from another species.

    Again, we need about 1 mg of B12 a day. You overload your body with more protein than your body can process and there are consequences. Too much protein inhibits iron absorption for example. Fatigue being an obvious symptom of that from iron deficiency.

    My brother is always unwell, has had kidney stones more than once, irregular heart beats, is always tired, sleeps randomly and often. He eats little beyond meat and dairy; almost no veg unless I cook for him. He’s had to cut back on dairy because the impact to his health has been so great and he is regularly tested for protein levels and keeps coming up too high. I don’t remember the last time he was well and he’s always taking sick leave. He’s only 34.

    When I’ve been tested I am the picture of health. Yes I need to loose weight, but that’s from my day’s of office work and high dairy consumption, but overall I am the healthiest I’ve ever been and I feel it. You can’t number crunch that.

    The reason people who choose a plant based diet become so passionate about others considering the same path is because you know as a vegan your choice of food is not solely about what you put in your body but the impact you have to the planet. That’s why began vegan is referred to as a lifestyle not simply a diet. It’s about taking responsibility.

    Once the planet has run out of resources and it’s dead in space will we then still berate the passionate vegan who tried to warn us of the damage were doing with our choice of food, to ourselves and the planet? It’s a shame it always has to be too late for humans to see the truth beyond numbers.

    Reply

  321. Seraphimia says “I’ve grown up eating meat and consuming dairy, I was unhealthy, always sick with something and generally tired.” and “I went vegan a few years ago and the difference has been quite remarkable. I lost two stone in weight (much needed weight loss). I ceased to get regular headaches, I no longer feel fatigued or weighed down by my food. I don’t get sick.”

    This is a perfect illustration that no one diet is right for everyone. The people pushing a particular diet plan always start this way: I was sick, and then I switched to such-and-such a diet and healed, therefore, everyone should switch to such-and-such a diet and they will be healthy.

    The reality is that some people need a high-purine, high-fat diet, some people need a low-purine, low-fat diet, and some people are in the middle. The best book in terms of figuring this out for what you need is Rudolph Wiley’s Biobalance2.

    People who say “the Eskimos eat 80% fat and are very healthy, so everyone can eat 80% fat and be healthy” forget that the Eskimos had hundreds of generations of selection for people who did well on a very high fat diet. But when Eskimos eat a high-carbohydrate diet, they have very poor health.

    People who say that “the Okinowans eat a very low fat, primarily plant-based diet and are some of the longest-lived people on the planet” forget that they had hundreds of generations of selection for people who did well on this diet.

    In the US, we have a large genetic mixture, and you can’t recommend a single diet as working for everyone, just because it works for you.

    Reply

  322. I find Seraphimia’s report incomplete. Describing growing up eating meat and dairy would not make a person gain weight on its own. She reported losing 2 stone when she changed diets but this just raise a question of what else was she consuming besides meat and dairy. Also if she was consuming only meat and dairy this opens another question about the quantity of fat to protein in the meat.
    Consuming only lean protein would cause symptoms that she reported.
    Check rabbit starvation.
    I don’t see how a plant based diet is more responsible or how a plant based diet can support human life to a healthful degree.

    Reply
  323. Pingback: How I Invented The Paleo Diet... Sort of. | SuperHero

  324. Super great article Denise! Well done! Its so great you looked so deep into this set of data and re-did the analysis. Its sad that Campbell distorted the facts so much in order to fit his own assumptions and expectations. I am really happy though that you discredited this book and exposed the lies in it. I really think you should send a sample of your material as a book proposal. People have started to wake up and shake off these old fashioned indoctrinations from so called “experts” and this material will be valuable. Congratulations and keep up the good work!

    Reply

  325. Studies such as Oxford-EPIC – at the very least – suggest that a decently-planned vegan diet is healthy. My own experience with a vegan diet has been very positive as well. In the developed world, we are now technologically advanced enough so that we need not treat animals as disposable commodities.

    Commercial dairy and eggs are inherently cruel, especially since we don’t need to consume those products: Female animals are bred to overproduce milk or eggs, and/or in the case of dairy, the milk produced by the mothers is basically stolen from their calves – who, unlike us, need it to thrve. In practice, at hen hatcheries, all the male chicks are killed by being suffocated, gassed, or ground up alive. Dairy cows are forced to be pregnant and lactating their entire abbreviated adult lives and are killed when they don’t produce enough milk to be profitable. Male calves and “excess” female calves at dairy fams are raised as low-grade beef and killed at a year-and-a-half old, or sentenced to horrid veal pens, or are killed right way, as babies.

    These practices are standard at all types of farms, including organic and small farms. Some of the worst cruelty every documented has occured at “family farms” (a rather meaningless term as huge factory farms may be owned by families). At the animal sanctuary where I volunteer, we have taken in hundreds of animals who were abused, neglected, starved, abandoned, etc. at local farms. We have several cows from dairy farms who fell off transport trucks on their way to auction and were found on the side of the road, still wet from birth and their umbilical cords attached. (These animals are sold for so little money that losing some in this manner is apparently part of the business model.)

    Veganism is a way to apply the golden rule to species other humans. It doesn’t erase all problems associated with agriculture and it doesn’t address all food-related issues in the world. But together with other dedicated efforts to lessen our impact on the earth and its creatures, it can help us reduce the amount of suffering and cruelty that we cause in our lives.

    A previous comment said that veganism is an ideology but meat-eating is a baseline activity. But in this day and age, meat-eating is also an ideology; and empathy and respect for sentient living beings are – or should be – baseline compnents of our better natures. Transitioning to a vegan diet as much as possible is a way to put those compassionate qualities into practice. At least give it an earnest try.

    Reply

    1. Excellent comments Gary. Many don’t realize the abuse that animals endure. People can read more about these very real and sad truths at http://www.goveg.com

      Many also don’t realize how livestock is affecting our environment….

      I’d like to add as well that for hundreds of years, most cultures ate very little meat. They simply didn’t have the abundance of animals that we do today (no factory farming and injecting animals with hormones!).

      For those that feel they need a high protein/high fat diet, this can also be obtained through plant foods.

      Reply

  326. Twenty years ago I read John Robbins “Diet for a New America.” It put forward the claim that eating meat, especially quite a bit of it, was associated with increased cancer risk. But there wasn’t a lot of good data backing that up at that point. I hadn’t looked at the issue in quite a while but now see that much work has been done on this issue in the last two decades. The line of evidence is now clear, meat eating is clearly associated with increased cancer. I’ve posted links to eight extensive studies with excerpts here:

    http://fayfreethinkers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=24127#p24127

    Perhaps of interest.

    Reply

  327. Experience is the best teacher.

    Instead of looking at all of these “studies,” why not talk to actual people in the health field and look to their experiences? I spoke with a man last week who’s been in the health field for years and years, and while he believes some need a high fat/high protein diet and others need a low/fat/low protein diet, he nonetheless believes in a mostly vegan diet in which both of these options can be obtained. He acknowledges that too many animal foods lead to disease, and he’s been in the field for a long time…. learn from other’s actual experiences. And I love science, but there’s a lot of helpful health advice out there that science has yet to prove.

    Reply
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  329. too bad that someone is trying to come up with an answer to the problems that face most of the worlds advanced societies ie obesity diabetes etc etc etc

    you can quibble with statistics tamper with the numbers cook the books
    but at the end of the day he is on to something which no amount of hair splitting can argue with ie we eat too much processed meat and food in general. our society is resistant to any critique on it eating habits because we are all brainwashed by the propoganda fed to us by the media and the govt.
    As an adult i would like to make an informed choice. campbells book is part of that information that i can take or leave. The more information out there the better for the health of everyone.

    Reply

  331. it’s cool reading all the comments. the first responses at the top of the page were predominantly avid supporters. then halfway down the page a few campbell-esque comments start to pop up now and then. then moving on another stonghold of accolades and support. and finally nearing the end a gradual increase in the proportion of campbell-lites if you will. also from maybe the middle onward some nice banter between a few repeat posters duking it out in the trenches.

    so it started out all ‘kill! kill! kill! yaaaaay meat!’ and towards the end it turned into ‘my body is my temple hare krishna dude meat is murder’

    Reply

  332. when I was a student in Germany, I love to eat meat, like Duesseldorfer Spanferkel, Argentinian Maredo spareribs, Wuppertaler … and enjoy all good food ! in 1980 when I finish my study as a young doctor, I often have got already backache ! after all, I continue to live my life, which was I thought the healthiest : morning Quacker oat, Bread with cheese, 1 egg and 1 glass of milk, for lunch and dinner one peace of meat, some fruits, Saturday and Sunday fish with potatoes chips. with this lifestyle, I gain weight, I have often itchy skin, migraine attack, runny nose, last but not least, at my 48th birthday, heart trouble ! after minimize cook food, meat product, avoiding milk product, lot of fruit and veggies, antioxidant and other food supplement, I regain my health and can really enjoy my real life, climbed the great wall in china and mountain in Korea…! what the so call health experts are saying, are often contradictory ! it is only a reference, not a rule ! = your health…your choice…! = so make the choice and do the best for your own body !

    Reply

  333. I was recommended to this page by a Facebook friend called Food Renegade. Her reference to it is under the title “China Study Discredited”, which I think is a little harsh — as if the whole study should be relegated to the wastebin, never read or considered. I see you also have commenters here who call him a “liar” — as if it was a black vs white issue. I just finished reading the China Study, and I have to say that as simply a layperson it seems like a very valuable piece of work — not perfect, but Campbell does not claim that it’s perfect. He goes out of his way in the first third of the book to say that he exists (existed) in a scientific community, which would CERTAINLY review his data and criticize it. I believe he would welcome a careful, well researched criticism like this original post.

    Denise, you say early in this post that “So is it higher cholesterol (by way of animal products) that causes these cancers, or is it a misleading association because areas with high cholesterol are riddled with other cancer risk factors? We can’t know for sure, but it does seem odd that Campbell never points out the latter scenario as a possibility.” I don’t think this is true. Again, I just finished reading the book and while it was clear that he was excited (and maybe too excited) by what were to him revolutionary conclusions, he REPEATEDLY said that there could be other factors that were not being tested and so he couldn’t know “for sure” whether those other factors were, or were not, at play.

    That said, I appreciate good critiques and good criticism. I always look for it because there’s always somebody wanting to hawk some kind of magic solution….

    I do remember wondering as I read the book where the problems that have been discovered in soy might fit in, or how yogurt or kefir could be seen as universally bad…. But again, he clearly said that he didn’t know everything, and perhaps it is *we* who take a reductionist view, seeking to reduce his valuable data and work down to a vote for either *all valid* or *all trash*. I propose that we need to start looking at the way our own thinking feeds the systemic monsters we create. The more we seek magic pills, the more others will try to provide them. If we completely reject work like Campbell’s, then what we are saying is that it’s not the magic pill we are still looking for…. But it was never meant to be that, and both the first third of the book, and the last third, say it repeatedly.

    So Denise, thank you for ADDING to our understanding by pointing out the limitations of Campbell’s work. I do not consider it “discredited” as much as I consider it now to be very well critiqued.

    Reply

  334. mayalibre ” — as if the whole study should be relegated to the wastebin, never read or considered.”
    It is not the study that is in question, it is the conclusion that is in question.

    Reply
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    1. It’s really amazing that VegSource.com leaves that embarrassing response by Dr. Campbell on there that fails to address her criticisms and largely focuses on straw men and irrelevant tangents, especially after she already shredded it with an earlier reply.

      Reply
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  339. Campbell & Minger make your points from the parts of the data you emphsize & neglect and then rather than cooperate to determine what’s true from the mass of data argue from your divided viewpoints. What might be done together.

    Reply

  340. These posts and comments are positively hilarious, especially the ones that say credentials, experience and education mean nothing! Oh, really? Remember that when you schedule your next surgery, or have your accountant prepare your taxes, or even get your hair cut or colored, LOL. Because experience and credentials mean nothing, right? Those initials behind a name “mean nada?” LOL. I’ll stick with appreciating experience, education and those silly initials behind a name when searching for opinions, ha. Best of luck to the rest of you.

    Reply

    1. It’s not that they mean nothing. It’s just that they don’t necessarily ensure robust science. Just look at all the credentialed people behind the multi-billion dollar statin drug industry, yet double blind, placebo controlled studies show statin drugs do not decrease all cause mortality for the overwhelmingly vast majority of people who take them. As it happens, Denise has an innate talent for numbers and statistics that far exceeds T. Colin Campbell’s, and because the Campbellites can’t actually refute Denise’s analysis, they resort to arguing credentials.

      The thing is, Campbell justifies his erroneous statistics in the name of holistic woo, so by his own admission, he’s not engaging in legitimate science. In Campbell’s case, his credentials actually don’t mean anything, because despite his education and degrees, he is a flaky, new-age, hippy woo-meister and not a real scientist. But the arguments about credentials persist, so she wrote her latest post to show what other credentialed researchers have to say about the same data set:

      http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/07/31/one-year-later-the-china-study-revisited-and-re-bashed/

      Reply

    2. Are you saying that, thoughout human history, the highest credentialed expert always has been right? Or, are you saying non-experts have never contributed anything to any field, ever?

      Oh, the counterexamples I could give in each instance. While experts usually far outperform non-experts, let’s just say the correction is “imperfect.”

      I will judge Dr. Campbell and Ms. Minger the same way, by their analysis and their analysis only.

      Could you be so kind as to do the same?

      Reply

  341. Will a critic of Denise’s analysis point out where she concludes that a plant based diet is unhealthy or that we should all add meat to our diet?

    There is a difference between saying:
    (i) plant-only diet is superior,
    (ii) meat eating is superior,
    (iii) plant-only and plant+meat are equally healthy, and
    (iv) we don’t have proof that plant-only is superior.

    None of these four items are the same. As I read it, Denises only draws conclusions item (iv). She states no other grand conclusion.

    Reply
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  344. i am new to this debate. Actually I just read about the China Study today (ordered it and due to receive it in two days), and was looking for a critique of the book and I found this.

    I stopped reading after Denis was trying to refute Claim #1. I am amazed but the amount of attention this single critique has raised. I think the author and her advocates need to study some maths. Lesson #1: univariate correlation can prove causality if there is logic behind it – e.g. eating animals correlating positively with cholesterol can be the basis to say that eating animals causes your cholesterol to increase; however, lack of univariate correlation cannot refute causality – e.g. eating animals not correlating unilaterally with cancer cannot be used to refute a causality between the two.

    To make it simple to understand, I will illustrate with a simple model. Say:
    Cholesterol = Animal Protein + Factor X
    Cancer = Cholesterol + Factor Y = Animal Protein + Factor X + Factor Y

    Factor X and Factor Y represent all other factors besides Animal Protein affecting Cholesterol and Cancer. Factor X would include things like physical activity, stress level, etc. Factor Y would include exposure to radiation, consumption of green tea etc..

    This is a linear model, so there should be a perfect correlation between Cancer and Animal Protein. However, if you select random numbers for the three variables (Animal Protein: 0 to 100, Factor X: 0 to 200 and Factor Y:0 to 200) and make your calculations in a quick excel worksheet, you will find that the correlation between Cancer and Animal Protein is much lower than the correlation between Cholesterol and and Animal Protein. Simply because as you add more factors, the impact of a univariate gets diluted. Lack of univariate correlation does not proves (or disproves) much.

    The morale of all this is that the approach adopted in the book is to have a hypothesis (eating animals is bad for your health) and then try to prove it statistically and this seems to be sound and if that’s the worst critique for the book so far than I look forward to reading it 🙂

    Reply

    1. Fady,

      Lack of univariate correlation between animal protein and cancer or heart disease doesn’t disprove the notion that the former causes the others, but it certainly doesn’t support this hypothesis. Moreover, if you read a bit further in Denise’s critique, you’d note that the China Study didn’t show a significant association between total cholesterol and cancer or heart disease either (after adjusting for confounding variables in the case of colorectal and liver cancer). So all you’re left with, from this study at least, is the notion that eating animal protein raises cholesterol levels, a non-controversial assertion, but not what Campell is claiming in his book (and only in his book, rather than his real papers). And even with “logic,” a univariate correlation is never going to “prove” causality.

      Reply

  345. I think somone should also debunk
    Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. and his book
    “Prevent and reverse heart disease”
    He is totally against eating any meat or fish or dairy. He cites how healthy the highlanders of Papua Newguinea are but doesnt mention they like to eat pig and whatever animals they manage to hunt! I have also hear him on a radio interview citing other communities who are NOT vegetarian. He doesnt mention that and the interviewer didn’t take him to task on it.

    Reply
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  347. Pingback: Doctor said not to go Vegan??

  348. All I know is, before I was vegan, I was fat, had issues with high cholesterol, taking Lipitor, was not regular, and felt very lethargic. As soon as I switched, I instantly dropped 15 pounds, stopped taking Lipitor, had more energy that I knew what to do with it, and, I’ll tell you, I am so regular now that you can set your watches to my daily schedule! You have to Kill to Eat Meat Kills!

    Reply

    1. same thing when i took the meat out too. now like clockwork every morning it happens : ) the most noticeable thing for me was, removing the meat immediately and permanently removed even the slightest sense of digestive discomfort which i had grown to accept as natural throughout my whole life.

      although i didn’t notice any major changes in my energy after going (mostly) vegetarian, i did notice my energy levels stabilize and were more….the engine was idling better i’ll put it that way lol

      Reply

  349. @ Paolo
    I stopped eating meat and drinking milk 5 days ago. So far I have had the opposite experience – I have little energy! I have a routine of Jogging every other day – after 10mins jogging it is hard for me to carry on!!

    Reply
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  351. Have any of the Campbell bashers here actually read The China Study? It doesn’t appear so.

    @Paeolo: When you dropped eating meat and milk did what else did you eat? Maybe you weren’t eating well in other areas, maybe not getting enough calories. I’m not a vegan, but 99% of the time I eat a whole foods, plant based diet and exercise regularly and have never felt better in my life!

    Reply

  353. What an interesting article. I have had food sensitivities and allergies all of my life and was vegetarian for about 17 years. Due to this I have always watched what I ate and tried to eat mainly organic foods. I wanted to switch to a strictly raw vegan diet for many years but was hesitant because I had a bad allergy to nuts. Once I realized that soaking nuts does not cause me to have an allergic reaction I decided to try a raw vegan organic diet for an extended period. After about four to six weeks into this diet I developed a growth on my cheek. I thought that maybe this was just part of the detoxification process and it would go away after a few months. After six months the growth became bigger and I developed all kinds of other skin conditions. After going to the doctor I discovered the growth on my face was cancerous and had to have it surgically removed. Two years later I am still struggling with skin issues but they have almost disappeared after eating more meats and raw fermented dairy products and less carbohydrates (especially fruit!). Raw plants are a good compliment to my current diet but I am now very skeptical of strictly plant-based diets.

    I tried to seek information about skin cancer on a raw food diet on various raw food forums in a hope to connect with others who may have had this experience (or at least to inform people who may have that experience in the future). I received some of the most resentful and angriest responses I have ever encountered in a forum. There was definitely little compassion and loads of insecurity, so it is expected that devotees will not react well to this information. I even had my post deleted from a forum run by a well-known cookbook author and raw food “expert”. It’s easy to get lost in the religious-like fervor of being dedicated to spiritual or moral ideals but information like this provides a good opportunity to step-back and reflect. Thank you for posting this.

    Reply

    1. After 6 weeks you think you developed cancer because of your vegan diet? Sorry, but it’s just ridiculous to think that your diet was the origin, as even when receiving high doses of radiation I suppose it would take longer to develop a cancer…

      Reply

  354. So many people seem to expect a “yes” or “no” answer with nutrition. Yet everyone’s body is different, and our genes actually respond to various nutrients differently (ie. for one person, an increase in selenium may “turn off” their prostrate cancer gene, while for another it may do nothing to decrease their risk of prostrate cancer, or even increase it).

    Also, many people don’t realize that many aspects of nutrition is not a hard core science. For example, the USA’s FDA looked at the studies done on the artifical sweetener saccarin and Ok’d it for use in America. Canada looked at the same data and did NOT approve it for use in Candian products. More like a congress than a scientific convention.

    Having majored in nutritional science, I appreciate the science behind both Dr. Campbell’s book and Denise’s criticism of it. I have no doubt the China Study is NOT nutrition gospel, but neither is it worthless. Too many people read the book and take it as hard core truth. It’s important to remember there is data. Then there is interpretation of that data. Two completely different things, which two different people (even two equally respected scientists) may interpret differently.

    To each his or her own!

    Reply

  355. I have a question – all your data junkiness, does it allow for connectivity as far as one part connects and relates to another part ? Such as what you have written in Campbell Claim #1. Do you think that here is a chain reaction to things in life? From what you have written it seems not, which is strange as you can see there is a chain reaction in a nuclear bomb when it is set off.

    Reply

  358. I only read as far as your “debunking” of Claim #1: the positive correlation between the consumption of animal protein and cancer. Of course Campbell had to employ a “third” factor (cholesterol). It is precisely this characteristic, this constituent, of animal protein that increases disease risk. Plants don’t contain cholesterol, and therefore cannot contribute to blood cholesterol levels. That’s first. Second, plants, in and of themselves, don’t help to prevent (or decrease the risk) of cancer, a plant-based diet does. In other words, one cannot counter the effects of meat in the body, simply by increasing the consumption of plants. But what has been shown is that, by eliminating animal products and increasing plant foods, not only is your risk inherently reduced, but if you are genetically predisposed to disease, the presence of plant-based foods in your diet can (and will) suppress the genes. I speak to you from my own nutrition background of 17 years (not nearly the 40 that Campbell has invested). There are several other reputable scientists and doctors touting the same claim, who are not associated with The China Study (Caldwell Essylsten, Joel Furman, McDougall, Neal Barnard, and Dean Ornish, for starters). There is reason for this and that is simply that the evidence is overwhelming and statistically significant. Lastly, in addition to being a plant-based nutrition professional myself, I am also a breast cancer survivor, who was genetically predisposed AND environmentally exposed (TCE in my well water). My cancer was rare and aggressive. My oncologists insisted on mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation, followed by 5 years of tamoxifen. I opted out of all treatment, eliminated dairy from my already-vegetarian diet, and I have been cancer-free since April of 2008.

    Reply

  359. Everyone has a different experience, as I had an aggressive cancer after going on a strict raw vegan diet. The cancer only went away after eating raw yoghurt and more meat (grass-fed or organic) than I usually ate in my adult life. So nothing is absolute no matter how many scientists or nutritionists say it’s so. Only believe your own body. Don’t listen to any of us.

    Reply
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  371. Most people eat like crap, by default. That’s our cultural default. Suddenly switching to an “intentional” eating plan, whether it is low-carb or vegan or almost anything else, after a couple weeks of adjustment, usually makes people feel massively better. That mostly means they quit eating so much crap.

    After that, though, it’s a matter of how whatever they’re finally eating affects them over the long term — and often, now that they aren’t eating so much harmful stuff of other sorts, they have a more clear ‘response’ to what’s left. Some people are actually reactive to arachidonic acid in red meat and peppers for example, they’re going to have issues if they eat it ongoing. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t thrive on a diet of seafood for example, but most people do one spectrum or the other, and don’t experiment a lot.

    Years ago, in 10 days of suddenly eating nothing but meat (when I went low-carb) I cured years of horrible, horrible acid reflux, severe asthma, severe allergies, rashes, brain-fog, exhaustion, acne, and more, it was like a freaking miracle. But while I was crediting it to meat and low carb, it turns out I was extremely intolerant to gluten grains, so the real reason for improvement was getting those out of my diet.

    The meat did help, as I was also chronically malnourished it turns out, but what you’re missing is kind of a separate topic from eating toxic things that hurt you (kind of, not entirely). In the end, extended nearly-zero-carb didn’t help my thyroid any, although others have had no issue with it, I think that’s just one of those ‘existing conditions’ that if you have, has to be taken into account. (Long before that, the massive weight loss LC brought on, actually stopped, despite that my eating hadn’t changed. Google Jeffrey Friedman, molecular biologist head of Rockefeller genetics lab and discoverer of the hormone Leptin, for very interesting comments related to super obese people and weight loss.)

    I think that today’s world has such intense corporate commercial and political pressures related to every food, marketing, agrichem, pharmachem, and more doesn’t help any of us. Getting real info without a dozen distorting factors is pretty difficult. In the end it comes down to the individual. You need to eat, and you need to feel healthy and strong and clear-headed, without constant reactive issues, Genetics (not just by birth set but by what has been triggered in them by life experience) are going to determine some of it I imagine. Make an iconic enemy out of any food group (much as I’d be happy to do that with gluten grains!) is probably not too reasonable. What makes you feel healthy is what matters.

    Bad science that becomes politics and media doesn’t help. Taking a hard look at things “claimed for” studies or data that are at best biased and at worst so wrong it questions ethics, is important, so I’m glad this blog delved into that.

    Reply

    1. What strikes me about this comment as it pertains to strident statistical analysis is the valid power of testimonial over math. I love the strength of stats, but every single one of us receives that information and tries to reconcile it with our own personal experience. We do this mentally and physically. I know what the precepts of a Paleo diet are, but I have also tested them on myself to see what sticks. Some does, some doesn’t. We all test this stuff on ourselves. Every Paleo blogger I’ve seen out there has their own individual anecdote about what worked for them. One of them can apparently eat French bread with no problem. She is extremely bright and I wonder why, after going Paleo or raw or whatever, she would ever think about putting a hunk of French bread in her mouth. Yet, she did. So while I really appreciate the predicitve value of a large statistical anaylsis, some of it falls by the wayside when n=1 and 1 is me.

      Reply

  372. I wish I were a bowl of strawberries or a Hepburn movie…………….. 😉

    I also wish I would have happened upon this critique when I was still being accosted by militant vegans!

    Reply
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  375. Denise, in case you ever wonder if all of your work matters and actually has an impact, I offer my testimonial: I found your site thru some contorted paleo web hopping and was immediately impressed with the content. Your command of the subject matter is thorough, your methods inscrutable, and your unflappable responses are to be admired. I have read your offerings, absorbed the data, projected and personalized the implications, and I want you to know, that because of you and your diligence, I now say “neener, neener!” like, all the time.

    Thank you so much.

    Seriously, neener-neeners aside, nothing is so intimidating as a statistician dispassionately presenting incendiary data. I’m glad I’m on your side.

    Reply
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  379. Just read Mr. Campbell’s reply, and your response. I am incredibly annoyed by the dismissive subtext in his referring to you more than once as a young girl while casting doubt on the quality of your analysis. You responded to “young” in your reply, but so far I’ve seen no response to “girl.” Tynan did it, too. Is a 20-something person (especially one so formidably adept as yourself) really a juvenile? But it’s easier to dismiss a girl than a woman, so Mr. C opted for ad hominem.

    p.s. In your reply to Campbell, you spelled it “pouring.” But you meant “poring.”

    Reply

  380. The reason these unqualified critiques of China Study are so popular on Internet is that people DON’T WANT to believe what that study says, so they jump to believe anything they found against.

    It’s not only about “logic” and “common sense”. Knowledge and experience is needed to interpret correctly the data. Otherwise, with Google only, we could be all medics.

    Reply

  381. Denise,
    What a fabulous work you’ve done with helping debunk bad science and opening people’s eyes to tradition foods and good nutrition. I very much enjoyed your upbeat presentation at the WAPF conference in Dallas TX. Keep up the good work and I look forward to your book.

    Reply

  382. All this energy spent on debunking one book. I can appreciate the dedication it takes to do this analysis, but wow. Why? Do the same analysis on The Adkins Diet, South Beach Diet, et al.

    One thing I’ve learned from research is ANY STUDY CAN BE DEBUNKED, no matter how good the data and how appropriate the statistical analysis. Perfect studies don’t exist in science. Period.

    Seems like we all need to take a step back, recognize our own biases (which are IMPOSSIBLE to remove), and eat what we want.

    I just read The China Study. I liked what I read, and no doubt a diet with less meat and more vegetables is healthier (we know that from YEARS of data). I love steak, chicken, fish, eggs, cheese and all the other foods mentioned in the book as harmful. Will I get rid of all, no. Will I modify my diet a bit without compromising my enjoyment of life, you bet!

    Everything in moderation, folks.

    Reply

  384. Hey all! After a few weeks of hard work, I have finally completed a Youtube video debunking the myth that HIV causes AIDS!

    I know what you are thinking; I’m just a young 21-year old Film Studies major with a passion for health and a knack for number-crunching. But it’s true! Subscribe to my account today!

    Oh, and did I mention, I am blonde with dreamy blue eyes, so that should be a plus for the internet geeks who love to gawk at girls’ avatars. Tip: taking the time to use flattering poses for my avatar pics does wonders for traffic!

    Anyway, back to the issue at hand people. You must remember to question everything! Don’t believe what the doctors tell you. Instead, you should google it. How do you think I get my information?

    Now dig this…my next Youtube post will examine the prediction that doctors will be obsolete by 2020 and universities will be toast by 2025. That’s right! All information on earth will be accessed through Google. I mean Wikipedia & Yahoo Answers will still be around but you’ll have to reach them via Google.

    I’ll end with a quote from a respected academic colleague of mine, Ms. South Carolina; “…let’s help the Iraq!” . That quote may initially appear irrelevant, but a seasoned academic will quickly figure out that I googled it….food for thought.

    Reply

    1. So glad I found you! Finally, my life is complete! (One thing: Would you consider dyeing your hair?)

      Reply
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  389. An ongoing study crossing decades and making connections and correlations based upon observation and life changing realities shown in the glowing health of those who choose a vegan lifestyle. This is more than enough for me.
    Science has proven narrow minded in it’s approach far too often, and as a result nothing conclusive will EVER be found in it’s all hallowed halls.

    Dr..Campbell explained why his research came down to a comparison of the most probable factors and he knew there would be line-up of nay-sayers demanding statistical proof. How could he possibly reveal an all pleasing, all encompassing layman’s version of eye-opening research that would be totally accepted by scientists who are mired in the past and refuse to believe the earth is indeed round!?

    Who are we to understand the complexities of nature by studying the component parts of a piece of fruit under an electron microscope? The simple truth is we will never be able to explain in “scientific” terms how that apple gives us glowing health. Not fully, nor based on anything other than how we feel when we eat living foods.

    Two of Einstein’s quotes come to mind here–“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”

    and “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

    Einstein knew that all the number crunching in the world will never actually prove anything. Energy and glowing health speak for themselves. The statistics of death and the undermined health of our “first world” populace should be our first clue that the SAD diet simply does not work.

    If you Dr.’s and scientists can’t see the irony, mockery, and hippocracy you make of Hippocrates’ messages, the father of modern medicine, which you mangle on a daily basis then why should I listen to you?

    Reply

  390. Nice intelligent well thought out reply. Einstein and Hippocrates–meaningless?
    I wouldn’t expect a person with that calibre of a reply to understand the workings of a toilet let alone much else…

    Reply

    1. You attempt to bolster and add impact to your stupid comment by quoting some famous mathematician and scientist.
      Didn’t work. Try reading Miss Mingers blog before commenting.

      Reply

  391. I’ve read Miss Minger’s comments very thoroughly, as well as Dr. Campbell’s reply to her comments.
    What hasn’t been explained is why you insist on being an ass rather than explaining yourself.
    I’ll break it down for you. I don’t think number crunching alone will satisfy any research information. Comparative analysis has to take into account “observable” information as well. It’s virtually impossible to graph glowing health or changes for the better by simply examining the component parts of any food (like an apple) and saying that it’s better than say, a piece of pork. Dr. Campbell indicated that plant based food works in miraculous ways that can’t be graphed, charted, or analyzed. The above Einstein quotes indicate that Einstein felt pretty much the same way about the scientific method and the miracle of nature.
    The Hippocrates reference is even simpler. He is purported to be the father of medicine. Every doctor takes the Hippocratic oath to “do no harm” yet that’s exactly what they do everyday with their poisons and prescriptions that do not cure the causal factor of disease. Hippocrates also said “let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food” yet nutrition is virtually ignored in the halls of medical schools, even though it is obviously the most probable factor of personal health. So isn’t it hypocritical to call him the father of medicine and then patently ignore his teachings which are spot on and over 2 thousand years old!
    As far as “bolstering” and “adding impact” to my statement by quoting some “mathemetician and scientist” I used their “impact” on history which is self-explanatory, to point out the ridiculousness and futility of going down roads we should avoid, that brilliant minds have already figured out ahead of us.

    Refutation usually follows a format. I say something, you disagree and state your case, we have a discussion. Unfortunately, you only seem capable of insulting without supportable reason.

    Exactly what are you ‘bolstering and adding impact’ to…? ”

    “it didn’t work” For you. You assume that everyone else is as addled as you appear to be.
    It’s just like a joke—it’s never funny when you have to explain it to someone.

    Reply

  392. Dear Dennis, it´s amazing how far most of your readers are of the scientific method and statistical analysis. I will use same of your examples with my students: Here in Bolivia, in our egg producing company, we do research on avian nutrition. Despite very well controlled experiments, with no more than one or two variables, many times, may students tend to extract “conclusions” not supported by the data. I guess it´s a human tendency to seek for confirmation of our creed instead of disproval. I had truly enjoyed your post.

    Reply
  393. Pingback: Going Primal « The Unexpected Story

  394. I’m extremely inspired along with your writing talents as smartly as with the layout on your weblog. Is that this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Either way keep up the nice quality writing, it is uncommon to see a nice weblog like this one these days..

    Reply

  395. Thank you for doing this critique/review – very useful/helpful. I saw the movie last night and was somewhat dissappointed.

    Reply

  397. I will right away seize your rss feed as I can not to find your e-mail subscription link or e-newsletter service. Do you’ve any? Kindly let me understand so that I may subscribe. Thanks.

    Reply

  398. Come on Denise where is your 35 years of evidence???? Where are you pulling all this so called data from? “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

    ~ Albert Einstein, physicist and philosopher
    I am gunna take his word for it!

    Reply

    1. “Where are you pulling all this so called data from?”
      You must have missed the blog, it’s the large amount of writing right after the heading. Give it a try.

      Reply

    2. “The following quotes are completely unverified, information about the sources of any of them would also be useful:

      “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” (this looks like a bad translation from German of the one above, we can find no other source for it…) ”
      http://www.ivu.org/history/northam20a/einstein.html

      Reply
  399. Pingback: Vegan Ireland have challenged Joe Duffy and Matt Cooper to go vegan for two weeks. - Page 39
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  401. Has anyone EVER stopped to think of why cholesterol is only found in animal products? Or that, saturated fat is mainly found in animal products? Because, they are a part of animals, a part of what is needed to function.

    We are animals. Damn, it really doesn’t need to be this complicated.

    BTW- how about some studies where all meat isn’t lumped together? A grass-fed burger not flame broiled is a bit different than excessive grilling of cornfed beef.

    that is all

    Reply

  402. Not at all surprised that your book will be published by someone with known bias toward meat eating. Mr. Sisson has his detractors, too. Your science and statistics may be very interesting to those with the education to understand them. How about putting it all in plain English for those most at risk – under educated Americans? Seeing a bunch of dots on a graph won’t impress those most at risk. I look forward to seeing your ability to relate this to those folks.

    Reply
  403. Pingback: Find Out the secret of the Nuratrim Diet Pill. Made Using Natural Ingredients, discover the Kim Kardashian Diet Today.

  404. The most important take-away is what we each will eat in the majority. We do not have time to guess or go with our personal reactions or biases. To quote: “Can any other diet match the findings of Drs. Esslestyn, Ornish and McDougall, who were interviewed for our book (and now an increasing of other physicians have done with their patients)? No diet or any other medical strategy comes close to the benefits that can be achieved with a whole foods, plant based diet.”
    I have found this myself to be true over the past two years of really eating this way, recapturing my health and appropriate weight. That doesn’t mean I eat the occasional salmon, egg, oyster, even chicken or beef, but these are almost garnish only or occasional. By making the salad the main dish (thanks Dr. Furhman!), dark leafy greens, my personal experience is incredible health, the right weight, etc. Cholesterol down from mid 200s to 157, LDL low and HDL rising every checkup. Compare this to the typical western diet…truly scary what the average person actually eats by following the crowds. Thanks and be well!

    Reply

    1. Rense is one of the least credible websites ever, and the rest is nonsense.
      Believing anything from Rense would require a person to suspend all reason and logic.

      Reply

      1. GAGER: “Rense is one of the least credible websites ever,…rest is nonsense.”>>

        Genetic fallacy. Truth is independent of its source. It doesn’t follow (non sequiter) that because something is posted on a certain location on the internet, that it is false.

        GAGER: “Believing anything from Rense would require a person to suspend all reason and logic.”>>

        If you knew anything about reason or logic, you would know better than to so blatantly engage in the genetic fallacy. Smearing the source is never a sufficient rebuttal, to anything.

        The rense article references the CDC and other standard sources. The connection between meat and cancer is well established and unequivocal. I have posted summaries and references to several large mainstream scientific studies showing this, here:

        http://fayfreethinkers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=24127#p24127

        D.

        Reply

        1. “Truth is independent of its source.”
          True enough, just don’t go to Rense for any truth unless you want to know how the moon landing was faked or 911 was an inside job or a host of other nonsense.
          Rense is the National Enquirer of the internet. Made up stories are their mainstay. Also don’t go to Rense for referenced material, go to the source.
          I don’t like Rense, they prey on those people with one working
          brain cell and my bottom line summary of Rense is not a logical fallacy. The fact that you defend Rense makes you suspect.

          Reply

          1. You admit “Truth is independent of its source,” is “True enough” and then go on to beat on the genetic fallacy drum for the rest of your post. Rense could be a bathroom wall (and indeed it is) and it does not follow that a claim made there is false (which in this case it isn’t). Do notice that the article at Rense (which you fail to address with anything other than with the genetic fallacy) was not her only source.

            GAGER: “my bottom line summary of Rense is not a logical fallacy.”>>

            Yes it is. Any dismissal of a claim because of it’s source is the genetic fallacy. And that’s the entirety of your response, which is really a non-response.

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy

            Reply
  407. Pingback: 4 Reasons Why Becoming A Vegetarian Is A Fucking Stupid Idea | FitMole | Fat Loss, Muscle Gain, Everything In Between
  408. Pingback: Wheat and Disease | Sam Snyder

  409. I just came across this post while looking up ‘The China Study.’ I plan on studying this particular study and wanted to see what people think.
    It is interesting to say the least.
    To me diet is a Science and you cannot argue with Science because it is factual. If you do not approach diet as a Science then it is strictly opinion based and becomes a ‘he said she said’ game.
    Nothing scares me more than a diet of dead animals and animal by products. If you need any evidence as to how awful it is for us just take a look at the average American.

    Reply

    1. The average American has always eaten a diet containing meat, so clearly the poor health of modern average Americans is not due to meat being in the diet. The nutritional quality of today’s factory farmed meat is certainly lower than natural pastured meats, but a much bigger change in the American diet is the refined plant products, like sugar, industrial seed oils, processed packaged foods, etc. On average, Americans also consume too many calories and get insufficient exercise.

      Reply

      1. Americans eat poorly, they have for many decades. The advancement in medicine is what is keeping American’s alive longer. The chronically ill wouldn’t need those medications if they thought differently about what they put in their mouth and as a result would probably live longer.

        Factory farmed, hormone and antibiotic injected animals are only the icing on the cake. The data from the book was taken before injecting animals for profit was the standard.

        No one can argue that eating an apple is more beneficial than eating a bag of candy. Trying to prove that eating lentils is more beneficial than eating a steak is more complicated. Our government has infiltrated our lives promoting food THEY think is right for consumption based on their money padded pockets. There is not much money in lentils!

        Reply

  410. Denise,
    I admire your dedication and enthusiasm. But seriously – it would have taken Colin Campbell and a TEAM of researchers years to work up the data from the China Study. But apparently you can re-analyse all the data, all by yourself, in a month and a half !! It’s ludicrous. Putting the numbers into Excel or R, and pressing the ‘Regression’ button does not constitute a proper scientific analysis. I am not suggesting that that is literally what you have done, but to suggest that you can do a thorough analysis in such a short period of time is ridiculous. I speak as a professional scientist (though in a very different discipline) with some understanding of data analysis. It is an unfortunate trait these days, in many disiplines (bit particularly climate change) that non-professional scientists think they can do a better job than the experts. I suggest that, rather than posting this as a blog, that you write up your methods carefully, as any scientist would do, an present your methods as well as your results. You could even submit them, with your results and conclusions, to a scientific journal, where your methods would be thoroughly scrutinized. However, I doubt you are game for that, but I think you should at least describe your methods on this blog.

    Reply
  411. Pingback: T. Colin Campbell | who-they-are

  412. Hi Denise,

    I would be really interested to hear what you have to say about the science behind the GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) diet. It seems to me that they both (GAPS and China Study) talk about some of the same physical malfunctions and how they arrive in the body, but are almost opposite in how one can heal those malfunctions. I’m sure you have other things to do, but I thought I’d put a bug in your ear about it in case you were interested:)…

    Really interesting critique of The China Study — I am always grateful for people who encourage others to think for themselves and have the courage to add their perspective on important issues.

    Thank you, Denise.

    Reply

  413. I am a clinical Nutritionist and Specialized Nutritionist in private practice for over 30 years. Clients with whom i work, even when elderly have no health conditions whatsoever, and are on no meds, in their 80;s. I disagree with the China Study on a number of issues. Too much scientific and emphasizing what the author believes. firstly one must take into consideration, geographic location, genetic makeups, nationality, body types. Dr. Bernard Jensen had to give up a vegan diet as he broke down protein in his system,, and brain, which can be hard to rebuild. And what matters greatly is the type of vegetables, eggs, fish, meat. In my practice I recommend as much as pocketbook allows, all natural, organic flesh protein,poultry, fish. Free range eggs, raw butter. That is, nothing with any hormones, antibiotic, additives and preservatives. Teach people how recognize and select the above. And it does take some background, and good reading.

    Know about food combining, not starches with flesh protein, the acids and pancreatic enzymes cancel each other out and nothing is well digested. Fruits an hour before or 2 hours after a meal, as they digest more quiclky and hold up digestion of other foods. No fluids but herb tea with meals, One low glycemic fruit a day,or much less if individual has glycemic dysregulation. Best oils, coconut to cook, grape seed, olive oil, virgin after cooking. The seed and nut oils we have heretofore been told to use are manipulated and become saturated. Coconut is naturally saturated. Refrigerate all seeds, nuts and oils, use nuts raw and unsalted; fleturized, ground or as a nut milk

    Regular cleanses to detox important, as cannot have immaculate health without this. I muscle test for the different types which I may use. Kiinesiology gives me a perfect blue print for the body any of it’s difficiencies, organ imbalances, structural misalignments, allergies, and what productt and how much for how long. There are only 2 companies with whom I work, and do not send client to health stores, and I cannot test those products for them.

    I recommend xylitol, pure maple syrup, agave, or honey in modest amounts. Xylitol fights infection, supports immune and dental. Try for half of the diet raw, and use organic, fresh pressed vegetable juices, carrot, beet, greens, like parsley, or other greens. Juicing and detoxing can be adjusted to the persons particular needs, or illnesses. Half fresh lemon, dash of cayenne and maple syrup , the Master cleanse, in filtered water every 2 hours

    There are simple,inexpensive methods for ridding heavy metals, radiation, from scans and x rays, etc.cancer. Important supplements coming out; D3, curcumin, transresveratrol, powerful anti inflamatories, products to protect against memory loss and Alzheimers, Purified water, Celtic grey or French salt, not iodized, no sea salt, very commercialized. Raw cheeses in moderation, fermented products important. AND digestive enzymes, as they help to digest unwanted cells and toxins in the body in addition to digesting food. Quality of food is the thing, and avoiding sugars, heated fats, over cooked proteins, limit red meat or cut out, and opt for non shell fish, quality poultry, or just fish. There is much, much more. The emotional is greatly connected with the physical, and the spiritual, all interconnected, so important to clear out these blocs, which I use several technics for depending upon the situation. Blood sugar, thyroid, fatigue, chronic fatigue, digestive problems, etc.I adjust diet and balancing accordingly. Dorothy Dumbra, e mail ddumbra4cats@yahoo.com

    Reply

  414. Hi Dorothy,
    Interesting comments, and I imagine very sensible advice. But, I think you miss the point of the China Study. In the book, Colin Campbell states several times that he is trying to avoid over-prescription in terms of what people can and can’t eat. So he is deliberately trying to avoid generating a long list of rules, like you have just given above. He is arguing that by simply avoiding animal proteins (and eating a “whole foods, plant-based diet”), you will be giving your body the best possible chance of avoiding chronic illness. And IT IS SIMPLE to understand and follow. There is no “don’t eat this with that” or any of those types of rule. Of course you can fine-tune that diet to suit yourself with as many additional rules as you choose to add, but the basic diet is very easy to follow. That’s his point.

    Reply
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  417. “Lies, damn lies and statistics” That’s what I learned in grad school.
    Great job of pointing out the inconsistencies and fallacies in this book. I am an advocate of individualized metabolic typing … I am personally a paleo-diet consumer. My understanding of what’s best for me was wholly supported by your deconstruction. Worry I’m sure is correlated with death rates from all these Western diseases … thanks for alleviating the worry.

    And the insight about the climatic/geographic issues was awesome! Once again Vitamin D has been terribly overlooked.

    Reply

  418. Good article, interesting comments. I’m not a scientist, but I am a mammal, and I do eat. If too much animal protein causes so many problems – as the China Study claims – how come lions and cheetahs don’t all develop cancer? They must have a ton of cholesterol in their blood all the time – why aren’t they all just plain falling over with heart disease? I don’t think they eat ANY vegetables, do they? Aren’t our systems extremely similar?

    Reply

  419. (Btw, I understand that there are differences, obviously – digestive tracks, teeth, etc. I’m mostly talking about blood chemistry, circulation systems, cholesterol impact, cell activity. If cholesterol we eat collects on our artery walls – as is shown in the animation in Forks Over Knives – why doesn’t it happen in all mammals who eat meat?)

    Reply

  420. because cheetahs dont sit around at a desk all day clicking a mouse and getting other cheetahs to put food in front of them

    Reply

  421. Not to mention that lions and cheetahs probably only eat once every few days. Try that, and you might lose a few pounds and clear up any cholesterol problems as well.

    Reply

  422. Denise, I could kiss you for so meticulously and assiduously writing this stellar critique of “The China Study.” I have well intentioned friends who promote the book and teach others to eat accordingly. As a wellness guru and nutrition coach of sorts myself, this whole concept of villifying animal products has not set well with me. As of late, I’ve been reading “The China Study” to get a better handle on what Campbell states as “gospel” regarding nutrition. Smelling a bit of a rat (pardon the pun), I decided to investigate his findings further, only to stumble across your fantastic critique above. Although I had not done any empirical research on my own, in my spirit I suspected that Campbell was not presenting his findings accurately and was biased regarding animal proteins. Your findings only confirmed what I already knew in my heart. Thank you, thank you, thank you for doing the hard work of analyzing all of this and writing about it. Not only that, but thank you for writing so correctly, effectively and eloquently. You truly deserve a commendation for your fine work.

    God bless!

    Rick Osborn

    Reply

  423. Thanks Gary and Philip. But I wasn’t asking about weight loss, I was thinking about blood chemistry. The China Study concludes that eating meat is the cause of heart disease, cholesterol buildup in your arteries, etc. Since our blood chemistry (and cell construction, transfer of nutrients in and out, etc.) and circulation systems have to be at least extremely similar, why isn’t there a high incidence of heart disease in the rest of the carnivores on the planet?

    I know that digestive systems are different – cows have six stomachs in order to digest the plants they eat, for instance (don’t know about other herbavores, like rabbits). I don’t know why a herbavore IS a herbavore, or what would happen if one ate meat, but I’m guessing the difference is mainly in the digestive system. Once the nutrients are in the blood stream, well, chemistry is chemistry, right?

    Or maybe the chemistry IS different. Maybe herbavores produce quite different amounts of hormones and stuff that makes the nutrients they get from plants work out for them just fine. If this is true then fine, the world works as its supposed to, and animals are as healthy as they should be, eating what they are drawn to.

    But WE are carnivores (omnivores, at least). We are drawn to meat, and always have been. We CAN digest it, and with no problem, and assimilate it into our cells for fuel and nutrition. This is indisputable. Therefore we must have the same features in our blood chemistry that lions and cheetahs have. Again the question: if now suddenly, here at the eleventh hour, after tens of thousands of years of eating animals, Dr. Campbell concludes that meat is the culprit in heart disease, etc., what is protecting all the rest of the carnivores? Why aren’t they all full of cancer?

    I’m not saying there isn’t an answer, I just wonder what it is. Like I said, I’m not a scientist, just a sceptical layman.

    Thanks,

    Bruce

    Reply
  424. Pingback: Diet,The China Study By Dr.Campbell, Is he Right? « Ramani's blog
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  426. I was going to read on but really you got me with your beginning numbers and cancer. You have (+) and (-), but on each part animal and plant proteins you don’t offer the same data in each.
    I think people are reading what they want to on both sides of the issue. I did stop reading your data in point #2 only because I couldn’t get over your point #1 … so sorry for not finishing, but I did read you conclusion. Thanks for speaking out.

    Reply

    1. The plus and the minus relates to the strength of the relation to relevance.
      A plus number means there is a higher correlation and a minus number means there is less than a neutral correlation.
      But please understand that correlation does not mean causation.
      The source of the data is Campbell.

      Reply

  427. great post! Interestingly, I have at least as much of a problem with Campbell’s “general assertions” like apo-b particles or what he refers to as “cholesterol” ( I guess he’s talking about total cholesterol, which doesn’t mean much) is being caused by consumption of animal protein, in the first place… it’s pretty clear now that LDL ( which most people refer to as bad cholesterol, but are actually proteins that carry cholesterol) numbers increase directly when carbohydrates (particularly sugar and other processed carbs) are consumed; not animal protein! the best explanation of this I’ve heard is by Dr. Thomas dayspring, you can look him up on YouTube or find him here…http://www.best-clickz.com/althealth/the-best-explanation-why-ldl-cholesterol-number-doesnt-tell-whole-story

    Reply

  429. I’ve been pursuing a healthy lifestyle for 35+ years, I’ve tried most of the diets/life styles out there macrobiotic, vegetarian, whole food non vegan, vegan, for the past 5 years I’ve been 100% raw vegan. All diets can be done wrong, plenty of sick junk food vegetarians out there giving healthy living a bad name.

    In my many walks through life I’ve talked to many people that that have cured severe forms of cancer and even simple forms of cancer like me melanoma. I call melanoma simple because it can usually be cured in 6-8 weeks with the proper diet change (raw vegan). Breast cancers usually cured in 6-10 months.

    I spoke with one guy at our last raw vegan pot luck that was in his 50’s he had stage IV cancer, the highest possible level. The cancer was throughout his entire body, in all his bones. He had an egg sized tumor growing out of his cheekbone. The doctors could not cut the cancer out so they only gave him the option of chemo and radiation and even with treatment they said he only had 6 months to live. Luckily a friend told him about the Hallelujah Diet (www.hacres.com), it’s a 80% raw vegan diet.

    He went on the diet and followed the Hallelujah Diet book verbatim. After about 6 months on the diet he started feeling really good and noticed the tumor on his face was completely gone. He went back to the doctors and had another PET scan, he was 100% cancer free according to the doctors, no cancer to be found anywhere.

    Thousands of testimonies like his out there, do your research, I’ve done mine for 35 years.

    All the health books I’ve ever read I can’t remember one of them saying eat more meat or animal products to increase health and reverse disease.

    Health is increased by taking in enzyme rich foods and consuming foods that increase alkalinity in the body; animal products, grains and sugar do the opposite..

    There has to be something right about a diet that reverses cancer, heart disease, diabetes, MS and just about every other disease.

    Can’t remember in 35 years anyone telling me that they ate more meat and or animal products and cured there cancer?

    Reply

    1. yes i believe in the hallelujah diet. work for us! another great reading is max gerson-gerson mircale watch the documentaries! beyond diet great one but i disagree with the meat only. the other one is stanislaw burzynski clinlic.

      Reply

  430. Red meat studies flaws lead to potentially unhealthy advice

    by Tony Isaacs

    (The Best Years in Life) A number of studies in recent years about red meat consumption have led to widely publicized conclusions and advice that eating red meat is unhealthy. However, such studies have often been plagued by serious flaws and generalizations – and as a result, many people have been mislead into believing that red meat is bad in and of itself and may be missing out on vital nutrients found in healthy forms of red meat.

    First of all, the studies have not fully taken into account the differences in diet and lifestyles of red meat eaters versus those who eat little or no red meat and secondly, the studies also have largely failed to distinguish between the different kinds of red meat products consumed.

    Thus far, there have been virtually no studies which compared people who ate little or no red meat and lived healthily overall with those who ate moderate amounts of healthy forms of red meat and otherwise lived equally as healthily. If such studies were conducted, they might well lead to conclusions that eating at least some healthy red meat is most often beneficial.

    Not all meat or vegetable eaters are the same

    Too often, the red meat studies group people into “red meat eaters” and “vegetable eaters” without fully looking at the differences in dietary and health habits between the two groups other than just red meat consumption. Specifically, the studies have failed to consider the healthier overall habits of many of those who consume more vegetables or the bad health habits of many of the people who consume more red meat.

    People who are mostly or fully vegetarians tend to be more active and health conscious. In addition to eating plenty of healthy vegetables and fruits, they also tend to eat fewer unhealthy items such as junk and fast foods. They also tend to be more physically active and have fewer bad health habits such as smoking.

    On the other hand, those who eat lots of red meat include the people who eat the very worst forms of red meat. Such people also have a greater tendency to eat other unhealthy foods – such as junk foods, fast foods, sugar-laden foods and processed foods. The group also includes more people with overall unhealthy and sedentary lifestyles.

    Not all red meat products are the same

    In studies where only overall red meat consumption is considered, six ounces of beef franks or beef salami or processed beef product are considered to be equal to a lean six ounce cut of organic free range beef – and there is a world of difference between them. Processed meat products contain a number of unhealthy items, which may include such items as carcinogenic nitrite, fillers and artificial additives for color, taste, texture and shelf life and less healthy forms of beef from feedlots.

    Typical feedlot beef contains unhealthy growth hormones and antibiotics and the cattle may have fed on pastures where herbicides and pesticides were applied. By contrast, organic free range beef contains no growth hormones or antibiotics and has been raised entirely in open range. Such free range beef also usually has a higher mineral content due to feeding on natural grasses and other plants.

    Essential nutrients found in red meat

    Beef is a wonderful source of protein and contains over 80 nutrients including abundant vitamin B-12 – which is found only in animal products and is essential for cells found in muscles, the brain and the nervous system. Other essential nutrients found in beef include zinc, phosphorous, iron, pantothenate, vitamin B6, thiamin, selenium, niacin, riboflavin and magnesium.

    Conclusion

    Instead of warning about all red meat consumption, the message that should be spread is that the key to avoiding illness and live longer and healthier is to eat and live more healthily in many ways.

    http://www.tbyil.com/Red_Meat_Studies.htm

    Reply

  431. Consider this, no one in their right mind would kiss the anus of an animal, but many people are quite happy to eat them!

    Reply

  432. Hello Denise,

    I’d like to commend you on a compelling analysis. I have one simple observation, and a suggestion.

    Obserervation:
    In science, the canon is the peer-reviewed literature. Analyses such as this are all well and good, a part of the process. But if you really want to have an impact, if you want to participate in bona fide scientific debate, the next step is publication in the literature. The mere process of getting published flushes out foibles of your own, and gives the rest of the interested community assureance that the work has passed at least a modicum of review by others knowledgeable in the field. In this way, such thoughtful analysis as yours enters the canon and better propels the science forward.

    Suggestion:
    Take the next step. 🙂

    Reply
  433. Pingback: Videti rdeče oziroma Kako izgubiti prijatelje z medicinske fakultete in se odtujiti od ljudi « Lovec Nabiralec

  435. Are these Campbells related to the Campbell in Campbell’s soup? It would be interesting to see a family tree done.

    Reply

  436. What a bunch of BS! Where are your citations? A bunch of mumbo-jumbo may fool the average reader but as a scientist, your work is silly. I guess this is why you publish it in a BLOG rather than write an actual book or editorial. Yes campbell does draw a few conclusions but his science is strong overall. Your “work” on the other hand is just misguided math!

    Reply

    1. Campbells work does not show strong science, it shows strong bias. The French paradox is laughable because it destroys Campbells claim. In science there is no paradox, the French paradox is just evidence to refute claims. Mingers work is excellent in the math.

      Reply

      1. “Mingers work is excellent in the math.”>>

        Then why doesn’t she publish it for peer review and demonstrate that her claims mean something by opinion? There is a good reason why.

        Reply

        1. You do realize that the reason Campbell wrote the book is because none of the scientific journals would allow him to use his new “holistic science” that many of his China Study claims rested on. He was stuck using real science in the journals and therefore most of his journal articles don’t support his China Study claims, so he came up with a new “holistic science” not bound by the tenets of real science or peer-review to support his China Study claims and published in a book because it would never be accepted by peer review.

          Much of The China Study is like Young Earth Creationism – you choose a premise that you like and all “evidence” is judged against the premise itself. If a correlation is consistent with the premise, then it is “evidence.” If a correlation is inconsistent with the premise, then it is non-plausible. Dinosaurs are non-plausible because the Earth is only 6000 years old. All the simple univariate correlations in the China data that disputes the idea that “meat is bad” are deemed non-plausible and rejected while all the simple univariate correlations that support that “mead is bad” is deemed as “proof” according to Campbell’s new holistic science.

          Often when Campbell laments reductionist science, he is in many cases lamenting the fact that his new holistic science would never pass peer-review and so his journal articles in the end do little to support his “meat is bad” premise.

          Mainly what Denise is doing is critiquing his faulty reasoning and science used in his book, not producing her own research.

          Reply

            1. There are associations and interpretations that go both ways (you can’t just pick the ones you ‘like’ –that is Creationism Science), but what does that have to do with Campbell’s new holistic science not being able to withstand peer review?

              Are you now jumping from Creationism Science to UFO Science – saying that Campbell’s new holistic science that cannot withstand peer-review must still be legit anyways because anybody that says “meat is bad” must be legit?

              Do you not see the irony of using the tenets of Creationism Science and UFO Science to defend Campbell’s new holistic science inability to withstand peer-review while at the same time whining that someone who simply pointed this all out did not undergo peer-review herself?

              You should stick with Zombie Science – just keep mumbling “meat..is..bad…meat..is..bad”

              Reply

              1. “…irony of using the tenets of Creationism Science and UFO Science to defend Campbell’s”>>

                As co-founder of the largest skeptic society in our state (see link provided), your charge is rather humorous. I’ve said nothing about Campbell. As noted repeatedly in this thread, if Ms. Minger wants her claims on this to be considered in serious circles, she should properly publish them to be reviewed by people with the expertise to judge their merit. Details about how to do this have been provided in this thread. Perhaps you should read them.

                Reply

                1. “Please don’t pretend to lecture me on how to deal with the creationists and UFO crowd. That’s my particular area of specialty.”

                  Sweet. Let’s see a list of all the UFO sightings you have debunked in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

                  I still have a feeling though that you should stick with the Zombie Science.

                  Reply

                  1. Your red herring mutterings about UFO’s have no relevance to your problem at hand. Which is, for Ms Minger’s material to rise to the level of interesting she would need to have gone to the trouble of acquiring the education and expertise to speak with some authority on this complex issue (she hasn’t), and then her material could be considered for it’s merit by trained peers with the expertise to judge it. At that point, it wouldn’t necessarily be right, but it would at least be worth considering.

                    Reply

                    1. By your own standards you are not qualified to pass judgement on the excellent math of miss minger.

                  1. Of course. Read the comment thread. Harriet has stepped in it a bit here. This is nice:

                    “I’m interested to know if Harriet Hall has seen or acknowledged the rebuttals that Colin Campbell has posted. Is she willing to concede the many errors in Denise Minger’s huge critique? including the observations from the cancer epidemiologist showing the basic amateur mistakes in Denise’s work. It seems just bizarre that she is taking her cues from a 24 yr old journalism student who ‘loves numbers’ against the internationally respected Campbell with literally hundreds of peer-reviewed articles to his name and decades of research behind him.
                    The misrepresentations of Campbell’s points are all over the internet. Zombie arguments that have already been dealt with keep popping back up – is Harriet Hall unable to distinguish an internet propaganda campaign from serious science? The vitriol against Campbell and his conclusions is enormous (and almost always from non-scientists)…”

                    Reply

                    1. “Your red herring mutterings about UFO’s have no relevance to your problem at hand”

                      You brought up your UFO expertise. Why demand peer-review from Denise but not from your own little “skeptic” society? (Offering a house to anyone who can bring you bigfoot might not be up to Nature caliber though).

                      All she did was debunk a popular diet book filled with pseudoscience and inaccuracies. Just because you are severely lacking in reading comprehension skills, basic science knowledge, and general brightness, don’t assume everybody else is in the same boat (and I won’t assume that your little “skeptic” society maybe isn’t as totally retarded as you seem to represent, though they should probably get a brighter guy to be their public face.)

                      Anybody with basic reading comprehension should have been able to see that she was just debunking some of Campbell’s key points in a pop diet book using just basic logic and basic statistics. Anybody with a basic understanding of high school statistics should have been able to follow along and see the fallacy in the way Campbell attempted to portray the statistics. No expertise required. For anybody with a couple of college science classes that included a little bit of statistics, it should have been a piece of cake to follow her lead.

                      Apparently for “skeptics” in Arkansas,
                      reading comprehension and sophomore
                      science is not part of the toolset. Send that shit to an expert.

                      So, seeing that you were mildly retarded and all this talk of the tenets of bad science was going way over your head, I pointed you to an expert to help you figure it out. Dr. Harriet Hall is a
                      nationally know skeptic and expert on debunking shit. She has published debunkings in peer-reviewed journals. Not only did her expertise find no problems with Denise’s methodology, Dr. Hall actually featured Denise’s analysis in her own debunking of the China Study.

                      Maybe you should learn how to read, go back to school and take a few math and science classes, become less retarded, see that this stuff isn’t nearly as complicated as you used to think, contemplate the nature of scientific enquiry, and realize you have been a total dick head embracing the tenets of bad science.

                    2. “Of course. Read the comment thread. Harriet has stepped in it a bit here.”

                      Dude, make up your retarded mind. You said you wanted experts, so I gave you an expert. Then you say nah, I would rather put more weight behind anonymous, insubstantial comments (hey, everybody is picking on Campbell!) just because you like what they say? Bad science, dude. Go read a book.

                      (Also, if you have read all the comments there, you do notice that one of Campbell’s ardent supporters actually changes his tune as the discussion goes along and decides that Campbell is in fact a pseudoscientist.)

        2. Why should she? The China Study isn’t peer reviewed either. As for Campbell’s research papers on poisoned rats from the seventies, Chris Masterjohn showed conclusively that they are as fraudulent as the whole person.

          Reply

          1. “fraudulent”>>

            The word “fraud” has a specific meaning. Do know what it is? Perhaps you should learn that and then try again.

            Reply

            1. I know exactly what that words mean and it is my opinion that Campbell’s work borders on fraud. The data collection of the China Study itself is not, but the bestseller book he wrote is. He misrepresents the conclusions of his own clinical studies, which showed a lot of things but what he claims they show. Confronted with his contradictions (there are several fora and blogs where he took position) he only ever responds with ad hominems and appeals to authority. The cognitive dissonance is huge. To give an example of the dishonesty of the guy, there was a thread on follow the thread on amazon (http://www.amazon.com/forum/weight%20loss/TxD811DYWQ7U21/59?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=FxUY10W22E27M9&cdMsgNo=1464&ref_=cm_cd_et_md_pl&cdSort=oldest&cdMsgID=Mx2JZRPXB0LP04A#Mx2JZRPXB0LP04A) which was quite telling.
              Campbell stated that one can have an opinion only when one had tried a vegan diet. Several people (around 20) answered that they had tried and that they failed, they fealt like shit and were much better when they re-introduced animal products. When after this overwhelmingly negative feedback one contributor gave a positive answer, Campbell only noticed this one. All the negative feedback was ignored, even after several people pointed it out to him. Truely remarkable blinders.

              So to make it short, either he is gaga or he a fraud.

              Reply

              1. GALL: my opinion that Campbell’s work borders on fraud.”>>

                I haven’t the slightest interest in your mere opinion. I am interested in what you can show. And you can’t show fraud.

                GAL: “[Campbell] only ever responds with ad hominems”>>

                I have read all of the exchanges published so far, and you are entirely wrong. And Minger’s comments were often petty and amateur as Campbell pointed out. You don’t know what you are talking about.

                GALL: “Several people (around 20) answered”>>

                If you think people giving anecdotes about diet on an Amazon comment thread means anything, at all, then you are beyond help.

                Reply

                1. It’s not my job to show his fraudulent work and I’m as entitled to state my opinion as you’re yours.

                  As for the ad hominems, they’ve been shown over and over by him and by people like you. Saying that Denise is not qualified to refute Campbell’s claims because she’s an english major is ad hominem and appel to authority.

                  As for the anecdotes on the Amazon thread they show exactly the problem with Campbell. It was not 20 anecdotes per se that were the point, it was the fact that he ignored the more than 20 anecdotes but claimed victory with the lone anecdote that went the way he liked. It was to show his hypoctitical cherry picking that I linked to that forum thread, but that is probably to complicated for you to understand.

                  Reply

                  1. GAL: “It’s not my job to show his fraudulent”>>

                    Don’t make claims you back up. Considering what you are shoveling, this will also help make your posts much shorter.

                    GAL: “As for the ad hominems,”>>

                    Yes, and if you remove those, your posts will even be shorter still.

                    GAL: “Saying that Denise is not qualified to refute Campbell’s claims…”>>

                    Is true.

                    GAL: “As for the anecdotes on the Amazon thread they show…”>>

                    That you don’t know your bum from you elbow.

                    Reply

  437. The China Study seems to have stricken a chord with many people. For those with such strong opinions and arguments, why don’t you time, come up with your own scientific findings and argue them? In the meantime, why don’t the vegans/vegetarians enjoy their lifestyle and the non-vegetarians enjoy theirs? I, personally am thus far enjoying The China Study but that is not to say that I would be so closed minded as to not read a book touting the benefits of animal fat.

    Reply

  439. Great article, though I feel you did something bad with the following sentance “breast milk, which contains high levels of casein” though this is true, but the amount that cow milk has vs. human is quite different. Sorry to site Wikipedia, but cow milk is 80% while human is 25-45%. Was this an error of omision?

    Reply

    1. Nothings changed since is was first checked almost two years ago. Campbell has a mindless cult following. Thanks.

      Reply

  442. Would love to hear of people that reversed cancer or heart disease on an animal based diet. There are thousands of testimonies of people reversing these diseases on a raw/plant based diet, Isn’t this all the proof we need.

    Who cares what the scientists say, bottom line is if a plant based diet has cured/reversed these diseases in thousands that have tried it what other proof do we need?

    Ton of testimonies here: http://www.hacres.com/library/testimonies

    Reply

    1. True! And tons of testimonies on the matter of earth being created 6,000 years ago. Then there are many personal testimonies on interactions with space aliens, people rising from the dead and intelligent design. I must point out that your posting refutes the latter claim.

      Reply

  443. This seems like 9,000 words of intricately assembled data that focuses on the micro statistics rather than the macro statistics – which means that you’ve lost sight of the woods for the trees. I won’t go through all of it, but the first two points you raise – about cholesterol and greens consumption – ignore the big picture to try and debunk it in the details.

    To rebut your first point – animal product consumption is linked to higher cholesterol rates. You admit yourself that higher cholesterol rates are linked to cancer. Where your figures go wonky is because you fail to look at the big picture (if America ate fewer animal products, more people would lower their cholesterol and cancer rates would be lower) and focus on the spanner in the works, which is that there are some people who can eat animal products and still have low cholesterol – which means they are not at higher risk for cancer. The three figures are all connected; you can’t remove them and have a viable statistic. Woods for the trees.

    As for veggies – you highlight that it’s not quantity, but frequency of veggie consumption that has the positive health benefits – and then try to shoehorn in the argument that this proves some other factor is at work. Really? Why can’t it just be what the data points to – that FREQUENTLY eating veggies has significant health benefits that occasional heavy consumption of veggies doesn’t. It’s like how going to the gym for 20 minutes every day is more effective than going for four hours once a month.

    I will have to spend more time going through the rest of your analysis, but from the first two points it’s clear you are every bit as guilty of reductionism as you accuse Campbell of being.

    Reply

  444. It appears you spent no significant time actually reading her response to the China Study nor many moments looking through the many entries which already cover your two points. Unless you have something to add to the discussion, please don’t waste the other’s time in coming back to a blog where no new thought has been advanced.

    Reply

  445. As a Chinese, I strongly doubt the effectiveness of “the china study” for the time issue.
    1. The Chinese modernization begins at 1980s. The working pressure of 1983 is larger than 1973.
    2. In 1970s, I doubt if there are enough skilled doctors in hospital.

    Reply

  446. Something funny: I know next to nothing about nutrition and I had the exact same response to the casein claim you did, point for point. Thanks for the article!

    Reply

  447. No, no, no! I will not allow you to debunk years upon years of study from experts (with decades of experience in the field) in a single, well written, seemingly convincing internet article. I realize months of work was put into this…but THAT against DECADES? No ma’am! I’m not convinced.

    Continue your education, enlist the help of experts, get published, come back in 20, 30 years. Maybe you will discover the truth…or just build up overwhelming evidence to support your side without finding the “real” truth…but, hey! progress is progress. No really, there is no doubt you are fully capable, but you need the time, experience, and qualifications on your back. Not to mention you are a beautiful girl that glows with every sign of health…so you obviously have the knowledge and know how of taking care of the human body!

    In the meantime I’m going to continue my 40% protein (poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, wheypowder), 40% carbs (whole grains, fruits, veg), 20% fats (nuts, cod liver oil, EVOO, coconut oil) and heavy weight lifting to maintain my ultra-lean bodybuilder figure and not worry so much about these nit-picky dietary concerns over cancer and heart disease.

    Reply

    1. Kitta…in 30 years you’ll be dead because you don’t think for yourself. It is not about your build, lean or otherwise…it’s about your health. Unless you KNOW the segmentation between your triglycerides, those above and those below .025 nanometers and the trend they are taking, you can lift until your body is perfect and fits nicely into the burial box. Heart disease…gone at 52 and never a clue.

      Reply
  448. Pingback: 5 Surprising Reasons To Eat Your Veggies — Holistic Kid

  449. The idea that heavy animal protein consumption is deadly simply doesn’t correlate with well-documented facts. The Masai eat plenty of milk and bleed their cattle for blood; they’re healthy and studly. The “Mongol hordes” drank huge quantities of mare’s milk, and they were hardly feeble. Innuits, some Polynesians, and others eat plenty of fish protein and until they were introduced to Western-style junk food, were wonderfully healthy.;

    All of this has been observed and documented. Not just from travelers and explorers, but scientists even before the groundbreaking work by Dr. Westin Price.

    Reply

  450. If you have read ALL of these comments to get down to this one, would you just reply with a “yep”. I’m wondering how effective 825 comments are…

    Reply

  451. The problem with all modern scientific research and analysis is that it deals only with the gross observable/recordable data. It ignores the subtle, unmeasurable details about each individual. Different types of body, due to different mentalities, due to different goals and conditioning means a different reaction to any given diet. Treating all human beings as the same akin to lab-rats overlooks an important factor in each person’s susceptibility to any given disease or general malfunction of the body.
    While diet is highly significant, so is body type.
    Ayurveda has a very sophisticated assessment of body type based on the bile, mucus and air ingredients of any given individual. With that data included we would really have a report worth studying.

    Reply
  452. Pingback: The China Study | Mark's Daily Apple Health and Fitness Forum page

  455. I feel overwhelmed by reading this post, and my math apparently is not good enough to make judgement who is making the first year undergrad errors. It must be really difficult to PRECISELY build a model to prove the links between diet and cancers…As a financial analyst, I can’t even do it in financial modeling which is 10 times easier because a whole lot more parameters can be quantified. If we assume that either party has the “correct” analysis, that will be fooling ourselves. In any presentation, an analyst can pick and assemble the data that tell his/her story, on wall street or campus. Both Denise and Campbell spent a lot of time, but even we prove the math, it doesn’t prove the point.

    Although in a general sense, the cancer epidemic and certain diseases in countries with high consumption of animal products has to come from, at least partially, something culturally related to diet. And it is evidence that the typical American diet brings the Chinese (China is my home country) up to speed with huge increase in these diseases in just a few short years. In China, only a decade ago, cancer was very rare, which in a sense, the data was most valuable for diet analysis than any other country, it will be impossible to do another China Study these days because of the increasing concerns of food safety (addictive, chemical or worse) and pollution as a result of economic model shift from socialism to capitalism. If I look at the health status of people who have very different diet, instead of the data collected in the 1970s, I would go with less processed food, less dairy and meats and more vegetables which is not the typical western diet. The environmental factors will be even harder to analyse not to mention they increase the complexity by 10 folds.

    So I don’t know if we can ever model something like diet…at least IMO it’s impossible at the moment based on the lack of understanding, technologies, and most importantly willingness, both from the consumer and industry point of view. We live in a world where everything is influenced by money so we never know who is unbiased, of course this is not to say either Denise or Campbell is doing their work for money. I don’t even know being vegetarian is a good idea, but if you throw in many other factors including ethical issues, I am comfortable with my own decision. There’s a danger when unreliable analytical modeling gets scrutinized, debated and over analyzed, maybe we should step back and see where Denise agrees with Campbell, because in the end, it is the choice we make as to what/when/how we eat, which is extremely complex. I wonder what Denise thinks on if there IS a link between diet and health, whether consuming a lot of animal products (purely from health aspect) may have something to do with the cancer epidemic. I think we can only draw some conclusions at the macro level, honestly my answer to the title is neither.

    Reply

    1. “…Although in a general sense, the cancer epidemic and certain diseases in countries with high consumption of animal products has to come from, at least partially, something culturally related to diet.”
      After all this, people still make the same mistake Campbell made, ignoring the countries that consume high animal protein and fat yet do not have the health issues.

      Reply

      1. And what countries are they…where people consume high animal protein and fat yet do not have the health issues? I’m not ignoring…I don’t know.

        Reply

      2. Countries which consume high amounts of animal protein and fat and yet have good health profiles, including lack of cancer and good cardiovascular health, typically do not consume meat/meat products which have been subjected to feedlot practices, given growth hormones and antibiotics, exposed to pesticides and herbicides and adulterated with additives and preservatives. They also tend to be much more physically active than meat eaters in the US. Failing to take all of that into account is a major flaw in almost all meat studies which warn about the health dangers of eating meat.

        See:

        “Red meat studies flaws lead to potentially unhealthy advice”
        http://www.tbyil.com/Red_Meat_Studies.htm

        Reply

        1. This just makes everything more confusing…in other words, we don’t really know what causes cancer and cardiovascular diseases, there are millions of ways people eat, everyone is different, the quality of food is different, different ethnic groups evolved differently genetically…we will never know unless we do a study only selecting people who are the same to “scientifically” prove a point. I mean, if you don’t trust what you see, why don’t we just do a health study comparing vegetarians and meat eaters whose diet are only different in meat and dairy? Ideally I think to consume small amount of meat is good even though I don’t because of ethical reason, which is why most vegetarians stay vegetarian. But really I am interested in knowing what countries you guys are talking about, to understand if and why they stay healthy eating lot of animal products.

          Reply

          1. Actually, I think that the causes of cancer are pretty clear – it’s just that the culprits endeavor to divert attention away from the main cause of cancer, which is toxins. Going back to the late great Antoine Bechamp, disease is all about cellular terrain (as opposed to the flawed germ theory of his contemporay Pasteur). When you have cells which have not been properly nourished, hydrated and cleansed then you have an environment that is ripe for the introduction of disease, especially so when the immune system is underperforming. Add toxins, radiation or in some instance pathogens and you end up with inflammation which the body fails to clear. In time, prolonged inflammation/irritation results in a cellular defense mechanism where the cells mutate to ones which revert to a more primitive form of respiration and which refuse to die normal programmed cellular death via apoptosis or autophagy – and instead not only continue to live but also begin to replicate and spread.

            See:

            “Louis Pasteur, Antoine Bechamp and the True Causes of Disease”
            http://www.tbyil.com/Pasteur_Bechamp_Disease_Causes.htm

            Reply

            1. It IS very clear that toxins cause cancer, but that doesn’t mean toxins are the only thing that causes cancer. The subject China Study deals with is dietary factors, TCC didn’t claim anywhere in the book that toxins are not the causes. We are not comparing what’s more damaging here, we are discussing what diet does to our body.

              Reply

        2. That’s exactly why the China Study is so much more superior than any other healthy studies out there, even though it may not be perfect. None of these factors you mentioned – feedlot practices, growth hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, additives and preservatives existed in 1970s’ China, after all your reasoning based on practices that you are accustomed in the US is not relevant in this particular matter.

          Reply

          1. Hello, Please read the critique regarding the China Study. The China Study is flawed. That’s the point of this entire blog.

            Reply

            1. No gager, the China study itself (I mean the data collection) is one of the best that is out there. The interpretation by T.C.C and the book called after the study are flawed beyond belief. The clinical studies TCC did in the 70s are also flawed (see Chris Masterjohn).

              Reply

              1. Agreed, if we really want to examine the data here, I can’t think of anything that’s superior, in terms of consistency of diet, least amount of misc environmental factors and the scale of sample size.

                Reply

                1. Dragonrides, it’s the data collected that may have value, not the conclusions put forward by Campbell. That’s why I said the the China study is flawed.

                  Reply

                  1. Well I don’t think the China Study is all about the data, what you focus on is a selection of the data as a reference, and the conclusions are not drawn purely based on the data.The book is publicized enough so until there’s another published study that’s widely accepted by the scientific community (not some leading scientists by the way since there are plenty who work for the meat, dairy and egg industry just as many bloggers, journalist and USDA directors) with compelling analysis that challenges Campbell’s conclusions, I will accept that it’s flawed. I find it hard to believe it’s true just because you repeated wrote “the China Study is flawed” to the audience of this post, without presenting much meaningful argument.

                    Reply

          2. You have a much higher opinion of the China Study than I do. I agree with the original post here – the China Study is seriously flawed and often deliberately so in order to fit the results to agree with the bias of the author of the study.

            You wanted to know what countries have good health profiles along with meat consumption – look at the Mediterranean countries.

            Reply

  456. Tony, I just looked on wikipedia for what “Mediterranean Diet” is, here is a quote:

    “The most commonly understood version of the Mediterranean diet was presented, amongst others, by Dr Walter Willett of Harvard University’s School of Public Health from the mid-1990s on,[6][7][8][9][10] including a book for the general public.[11] Based on “food patterns typical of Crete, much of the rest of Greece, and southern Italy in the early 1960s”, this diet, in addition to “regular physical activity,” emphasizes “abundant plant foods, fresh fruit as the typical daily dessert, olive oil as the principal source of fat, dairy products (principally cheese and yogurt), and fish and poultry consumed in low to moderate amounts, zero to four eggs consumed weekly, red meat consumed in low amounts, and wine consumed in low to moderate amounts”. Total fat in this diet is 25% to 35% of calories, with saturated fat at 8% or less of calories.[12]”

    Looks to me it’s considered the healthiest diet out there because it’s mainly based on plant foods and olive oil, not meat or animal fat.

    Reply

    1. Thanks for that comment, it was a relief from nit-pickin. I think we all have such emotional attachment to our own eating habits and will go to the greatest reductionistic lengths to “debunk” any suggestion that there could be a healthier alternative for us. Colin Campbell’s follow-upbook “Whole” covers this point and deals with the dangers of reductionism.
      We have reached the point where we know practically all there is to know of nothing and very little of the whole.

      Reply
  458. Pingback: The China Study (1.0) « meme Log

  459. Let’s see if I understand this. Preferred sources of protein are fish, eggs, and whey. Don’t eat Elmer’s Glue. Get some sun each day. Get tested regularly for schistosomiasis. Does that sum it up in a nutshell?

    Reply

  460. A 2000 study of Seventh Day Adventists, many of whom are vegetarians, shows they live longer. However not all diseases are reduced by a vegetarian diet. Here’s a quote…
    “The subjects of this California study enjoying the longest lives were the vegetarians. Other studies have shown health benefits from vegetarian diets, so one conclusion is that it is better for one’s heart to eat less meat. A UK study found, for example, in comparison with regular meat eaters, mortality from coronary heart disease was 20% lower in occasional meat eaters, 34% lower in people who ate fish but not meat, 34% lower in lacto-ovo-vegetarians, and 26% lower in vegans. There were no significant differences between vegetarians and non-vegetarians in mortality from cerebrovascular disease, stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, or all other causes combined.”

    Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/022599.html#ixzz1xp802bjc

    Reply

  461. Reading over the comments here, this just looks like a big vegan-hate carnivore congregation. The funny thing is, you’re all posting statistics and debating numbers when really the answer is so incredibly simple and staring point blank in your ignorant, brainwashed faces. Look at Americans. You don’t need a statistic to do that, just go to Walmart once in awhile. Watch the people rolling around on motorized carts, so pathetically fat that they can’t lift themselves to reach their favorite chocolate milk drink. This nation is full of people just like this, and unless you’ve never stepped foot outside of the country (fortunately, I have) you probably think this is normal. Wrong. It only takes a foreigner or an occasional traveler to see the massive, embarrassing health problem we have in the United States, and it only takes a few years for that foreigner to develop some of the same health issues after switching to an American diet. If you went into a mall and threw a rock, there’s a very high chance you’d hit an overweight children with diabetes, or a middle-aged adult riddled with cancer. Disease is everywhere, and dying naturally from old age is a rare occurrence.

    The next time you want to bash vegans, take a look at your local health food store and see just how many obese, diabetes-stricken vegans there are. You’ll probably find a grand total of none. And do you know what’s even better about being vegan? The lack of guilt from eating products from animals that are tortured in ways that not even our worst nightmares could portray. If you’re a male and eat industrialized beef, you agree that it’d be alright to have your penis and testicles cut off without an anesthetic, your body branded with a searing hot iron, and being hung upside down, kicking and screaming helplessly as someone slashes your throat and lets your blood pour out onto a cold factory floor, swirling around and emptying into a drain so it doesn’t get on anybody’s shoes. You agree to having your body cut up into pieces that will then be wrapped neatly in little packages that some dumb hick at Walmart will serve to his redneck family for dinner.

    If you’re female and eat industrialized dairy products, you agree that it’d be alright if your child was taken from you directly after birth, never to be seen again as the rest of your life is spent stationary on a concrete floor with no room for movement, your artificially inseminated, broken body pumped full of antibiotics and hormones so you produce more milk which is sucked painfully out of your breasts by machines for years until you’re no longer of use to the dairy industry, at which point you can look forward to suffering the same fate as the male cows.

    It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to deduce that milk from cows is intended for calves, not humans, just as milk from humans is intended for human babies. We have enslaved and endlessly tortured these innocent, gentle, and voiceless creatures to selfishly satisfy our tastebuds and false need for animal protein. The Earth is and always has been our provider; everything we need to survive grows out of its soil and replenishes itself. We, like cows and other animals, are its inhabitants. Cows were not designed for our consumption. If that were the case, they’d be legless, eyeless, earless, brainless, inanimate sacks of meat. They certainly wouldn’t feel pain, or loss–which they do.

    Open your eyes. The cruelty we have dealt to cows, chickens, pigs, and other creatures of Earth, and to the planet itself is immeasurable. Do the right thing: go vegan and contribute to ending this needless madness. In a nation where, at nearly any location, we have immediate, convenient access to a wealth of nutritious plant-based foods, making the transition is incredibly easy–and it’s the very least we can do.

    Reply

    1. To: Another Damn Compassionate Vegan… Imagine the impact your ideas could have if they weren’t wrapped in hate. Instead of joining the “bashers”, you could have made all of the same points in a drawing manner, instead you chose to push. EXACTLY the reason more people are NOT making the switch.

      Reply

    2. As it happens, there are two strict vegans in my family, and they are both obese. While vegans are wont to point at fat people eating SAD and blame the ill health effects on the meat, the reality is that obesity is driven by vegan ingredients: refined white flour, refined sugars, and industrial polyunsaturated seed oils.

      Reply

      1. It isn’t just sugar that’s refined but all sugar. When I was young, fruit was only available during the fall harvest so that we were limited to the amount of fruit to eat. And sugar was not added to everything under the sun. I have written complaint e-mails to Campbells soup when I discovered that sugar was an added ingredient in their French Onion soup. They kindly thanked me for my input and then sent a discount coupon for my next purchase of French Onion soup. I don’t think they listen. Sugar for some reason is suddenly appearing in soups of all kings and other canned vegetables. Imagine my surprise when my vegetable beef and won ton soup both had a sweet taste. Can you imagine fried eggs with added sugar. When watching old movies from the 50’s of street scenes where you can get a good look at the non actors it is really impressive the lack of obesity.

        Reply

      2. vegan ingredients? you will find all these items in the majority of American kitchens! Being vegan does’t mean you are going to be healthy, some can eat fries, cookies and drink soda all day long but its safe to say that your family members’ diet is NOT a good representation of vegan diet.

        Reply

      3. Neither refined white flour or sugar are vegan. They are refined using animal bones. True vegans don’t eat those things. Sure, the people who call themselves vegans while living on processed fatty foods are certainly no healthier than anyone eating SAD. But that doesn’t mean the vegan diet is inherently unhealthy. People in general should eat primarily fresh fruits and veggies, not heavily processed, frozen and canned “food.”

        Reply

    3. Some plant food being good doesn’t mean that the all plant diet is optimal, we are omnivorous.

      The fallacy about the superior ethical moral of veganism is just nonsense unless you are a breatharian, just not that many of those around.

      Reply

  462. Two points
    I read in Dr. Matthias Rath’s book, Why animals don’t get heart attacks … but people do – that almost all animals produce their own Vitamin C, sometimes at very high levels, while humans don’t produce Vit.C — a high cholesterol level in humans is, by the way, a kind of repair mechanism, and a symptom for arteriosclerosis, lack of vitamins, especially Vit. C, which leads to instable arteries, due to not sufficient production of connective tissue or collagen -> arteriosclerosis – pre-form of scorbut -> heart attack, stroke
    —-

    than I read somewhere, that meat eating animals have a special digestive system – a shorter gut for example – the teeth are other than humanand that the human digestive system is more targeted to starch (but i myself must more inform me about this) – at the time I change my nutrition into much more vegetables, salat, and so on, fruit, thus, fresh and raw food – and eat the famous fresh grain mash (Docs Bruker, Schnitzer, Kollath (I prefer bio spelt and oat), but you need a little home because it is important that the grain is crushed fresh – and I make good experience with that (I just feel better, lost some pounds
    …)

    here an info, I’m sorry, it’s only german:
    http://www.gesundheitlicheaufklaerung.de/schweinefleisch-und-gesundheit

    one should obviously avoid pig meat (!)

    (pls google Reckeweg Schweinefleisch, may be you find it in english – regards from Essen-Kettwig 😉

    by the way, if you read the Bible, it’s interesting to learn that in the beginning Adam was created to eat herbals, vegetables, fruit …. (1Mo1,1-2)

    Reply

  463. What better capsulizes better the two points made by better Drs Campbell and Esselystyn findings, if not the following: A) Western Diseases or Diseases of Affluence are strongly associated with diets rich in animal foods, and B) Reducing the consumption of those foods strongly associates with significant reductions of those diseases. If you don’t disagree with the two points above, then you agree with these two mountains in science and medicine.

    Reply

  464. I am a postgraduate ecology researcher and a veterinarian, giving me a pretty damn strong scientific background, not just as far as research, scientific methodology and statistical modelling goes, but also in regards to intensive livestock farming, physiology, nutrition, biochemistry, toxicology, pathology, oncology….. the list goes on as to how relevant my credentials are for commenting on this blog. As that stands I will probably be deleted in the same vein as previous scientific experts.

    I 100% agree that we do not have to hold degrees to be allowed to discuss issues in a public forum, but come on! Are you guys seriously devoid of SHAME?! Unlike Campbell I will not withold my absolute DISGUST at the absolute shamelessness of this entire blog. IF YOU CARE SO FRIGGIN MUCH ABOUT NUTRITION (there is so much garbage out there, yet you decide to take on the China Study??!?!?!??! o_O)THEN WHY NOT ATTEMPT TO LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD. I suggest this in one of 2 simple ways:

    1. Get some basic knowledge in the way peer-reviewed scientific research has been carried out since the formation of the royal philosophers in the 1600’s, get a PhD in nutritional science, biomedical science or oncology and fight his work in the peer-reviewed published arena like everyone else.

    2. Accept that you don’t want to go down path 1, become a PR rep for Weston, and sprout propoganda in a more dignified manner via advertising, becoming a celb, getting on Opra, getting into politics, starting up your own food movement, or writing fiction (as with this blog) and accept that you are simply stating opinion.

    DO NOT RUN RIDICULOUS STATISTICS – for the entire scientific community to laugh at. It is just embarrassing for everyone involved.

    I would love it if you had grabbed this raw data and written your equivalent of the china study using your univariate linear statistics. Actually – will these be in your new book?! Research supervisors worldwide can use it to scare research underlings into performing robust data analysis

    Reply

    2. “As that stands I will probably be deleted in the same vein as previous scientific experts.
      No one has been deleted for posting opinion unless it was a personal attack.

      Campbell did not get a peer review and yet you ask Denise to get peer review but she is not offering a scientific paper, she is posting a critique of bad science.

      The scientific community is not laughing at her interpretation of the statistics.

      Your rant is worthless. Denise’s critique is very valuable.

      Reply

      1. Sorry the book, the China study, was an amalgamation of all of the peer reviewed published research over years that Campbell had done. This is what people do. After years of journal publishing that is able to be scrutinised by the entire scientific community, they write a book – these often end up as cornerstone works or undergraduate reference books. This paper – to book link is exactly how the scientific community allows the work to reach the ‘layman’ so yes it is not in itself peer reviewed, this is also why it is written like a FRIGGIN BOOK FOR LAYMANS not like a scientific journal article.

        So Campbell has infact been peer reviewed many times, and I agree this is not infallable but having all the experts in the world offered the opportunity to debunk something you say is exactly what publishing in journals is about.

        Someone with extremely bad science, attempting to debunk an amalgamation of one of the most robust and in depth studies into a hugely complex science, with statistical models performed and checked by an entire cohort of statisticians, she posts up some extremely bad correlation data using totally inappropriate models, with non-adjusted data in a FRIGGIN blog. THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY LAUGHS.

        Reply

        1. The whole truth please.
          “…and did not deny that the epidemeologist’s critical comments had been yanked. After complaining on VegSource about the post disappearing, the epidemiologist’s post apparently reappeared on Minger’s blog. (Minger subsquently said something about a “spam filter” being at fault.)
          Minger has all the rights to delete posts but the only posts I know that have been removed came from absolute trolls. (or at least the very offensive person was banned)
          The rants and dishonesty of vegans have never been deleted that I know.

          Reply

          1. I am not sure about anyone who stereotypes people with “rants” and “dishonesty” in a debate on this topic should be considered credible. Clearly, not all the vegan diet is healthy, and we have never really conducted any extensive research on what is the optimal diet for humans? We never invested enough resources or cared enough about it. Veganism is not what Dr. Campbell promotes in the China Study anyway. Remember, for the China Study to be acknowledged in our current world where meat, dairy and egg industries run the show, is extremely difficult, he doesn’t only need to fight the bloggers, he needs to fight the big corporations, and the media they control. He didn’t just write a blog to earn it and I don’t know any FDA policy maker who has special interest in veganism or giving money to Dr. Campbell to conduct the China Study. On the other hand, there are plenty of profit-driven, corrupted scientists, politicians, journalists, bloggers out there to make or promote the policy, influence the media, confuse the public, for the single purpose of putting money in their own pocket, and they do NOT care about you, your diet, your health, as a matter of fact, if we are all eating a well-balanced diet from organic and toxin-free sources of foods, we will have a much better chance of being healthy and dying from old age rather than diseases, but hey that’s bad for business.

            Reply

    3. If you are a post graduate researcher you many want to go back and read the article before commenting.

      No, don’t just glance over it and look at the charts, read the article. The ENTIRE piece was a criticism of flawed univariate analysis and bad correlations..

      She shows specifically that Campbell’s correlation between days eating green vegetables and disease prevalence appears to be a FALSE univariate correlation. With supporting evidence.

      Same with Campbell’s univariate correlations with bowel cancer and cardiovascular disease.

      Reply

    4. THANK YOU. Glad to heard someone who said things candidly and trustfully. Yes, I have learned to be “cynical” of people who demeaned, and downgrade, that what they have to say is almost all the time “WRONG”. They are just BELITTLING. Dr. Campbell’s work in nutritional biochemistry is 45 years. The China Study is only 20 years.
      Nineteen of his research years were funded by us, the taxpayers through NIH. It surely is a waste of our taxpayers dollar to “Trashed” Dr. Colin’s work. You are also correct that the blogger working as a PR for Weston, an organization supported by the meat and dairy industries. She has another article downgrading The China Study on the Weston site.
      I was a Naturopath. The cancer patients I used to see never said when they had cancer that ‘THEY WERE GOING TO EAT MORE MEAT”, They all started to EAT MORE VEGETABLES. They ALL KNEW, they just DID NOT DO.
      Today I practice in “nutritional medicine”. I always love Biochemistry, and I will be selling Dr. Campbell book myself along with my phytomedicine.

      Reply
  466. Pingback: Doctor FAIL: Garth Davis, Bariatric Surgeon (and China Study Balderdash) | Free The Animal
  467. Pingback: China Study Exposed « meme Log

  468. The fact that you are not a scientist or a certified researcher with more than 35 years of research says enough…

    Reply

    2. Sandy…’says enough…” what exactly does it say? That if you read anything posted by a ‘certified’ researcher with more than 35 years of research, you won’t have to think? You’ll just accept it at face value? As I recall, Einstein was not ‘certified’ nor in his early 20’s working in a Swiss Patent office, did he have 35 years of experience. Your’s is a doltish comment at best.

      Reply

    3. 35 years pushing an agenda, going even against what his own science finds… Yeah that make him certifiable…Nut

      Reply

  469. Campbell already made his money, it doesn’t matter what you’re going to write here or anywhere else.

    Reply

  470. Let’s face it, Ms. Minger is in the junior league. Good writer, but clearly not a scientist or a researcher. Color her “self-interested” and nothing more.

    Reply

    1. “A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”

      Reply

  471. Some things to remember:

    1. Correlation does not imply causation. Lack of correlation does not imply lack of causation. In other words, the fact that two things seem to occur together a lot doesn’t mean one caused the other.

    2. Lack of statistical significance = The data is telling me nothing. Ignore all conclusions based on numbers without any ***’s . They are crap. In other words, most of the cited correlations above are likely just chance relationships. They don’t mean there is a relationship, whether positive or negative. No information of interest has been found. That’s it.

    3. Simple correlations are meaningless in observational studies. There are too many confounding variables not accounted for. The relationships or lack of relationships may be due to other factors (read up on Simpson’s paradox, for example, to see that at the extreme). Multivariate and more complex methods are needed here in order to discount Campbell. More power to you if you can do that. Would love to see it.

    4. Correlation tells how well the data, if plotted, would fit a line. Often the true relationship is a curve. Low correlations, therefore, do not indicate no relationship, simply no straight line relationship.

    Good luck to you.

    –A stats professor.

    Reply

    1. ” Multivariate and more complex methods are needed here in order to discount Campbell.”
      Are you on drugs? Asking for proof of something that doesn’t exist. Campbell is discounted by data omission.

      Reply

    2. Forgive my ignorance. I’m just a lay person trying to make sense of all this.

      My impression was that it was Denise who was pointing out where Prof. Campbell was inferring causation from correlation and doing single variable analysis.

      The real point here is not the validity of Denise’s critique but of Prof. Campbell’s work. He is after all the one with the credentials saying he has scientific proof that meat-eating is unhealthy. Denise’s conclusions aren’t important; his are.

      As an expert, would you care to give us an opinion on the China Study itself?

      Reply

    3. Congratulations on knowing statistics.

      Now you may want to go back and actually read the article.

      You didn’t do that, did you? because if you had you would realize the entire post is an attack on univariate analysis.

      You might specifically find the apparent false correlation involving green vegetables interesting.

      Also how a multivariate approach to interpreting colon cancer data tends to weaken Campbell’s case.

      Reply

  472. Whatever helps you sleep at night my friend.
    We already know how easy it is for the meat & dairy industry to find researchers and research facilities that will lie and falsify evidence for them.
    I have many good reasons to trust that T. Colin Campbell’s research is accurate and I will continue to make nutritional decisions and provide nutritional advice based on his research.

    Reply

    1. Here’s the problem. Passionate people resort to calling others “liars” when they encounter a differing view.

      Why?

      Nutrition is a fledgling science. Look how many ‘about faces’ have occurred in the last 20 years!

      I am a certified health coach. Have studied all the major “theories” and am quite sure that one size does not fit all. It doesn’t make anyone a liar. I am concerned about the “sins of omission” in Campbell’s work. I know some people have to eat meat. At the same time Campbell’s work has helped many, many people.

      I lived in India for 12 years. I know the face of starvation. Food in the tummy is a good thing.

      I know the hypocrisy of religious systems that condemn those who do not adhere to strict tenets. Michael, please don’t fall into the camp of those who harshly judge. Campbell’s work is not 100% accurate. No one theory or reading of statistical data ever is. I also lived in China for 3 years. I know the levels of industrial pollution are off the charts in certain regions. Not accounting for this environmental disaster and basing conclusions on a limited data set of variables will not yield a totally accurate picture.

      Do what you do without judgement, and the world will be a better place.

      Reply

  473. I am simply reasing the China Study….so far it is much more interesting
    and entertaining than most books I’ve read. Campbell’s message makes
    sense even if his data lack scientific significant support. TPLombardi

    Reply

    1. Are you being facetious? “Entertaining” and “makes sense even if lacking scientific support”?

      I think what we’re discussing here is that pesky scientific support part. The world is full of total nonsense that makes engaging reading. If you’re only interested in whether it appeals to you and not whether the data justify the conclusions, then with respect I suggest this is the wrong conversation.

      Reply

    2. there’s nothing wrong with most of his data – data are just numbers – it’s his message that’s not supported and thus doesn’t make sense.

      Reply
  474. Pingback: Your Questions About Is Diabetes Curable Disease - Informative Site About Diabetes - Diabetic Symptoms in Men

  475. • Everyone eat plant based food for 3 months. (lots of veg)
    • Get off the meat, dairy and your arse(walk, run, weights, yoga etc)
    • Get a full blood examination before you start and record your weight
    • Report back and tell us how you feel
    Go get your new results

    New Debate is the dairy and the meat industry sustainable? A lot of energy, resources and pain go into being able to put that big yummy steak on your plate. Do we really need it?

    Reply

      1. People without any appropriate background comment here and some even write articles with critique of scientific artiles and call this “discussion about science”.

        Reply

          1. credentials? eric hoffer unloaded boats, wittenstein knew next to nothing about the history of philosophy, and the first psychology course william james attended was the first one he taught at harvard. o.w.holmes said the only reason he supported free speech was that was the only way to hear all the ideas and thus be assured the fittest would survive.

            Reply

        2. Nevertheless, that is what we are talking about, not the sustainability of the meat industry, or what GB thinks the rest of us should be eating.

          If only credentialed scientists could talk about science, there would be no public discussion of nutrition or health or countless other topics.

          The subject is the validity of Prof. Campbell’s conclusions in Forks Over Knives based on the China Study data. He’s pushed some very strong claims to the public, and it’s completely appropriate for any of us to question whether those claims are justified by the data. Do you have anything substantive to say about that?

          Reply

          1. The only substantive comment I can contribute is the following: “We, my wife and I, stopped eating meat 1 year ago. We feel good, we look good and all our vitals are great”. We’ve both also dropped about 10 pounds of unnecessary fat from our bodies. Color us Happy and Peaceful.

            Reply

            1. haha, I can so beat that!

              I stopped eating sugar 10 years ago, I go out of my way to eat as much saturated fat as I can, I’ve maintained a 40 plus pound loss without any effort, I look and feel great, and all my vitals are superb! Color me profoundly satisfied and peaceful!

              Reply

              2. This in not directed at you but the whole lot of you.
                I am amazed at the banter and idiotic statements I have been reading for a year or more… I eat this, I eat that / I go out of my way to eat whatever … eat wtf you want to … if it causes you harm I do not care; if it makes you live healthier and longer I do not care. Kraft food industries does not care … I do not think anyone cares wtf you guys/gals eat. Your health and well-being is your own concern. Do not bother to reply to this as I am blocking this stupid
                S _ _ _ after this comment.
                Live well or not
                Eat well or not
                I do not care.

                Reply

                3. A little info that you don’t know. Most people are score keepers. We keep score in all aspects of our life. Your wife, if married, keeps score trying to maintain a fair balance of input to making the marriage work. I said most people. You may be one of those rare people who don’t keep score and are probably a failure at everything in life.
                  The score at this site should be favorable to Denise, which it is, even when ijuts like peabody makes useless rants. Peabody’s rants raises Denise’s score because Peabody is an idiot.
                  I care what people claim because it effects overall score. I don’t care what you say because it does not affect score one way or the other. This was quickly written so I don’t know if my view is understood.

                  Reply

            2. I decided to start eating more meat 6 months ago, and I feel better and my vitals are great and I have also lost weight.

              We all have our stories. There are always people to testify to their personal experience with the efficacy of every diet, drug, therapy and practice under the sun. Anything and everything feels to some people to be beneficial, and so this fact is not very enlightening. What I’m interested in is the research.

              Denise has attracted a lot of interest and comments, including a lot of people eager to denigrate her lack of credentials, but there’s practically no one here who has anything to say about the content of what she has written. That includes Dr. Campbell himself, whose response to her was completely lacking in substance.

              Can somebody knowledgeable please, please go through any of her points in detail and offer a credible analysis or rebuttal?

              Reply

              1. Read the book. Dr. Campbell did the research about our health. This website is about our health and our diets, NOT about the people who leave posts. Don’t waste your time and energy on the people who have not done the research.

                Reply

          2. First at all your doubt validity of China Study itself.
            Denise, I read what dr ( PHd ) Collin T Campbell replied to you and to C. Masterjohn. I also read comments here. I saw that not you , and not C. Masterjohn simply do not have proper qualification neither in biochemistry, not in statistics to judge China Study from statistical or biochemical points of view. But you do it again and again. You made yourself ridculous.
            You can only judge China Study from your personal experience or experiences of your friends.
            China Study is not an ultimative truce, but nevertheless,as I understand , it is most complete epidemiological study up to date.
            ” it’s completely appropriate for any of us to question whether those claims are justified by the data. ”
            You does not doubt the data itself – you doubts how data was processed.

            P.S. I am sorry if some my sentencies are quite impolite.

            Reply

            1. Your input is right on. Ms. Wenger is a classic self-promoter. Her input is zero. She should remember what her mother taught her a long time ago: “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. To negate the results of ‘The China Study’ is foolish. You might not have the spelling and the grammer correct but your input is PERFECT!

              Reply

            2. If you are under the impression that I am the author of this blog, I am not; I wonder about your reading comprehension if you did not notice that I am a different person. I am merely an interested reader. I have no personal stake in the outcome of this debate. I don’t even have a nutritional philosophy.

              What is your basis for saying Denise has relied on personal experience in her writings on the China Study? I see nothing at all in them that relies on personal experience. She has raised questions that deserve serious answers. Repeating over and over again that Dr. Campbell has credentials and she does not is a serious answer. The more people repeat it, the more one has to question whether anyone has valid rebuttals to the points she has raised. If they do, where are there? All I have seen is personal attacks on her, including Dr. Campbell who did not choose to refute any of her points.

              If you haven’t read it, I suggest you read Denise’s later post “One Year Later-the China Study Revisited and Re-Bashed, which describes some peer-reviewed studies that contradict conclusions in the NON-peer-reviewed China Study book.

              Also I suggest:

              http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-china-study-revisited/. The authors of the blog nnScience-Based Medicine are MDs and PhDs dedicated to rigorous review of medical research. Of course, Dr. Campbell’s only response to them as well was to sneer at their backgrounds as well, without addressing the questions they raised.

              Reply

              1. “Repeating over and over again that Dr. Campbell has credentials and she does not is a serious answer”

                It is an answer. In order to understand research one should to be a specialist. Nowday everybody can write what he/she wants but this does not make his/her claims valid or cridible.

                “The authors of the blog nnScience-Based Medicine are MDs and PhDs dedicated to rigorous review of medical research. ”

                Are you kidding? You gave me a link to article which is written by professional skeptic who has a littile ( comparing to dr Campbell ) training in biochemistry and no training in statistics. She sites Denise Minger post, and she by this ridiqules herself.
                She is also a “professional skeptic” and usually professional skeptics are people who failed in their profession.

                “What is your basis for saying Denise has relied on personal experience in her writings on the China Study?”

                I did not say this.

                “in the NON-peer-reviewed China Study book”

                I do not know if this book was peer-reviewed, but I do know that China Study is based on monography and this monography was peer-reviewed.

                “Of course, Dr. Campbell’s only response to them as well was to sneer at their backgrounds as well, without addressing the questions they raised.”

                Wrong. You did not read hsi replies.

                Reply

                1. I am amazed at how this post has created so much turmoil, and it’s still going!!! Seriously, for the sake of your own health, look around – what is the diet like for people who died from cardiovascular and fat liver – and really give it a though trying not to get offended because of your own diet. Calculator your own BMI, see if it is over 24.9 (overweight) or 29.9 (obese), chance is you may be surprised to find yourself being one of the 68.8%. We are in the sickest society of all time and it will be really hard to say over-consumption of animal fat, dairy, and sugar has nothing to do with the situation we are in. If your diet includes a lot of these, you ARE going to get obese, sicker and die prematurely over time, even though you may not have the fattening genes. Watch the HBO documentary “The weight of the nation”. The question should not be what food makes us fat and unhealthy, I think by using common sense alone, we should know what they are, the question should be how we change our way of eating and living and THINKING, before we get hit with a heart attack and realise it’s too late.

                  Reply

  476. Sorry, but the blogger has neither the education nor skills to be taken seriously by anyone except those looking to hear what they want to hear. If you think this is a reliable source of information, if you fall and fracture your spine- see a chiropractor. And to think I must have wasted all those years getting my PhD- ANYBODY can do science! Fred

    Reply

    1. For someone with a PHD your comment hardly makes no sense. And actually anybody can do science, but it’s the rare person that does good science.

      Reply

      1. “For someone with a PHD your comment hardly makes no sense.”
        Meant to say, “…your comment makes no sense.”.

        Reply

    2. Nicely said. Actually Dr. Collin spent 45 years in nutitional research; more than just 8 years to get a PhD. Nineteen of those years funded by our tax dollars by the NIH on protein and cancer. Then the next couple of decades by the American Cancer Society and other Cancer Research organization. It my understand that the blogger is supported by the dairy and meat industry. Common “attack” messages that comes from industries that feels their POCKETBOOK is threatened. The animal exploitation industries enslaved, imprisoned and murder for money, so why would they give a damn about a ‘small, petty’ thing like your health.

      Reply

  477. I agree with “apanz comments”!

    To remain ignorant and oblivious is what our government and corporate america wants us to be…

    As for me, nutrition is everything 🙂

    Right, wrong or indifferent, give it a try for yourself! Stop looking for support and prove it to yourself? I have and it is fantastic!!!

    Here is to great health and happiness!

    Thanks for listening!

    Reply
  478. Pingback: To Bean Or Not To Bean, That Is The Question (Legumes, Lectins, and Human Health) | The Blog of J.D. Moyer
  479. Pingback: She-Groks Only.......... cuz it works different for us - Page 152 | Mark's Daily Apple Health and Fitness Forum page 152

  480. I just have seen from 40’s & 50’s pictures including countries like China, US, Canada, and more. I also have seen pictures from the same countries but no older than 20 years… What I have seen is how people jump into obesity, cancer and diabetes, etc, very quick… Something is wrong. Nobody can deny it. It is not about interpretations… It is a fact.

    Reply

    1. Franko…do you ever read your post before you hit send? You’ve ‘seen’ pictures from two eras. And, from seeing those, you’ve ‘seen’ how people ‘jump’ into obesity, cancer and diabetes. What is it you saw in the photos? Do people, referencing your photos from then and now ‘see’ you jumping into incoherence? As plant based sugars are consumed, obesity, cancer and diabetes increase proportionately. The books supporting that conclusion are widely available now. I suggest you start with books or YouTube presentations by Gary Taubes and go from there.

      Reply

  481. Hey! I could have sworn I’ve been to this site before but after browsing through some of the post I realized it’s new to me.
    Nonetheless, I’m definitely happy I found it and I’ll be bookmarking
    and checking back often!

    Reply

  482. Sorry, but no – how is reading it going to tell me whether Denise’s criticisms are valid or not?

    Question everything.

    Reply
  483. Pingback: “Forks Over Knives”: Is the Science Legit? (A Review and Critique) | Justin Penoyer

  484. I’m doing some research for a recently diagnosed friend and you’ve made my job considerably easier with your detailed and astute analysis. I’m so very grateful!
    Peggy La Cerra

    Reply

    1. Peggy, READ THE BOOK! This is NOT a detailed and astute analysis. It is one person’s opinion. Nothing more and nothing less. As for credentials, Dr. Campbell has them, Denise DOES NOT!

      Reply

      1. Tony: What was the question? Was it “Are there valid questions about Campbell’s use of statistics in his book Forks Over Knives?” or was it “who has the lengthier list of academic credentials?”

        Reply

        1. IMHO one needs to take the information in the book as each piece is just one small part of the big picture. If one compares a society that eats very little animal products (like many of the studied communities in China) with ours the “details” of the study become less important. The heart disease and cancer stats then become irrefutable. The academic credentials of the statisticians only “support” the assumption. I use this word intentionally as “Proof Positive” is impossible to achieve when discussing diet and nutrition. Time is the only element that will prove or disprove their thesis. My money is on Dr. Campbell. If for no other reason than he and his entire family have adopted the principals of The China Study and have excellent health and well-being as a result.

          Reply

          1. And here is the rub, for the argument that society’s that eat little meat has little heart disease and cancer and that not eating meat may be the cause there cannot be a single instance where this does not hold true. There are many society’s that consume large amounts of meat and do not have little cancer and especially little heart disease. This is where Campbell failed.

            Reply

  485. I spent an hour of my Saturday reading through bits and pieces of this blog and posts. I read the China Study and tried the vegan diet for a bit then morphed into mostly veggies and fruit, plenty of nuts, very little refined carbs, a fare amount of seafood, a very occasional bit of duck, pork, beef and the dairy I can’t do without (cream in my coffee once per day and an occasional nibble of cheese). Diet is one main key to health, but one of several. I also try to avoid stress by not getting emotionally charged over issues. Generally, everyone is correct here, it’s a matter of degree and unknowns sprinkled with science deciphering the grains within the tornado of life.

    Reply

  486. Dear Denise,
    Another item that came to mind as I read your article was regarding the “Western” diseases and stomach cancer and your assertion that of the annual deaths due to stomach cancer, 50% of those are in China… It would be interesting to find out about the availability of electricity and refrigeration in the areas with the highest instances of stomach cancer. If that factor is omitted in Campbell’s book, that is a critically damning omission. For example, the highest incidence of stomach cancer of the 10 you chose for your graph was Huguan. If they do not have access, in general to refrigeration, and choose to preserve foods primarily through smoking or pickling, that in and of itself puts them at higher risk for stomach cancer. One study reported over a decade ago (and I’m sorry I do not remember the source as it was so long ago, but it stuck as it related to my grandfather) that with the advent and availability of refrigeration, the instances of stomach cancer (which if I remember correctly was the number one cancer at the turn of the 20th century) went down into single-digits as a percentage type of cancer / cause of death. That is yet another variable that might be at play that has little to do with diet directly, but is important in playing a part in reducing cancer-causing agents in food.
    This is not the original study I saw, but it speaks to the points made above: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/567109/stomach-cancer

    Reply

    1. Excellent, excellent, excellent article. I have passed along to friends as well that were taken in with the documentary Forks over Knives, which has its promising points. I think the China Study is an example of people finding what they want or expect to find, unfortunately.

      Reply
  487. Pingback: Research that vegan diet is best and our ancestors were not big meat eaters - Page 2 | Mark's Daily Apple Health and Fitness Forum page 2

  491. I tend not to comment, however I read a few of
    the comments on The China Study: Fact or Fallacy?
    Raw Food SOS. I do have a few questions for you if you don’t mind. Could it be simply me or do some of these comments come across like they are coming from brain dead visitors? 😛 And, if you are posting on additional social sites, I’d like to keep
    up with everything new you have to post. Could you make a list
    of every one of your social community pages like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?

    Reply

    1. I LOVE IT! You hit the nail on the head. Some people don’t have a life and they insist on bringing the happy people down with their total BS. I’ll bet you don’t get many replies. Also, I’ll bet the jerks have moved on to other time wasters. Bravo!

      Reply

  492. I constantly emailed this website post page to all my associates, as if like
    to read it afterward my links will too.

    Reply

  493. Good article! I learned about the China Study through the documentary “Forks over Knives”. It was pretty evident in that film that Campbell had some sort of bias against meat, which in turn discredited his research on casein. I read your article because I wanted a skeptical (or open minded) perspective on his research, but mainly for the link to casein and cancer.
    His research on cancer and casein is concerning even if it was only studied on one type of cancer using isolated casein.
    I was lead to this study and documentary due to a recent analysis of my diet revealing possible iron deficiencies. At the time most of my protein came from milk and white chicken. I had other factors such as being a coffee addict and a runner going against my iron stores as well, so I was looking for more iron rich sources of protein like red meat.
    I am still learning to tweak my diet. My goal is to eat more for energy, I see that is your goal, not to eat to feel good, but to feel “awesome”! You now have a new fan!

    Reply

  494. My parents just read the China Study and they believe it is truth soon. (Especially we are Chinese.) I find it very difficult to argue with them and so I searched Internet and found your blog. Could you give me some simply suggestion on how to persuade them not to believe such ridiculous ideas? Thanks.

    Reply

    1. Shawn – Denise (I am not she) is writing a book to be published next year. My hope is that the book gets read and reviewed by some people with the credentials she lacks, and that serious discussion of Dr. Campbell’s conclusions by “real” researchers can get started as a result.

      I believe the questions Denise has raised are serious ones that deserve serious answers, but personally I have had no success in persuading people who think only people with PhDs in the field can even point out flaws in logic. Denise simply cannot take on Dr. Campbell by herself – she needs to raise enough interest in the subject among people with the backgrounds to be taken seriously. I mean that as no poor reflection on her; I think she’s an amazingly smart woman and I’m incredibly impressed with her work and her willingness to take this on.

      Reply

  496. Hi there very cool blog!! Man .. Beautiful .. Wonderful .. I’ll bookmark your site and take the feeds additionally?I am satisfied to seek out numerous useful info right here in the publish, we want work out more techniques in this regard, thank you for sharing. . . . . .

    Reply
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  498. I would like Nate Silver to look at this data. I am not biased either way but I do not think he will use Excel.

    Reply
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  500. Hi, still reading the blog but would like some clarification about your conversion of p values to whole numbers.
    To convert p<0.01 to a whole number by 100 as you have done comes to 1. So what does a correlation of 18 or 32 mean; p 0.18 or 0.32? Neither would be significant so what do you mean that a correlation is strongly positive or negative at 29 or 41? Surely the most reliable result should be 0.1 (p<0.001).
    I am interested as a close friend is living life per the China Study & I have told her she is overlooking flaws but I want to sure before I pass on your blog details to her.

    Reply
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  506. I seldom leave a response, however i did some searching
    and wound up here The China Study: Fact or Fallacy? Raw Food SOS.
    And I actually do have 2 questions for you if you don’t mind. Could it be only me or does it look as if like some of the remarks look like coming from brain dead visitors? 😛 And, if you are posting on other online social sites, I would like to keep up with everything new you have to post. Would you make a list of all of your social pages like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?

    Reply

  507. I didn’t read all the comments here, and I must admit that I didn’t read the China Study, and I didn’t even read all of Denice’s writings on this book ..I just got the impression that the casein study is the main argument against meat, and I just want to say that as far as I know dairy has the highest amount of casein, and that cheese is mostly casein …so my conclusion is that cheese cause cancer 😛 …cheese is popular among lots of people, and I wonder if anyone made a research on people who eat the highest amount of cheese ..do they have more cancer? …..anyway, I decided to quit cheese mostly for that reason (and because it seem like near undigestable rubber to me, except the fat..) ……I consume whey protein powder instead, so i’m still indirectly consuming “milk” (if I could buy liquid whey in the shops, I would do that ..or better; get raw/unpasteurized whey directly from a farmer)

    (sorry for my bad english, and “retarded” skills at expressing myself) :p

    Reply

  508. Hello! I could have sworn I’ve been to this website before but after browsing through a few of the articles I realized it’s new to me.
    Regardless, I’m definitely pleased I came across it and I’ll be bookmarking it and checking back often!

    Reply
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  512. Consider this:
    TCC writes in the original TCP monograph on some issues concerning the use and misuse of univariate correlations:

    …both for univariate correlations and, still more so, for multivariate correlations, large numbers of false negative [meaning we may not see a correlation when there is in fact a relationship] and false positive [we observe a correlation when in fact no relationship exists] results must be expected. Particular correlations cannot, therefore, be considered in
    isolation from other evidence from other sources as to which are likely to be artifacts of chance or of confounding. The major task is to determine which of the very large number of statistically significant associations results from the play of chance and which are biologically plausible…
    [TCC, TCP monograph 1990]

    In other words even statistically significant correlations in this database are not necessarily meaningful, thus they cannot all be treated equally at face value. Yet this is exactly what Minger does throughout most of her analysis: systematically examining each univariate correlation she cites between animal foods and chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease as if none could be the product of chance. Univariate correlations are not inherently misleading nor is their usage always inappropriate but they must be considered carefully wherever used.

    Ignoring this warning she goes on to interpret what these correlations appear to show. In her analysis of meat and disease for instance she makes statements like “meat actually seems protective of heart attacks and coronary disease—at least based on the China Project data set”[*] without considering whether the range and minimum values of relevant variables like total cholesterol, meat intake, and heat disease mortality are adequate to make this sort of statement. Nor in this case does she attempt to establish the biological plausibility of this claim. Certainly Esselstyn’s and Ornish’s ground-breaking studies on the treatment of heart disease with diet for instance suggest quite the opposite.
    Quote: http://www.30bananasaday.com/forum/topics/has-denise-minger-read-the?commentId=2684079%3AComment%3A726167

    Reply

    1. Here’s the problem.

      You’re right that most of us following this blog don’t have the ability to analyze the data ourselves. I’ll buy that Denise doesn’t either. But that also means that we can’t judge Forks Over Knives or the China Study. That doesn’t stop lots of people from taking it as gospel.

      When and if anyone has proven to the satisfaction of the scientific community that eating animal products is unhealthy, I expect to see on the front page of the NY Times. It would be that significant. But it isn’t there. In fact it basically isn’t anywhere except on a bunch of vegan blogs and forums. No one seems to be taking it seriously except for food faddists. And I’ve certainly seen quotes from Dr. Campbell himself that would suggest he is more of a ideologue that an objective observer.

      Like many others I imagine, I found this site while looking for credible sources that would confirm Dr. Campbell’s claims. If what he says is solid, those sources should be there. I check from time to time. Until then, despite his credentials he is just one more guy who wrote a hyperbolic mass-market book proclaiming the secrets to good health. There are thousands of them.

      Reply

      1. While it may be difficult to analyze the mathematics I think it is much easier to detect fraud and dishonesty. Bias is easily identified. I will stay with Denise Minger.

        Reply
  513. Pingback: The Vegan Argument Part II: Health « coach jeremy ross

  514. Consider this: “For the monograph, we were somewhat uncertain whether to publish such raw data but decided to do so for two principle reasons. First, we wanted to make these data available to other researchers, while hoping that data misuse would not be a significant problem. Second, because these data were collected in rural China at a time when data reliability might have been questioned, we chose to be as transparent as possible. We discussed data use and misuse on pp. 54-82 of the China Project monograph that curiously was overlooked by Masterjohn and Jay’Y’.

    In brief, while fully understanding the pitfalls, the purpose of interpreting data of this kind is to extract from these crude correlations their true correlation counterparts, then interpret these counterparts within the context of information derived from other sources. In making these adjustments and interpretations, we want to consider, for example, 1) whether there is a sufficiently broad range of exposure for each of the variables comprising the associations (e.g., a true association of breast cancer with dietary fat consumption can only be detected if there is a sufficient range—above zero—for each of these variables), 2) whether there are confounding factors (e.g., high fat consumption might reflect high animal protein consumption, low dietary fiber consumption or even ownership of TVS), 3) whether the associations are biologically plausible (e.g., being consistent with existing clinical information, especially within this clinical project) and 4) whether these associations collectively reflect a consistent dietary pattern, among other considerations. In addition to these individual associations, we also had opportunities to evaluate aggregate associations, keeping the same caveats and considerations in mind.

    These critics, who are mischievously posing as qualified scientists, have committed errors that expose either their ignorance of basic research principles and/or their passionate following of an unstated agenda. By superficially citing uncorrected crude correlations from the China Project monograph, they show a serious lack of understanding not only of the fundamentals of scientific research but also of the principles of statistics, epidemiology and nutrition. To make matters worse, they have selected correlations that reflect an alternative agenda or bias that has nothing to do with objective science.”
    http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/campbell_china_response.htm#storyContinued

    Reply

    1. Your post is extremely dangerous. I had to hold on to my sides to prevent spilling my guts onto the floor from laughter. Wow, thanks but I need a nap now.

      Reply

  515. I have received too many comments on this post via email, a bit overwhelming, I am amazed by the level of interest in Denise’ post on both sides. Its really the clash of our value systems, one that’s engraved into the brains of the majority, believing scientists holding the ultimate truth, and just because it’s the norm, that everyone should follow and acknowledge; the other one that has broken out of that brainwashing framework and chosen to take on a more difficult journey to question the norm. I as well, was brought up in a meat eating culture, lots of it, and have turned ovo-vegetarian for many reasons for a year now, honestly I have always been healthy and haven’t noticed that my health has deteriorated or improved significantly, guess I have to give it time. My twin toddlers are 2.5 years old now, and their diet is very balanced (I believe so anyway:) and they’ve always been in the 90% on the weight chart and super healthy, they are still being breast-fed. One thing we noticed though, we feel better about the transition, and our lifestyle overall and we believe meat and dairy are not absolute necessities to maintain our health, by taking natural supplements it seems to be sufficient. At the end of the day, we don’t know who’s right, who’s wrong, and we will, eventually, be held responsible for our choices in life. It’s been a very inspiring journey, and along the way, we discovered that “scientists” can make a lot of mistakes, and they can be very much influenced by many people, sometimes we just have to follow our hearts even after exhausting all the research out there. And it’s wonderful that we are at peace with our decision becoming vegetarians, and that’s the beauty of living. Good luck everyone with your journey seeking answers for yourselves. I am going to unsubscribe from now on.

    Reply

    1. Dr Campbell’s statement in that “rebuttal” complaining of “B. The use of ‘raw’ univariate correlations.” is an unabashed intentional lie, and pretty much discredits him as a human to me.

      P.S. I actually have a lot of sympathy for veganism. I am not a shill. But this ENTIRE article is an indictment of Dr. Campbell’s well documentable univariate correlations.

      (Green vegetable days eaten vs disease prevalence, meat intake vs colon cancer, etc.)

      Blatantly lying to try to misappropriate your own faults on those who shed light on them is the oldest political smear tactic on the books. The fact that Dr. Campbell stooped to that level is repugnant.

      Reply

  517. Maurizio

    Hello,
    Think of this: how long can a man stay without solid food? 40-60 days; from liquid food 4-8 days; from air 2-4 minutes and from impressions? zero seconds.
    It is obvious that the more the “food” is subtle the more important it is.
    So the China Study is a good thing, at least better than most nutrition studies I’ve ever read, but, there are other foods that have a greater impact on hour life.
    A person can eat the best and healthiest food in the world, drink the purest water and even breathe the cleanest air but, if you live a nervous and narrowed mind life… Stress, self centred and separated ways, negative thinking, well…

    What can I say – let’s have good food, good water, healthier air but, most of all, good impressions.

    ciao

    Reply

  519. Thank you so much for your thoughtful analysis. I, too, was critical of The China Study and your dedication to elucidate the realities behind some of the vague and fallacious claims is much appreciated. What an immaculate critical analysis.

    Reply

  520. I’m not sure why you are bashing The China Study – if you truly don’t believe it or are trying to gain notice. But that fact that your analysis is not sound does a great disrespect for people with serious medical issues that could benefit from the findings of the book. For anyone reading this – The China Study is NOT based on one researcher and one study – it is based on research that has been conducted all over the world for decades by many researchers (not just the research conducted by the author Dr. Campbell).

    Reply

    1. “I’m not sure why you are bashing The China Study –…” If you don’t know why then you did not read her blog.
      Sometimes I think that the lack of animal protein in a persons diet makes them stupid.

      Reply
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  522. People are always going to argue one side or the other. Here’s my view, do what works. Here’s what I know, after being “healthy” athlete my whole life (world class martial arts, wrestling) eating low fat this and high protein that, etc etc… I found myself at 200lbs, 6% body fat and skyrocketing cholesterol (>400). So I changed my diet, the change only involved removing TWO things: animal products AND grains. In 60 days my cholesterol went from 427 to 190. I didn’t alter anything else, never use caffeine or alcohol, just altered the foods. Two years later, I’m going strong and feeling terrific. Do I like steak? Better believe it, but I like the fact that I’m not going to die of a heart attack more. Whether vegan or ketogenic, the proof is in the bottom line results… Either the client’s disease state is improved or even better reversed, or it’s not. If ketogenic diet delivers on that, awesome. If vegan diet delivers, awesome. I know from my own results that plant based diets DO improve health. How do they work to improve health? I have no f’ing clue as to how it happens. I have my opinions, which are just that, my own thoughts. Consider this: If the antidote to a lethal poison works 100% of the time, do you really give a rats ass how the antidote works biochemically? Would you opt not to take the antidote pending outcome of testing that determines exactly how the antidote saves your life? I would agree with those who find flaw in Dr Campbell’s and Dr Esselstyn’s proclamations from a purely scientific view. However, what we DO KNOW is that both of these men help lots of people reverse the course of diseases that have been tearing them up by implementing plant based nutrition programs.
    Does a ketogenic diet cause people to lose weight, more important body fat? Yup, guaranteed. Works everytime. BUT, at what cost? Is it really a good idea to load up on saturated fat and cholesterol?
    I did a ketogenic diet after getting my cholesterol down to 190, made the full shift to ketosis after 5 days, stayed that way for 60 days… My cholesterol went back up to 350 in that time. I was already lean, but got even leaner during the 60 days of ketosis… was freakishly ripped. So, I walked around the gym looking awesome, but dying inside.
    My suggestion to anyone who’s looking to improve their health? Be your own guinea pig. Set it up, try it on yourself. Establish baselines ahead of time so you can track your results. Again, regardless of HOW something works, the proof is in the results. Did the diet actually succeed at making you healthy on the inside?
    Food for thought.

    Reply

    1. People’s individual experiences are beside the point here. There are a gazillion other places for people to exchange ideas about their diets and habits and their personal beliefs about nutrition. This site is about examining the scientific evidence critically, and the topic here is whether Dr. Campbell’s conclusions in the China Study and Forks Over Knives are supported by the data.

      If you’re not interested in the answer, that’s your prerogative, but you’re taking things off-topic, as so many others have done.

      Reply

      1. Denise, I agree that one individual’s experience is insignificant to statistical analysis; however, I’m interested in the “individual experiences” of thousands of people who report they have improved their health by changing their diets.

        I have to agree with UglyFitness that the proof is in the results, especially in the results of real world people who change their diets from eating at McDonalds to eating a plant-based diet.

        This isn’t about personal beliefs about nutrition and I couldn’t care less about the humane, environmental or other reasons to follow a vegetarian diet. UglyFitness reported that he changed a variable in his diet and saw a change in his cholesterol levels. I don’t consider this post as being off-topic since it speaks to the heart of this matter.

        Reply

      1. Exactly! I realize science can explain quite a bit, but my gosh just strip down the layers and start fresh. Figure out what works and roll with it. A good starting point is nothing but fresh fruits and veggies, seeds, nuts and lots of water.

        Reply

        1. You said you gave up animal products and grains and your cholesterol went down and now you recommend seeds. Grain is grass seeds. What seeds are you recommending? Peach seed or apple seed? Also when my cholesterol is high just giving up grains puts it immediately back to what’s normal although I am a cholesterol skeptic.
          I am 69 years old and never had a weight problem until I approached 40 years old. Nutrition advice from young people who use personal experience is useless. I eat no fruit (poor nutrition) and few vegetables (only used for flavoring) but lots of fat and protein. My weight is stable and I am in very good health.

          Reply

    3. Uglyfitness, your logic is awesome, thanks. The proof is in the results, we try it and test ourselves.

      Reply

    4. “I found myself at 200lbs, 6% body fat and skyrocketing cholesterol (>400). ”
      So what?…as a cholesterol skeptic I don’t see a problem. Also, I would be more concerned with your tryglicerides.
      I searched for a blog that the person’s cholesterol was also over 400 but he was not concerned when the total physical exam showed no adverse effects to the heart or circulation. Can’t find the blog.

      Reply

  523. The best evidence is measuring cancer and cardiovascular disease in countries that do and do not have high animal protein consumption.This has been studied by the World Health Organization for several decades that demonstrated a high correlation to high animal protein intake and cancer.
    Mike RD,LD,CDE

    Reply
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  530. Great job. It should also be mentioned that the studies considered the weakest in science are epidemiology. Denise points out some of the reasons for this.

    Interesting note: T. Cohn Campbell was also involved in a study that showed that wheat consumption in Northern China raised insulin resistance where rice consumption in Southern China did not. It’s dated 1996. It also used an intermediate value (Sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG)) to determine an outcome (insulin resistance).

    This study indicts wheat as a causitive agent in type II diabetes. It also seems that Campbell has made some of the same errors in this study as in The China Study.

    Association of dietary factors and selected plasma
    variables with sex hormone-binding globulin in rural
    Chinese women
    Jeffrey R Gates, Banoo Parpia, T Cohn Campbell, and Chen Junshi
    Am J Clin Nutr l996;63:22-3l.

    Reply
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  533. Some people turn to higher-protein diets to lose weight. That’s because some researchers suggest that higher-protein diets help people better control their appetites and calorie intake.Diets with 30% protein are now being considered “reasonable” and the term “high protein diet” is now reserved for diets with over 50% protein..

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  543. Denise, I’m impressed at the level of analysis that you’ve done but what stands out for me is that your conclusions seem driven by an expected one to one correlation between one factor and a particular result. I seem to remember that Dr. Campbell points out the danger of these types of univariate analysis of the data and the contradictory conclusions that can be drawn from them. It seems to me that it would help by actually having an understanding of how disease develops from a cellular level in order to better interpret the data. Because for example, you can have two persons who eat the same things, work in the same environment, live in the same neighbourhood, etc but as their bodies use up the various buffers that exist to try and keep them alive, once the buffers are used up and the toxins are dumped back into their blood, WILL MANIFEST TWO DIFFERENT DISEASES!!! At the same time, this chain is started by the dietary choices made by both persons. If you want to learn more about this may I recommend you read Gary Tunsky, and understand his unified theory of disease. All the best!

    Reply
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  546. I’m an alternative health copywriter for the health industry, and as a salesperson for these health companies, I like to keep the shit simple so potential customers can understand it.

    I also like to throw in some common sense. You know–the kind of common sense that tells you not to piss against the wind.

    One of my clients gave me the link to doll face Denise’s comments on this China Study.

    I have to tell ya, I don’t want to read through all that stuff, including the Amazon reviews and other articles.

    I also don’t want to read the book.

    I don;t need to read his book. Jesus–I get it:

    Eating meat is bad.
    Eating vegetables is good.

    I don’t need to hear the endless blah blah blah in between.

    Reading all this stuff from Campbell, or whoever the hell this guy is, and the positive and negative comments about his work gives me a headache.

    I’m a meat eater, damn it. I have even been known to camp out in front of rib joints. If you try to take my moo moo meat away from me, I’ll cut off your fucking hands with my now-rusty Swiss army pocket knife.

    However…

    however…

    I have enough common sense God gave a billy goat to realize that it’s the sugar, stress, pollutants, bad oils in our foods that is bending us over. Which, of course, that cutie Denise pointed out.

    Anybody with a thimble-full of common sense will know that.

    Cut out all the bullshit and just use common sense:

    Write out all the nutrients your body needs (every human body is different, so write out what YOU require). Then find the foods you like that that adds up to what your body needs.

    Use this http://nutritiondata.self.com/

    People who eat clean, not fucked-up meat is healthy.

    There are PLENTY of meat-eating people older than dirt who can still kick a vegan’s ass.

    And, eating a vegan meal without the meat and eggs can also be just as healthy. As long as they get enough of the right nutrients…

    which is possible to do without the meat and eggs.

    Both vegans and meat eaters can be healthy–as long as they fucking do it right.

    Oh, and by the way, eating unhealthy meals once in a while isn’t “evil” for many folks, either.

    It’s when you over do it, and you don’t compensate with more healthy foods that’ll put your sad ass six feet under.

    Look–just enjoy life. Laugh more. Be more active. (Think Betty White.) Get more sex. Eat the bad foods ( chocolate eclairs, a greasy burger and fries…) every now and then if it puts a smile on your face. And make sure most of what you eat is healthy to compensate.

    What is this–fucking rocket science?

    And if you don’t like what I have said–well, you can kiss my ass.

    Yours, sincerely (and I do mean that),

    Perry Rose

    Reply

  547. I’m sick of people who are NOT scientists thinking that they even know enough to criticize or analyze scientific research, WHETHER OR NOT IT’S TRUE. I’m also sick of people citing this as their only source against the China Study.

    You wouldn’t come up with an opinion about the effect of Raleigh-Taylor Instability in an experimental fusion reactor, so why would you talk about massive statistical studies with massive amounts of data without even having one of the easier science majors? What’s your highest level of math? Entry level statistics? Calc 1? College algebra? Go back to school before writing a critique that is more like what it is: a “research” paper that would have gotten a good grade in an English class. The highest level of math you’ve taken is probably a joke. Calc 1, calc 2, they’re easy. Same with diff eq. and vector. They’re not hard. Statistics might look simple to a layperson such as yourself, but, doing real statistical analysis isn’t “oh, look at me I can plug numbers into Excel, aren’t I good at math?”

    The bottom line is all you’re going to get by being an English major is being an English major who spent a long time doing research who has no credibility. This is a blog, not a peer-reviewed study. Peer-reviewed means other researchers had a look at it to make sure it’s legitimate, so, no, you’re not just taking his word on it.

    The actual study is hugely complex and was undertaken by multiple people with scientific backgrounds over the course of years. You spent a month and a half barely scratching the surface from a biased point of view.

    Am I a highly skeptical person? Yes. Do I believe everything Colin T. Campbell says? Certainly not!

    Does your “research” raise any red flags for me? Certainly not! Especially since no one with a research background has actually gone forth to take a second look and came up with the same thing, despite the fact that this has gotten so much attention.

    I could write so much more about what is wrong (like the fact that you cherry picked 10 towns that show the opposite effect, even though data outliers are common), but, sadly, the longer the text, the fewer readers you get.

    No matter how long you spend researching, if you lack fundamental knowledge of statistics, you’re just failing. I could spend 1.5 months on a digital painting and it wouldn’t be as good what someone who is trained could put together in an hour or two, and I’m better at art than most people.

    Go get training, and then see if you can get published in a medical journal. Until then, stop misleading people. Your message should, at best, be one of “why you can’t believe everything you read,” not “I spent a couple months researching this, so I’m obviously right and this one guy from Cornell is wrong.”

    Oh, and if you were ugly, no one would even read this crap.

    Reply

    1. Math???

      Experimental fusion reactor???

      lol wholly crap.

      Alex, son–what in the hell are you talking about?

      Instead of throwing out such words to try to make yourself look intelligent, what you should have done is to show where she got it wrong and why.

      I’m afraid all you did was to make yourself look dumb.

      Um, it doesn’t take a scientist, or whatever, to look at a glass of water and say, “Water is wet.”

      And it’s not just her who is noticing these–obvious–mistakes, Campbell made, along with the endless stupid statements he made.

      Hell, him just saying that red meat and fat is bad was enough for me to know his brain went out for lunch and never came back.

      The Inuit, with their meat and blubber diet are doing just fine.

      The Indians–way back when–were doing just fine.

      Well, until the white man came along.

      My neighbor, all 92 years of her, who eats a lot of the wrong foods anyway, is doing just fine.

      Oh, and do I really have to mention Betty White???

      It doesn’t take some college degree or a team of scientists to know this, Gomer.

      Reply

  548. Thank you for this. I’m tired of researchers and vegans/vegetarians shoving books like this in our faces and saying that meat MUST be bad for you. People who say that generally have not even cracked open a study to read for themselves and are relying on agenda-setting web sites or documentaries to get their information. I hope more people read into the actual studies before deciding to preach about a particular food lifestyle. Honestly, I don’t care what you eat. Do whatever you want. But don’t sit there and criticize me for what I eat by saying “well so-and-so said this!” You should find out what foods work for your body. I have a high metabolism and frankly, I would have to eat so much more food just keep my body in check if I were to become vegan.

    Reply

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  556. Interesting critique. I’m physicist and engineer who deals with statistics every day at work. What’s missing and probably not recoverable from all the analysis is the variables we don’t know about. For example, how were the vegtables fixed in the regions that had high cancer rates and low protien consumption? By way of disclaimer, I am not a vegan, but my father is on a small amount of fish and lots of vegetables kind of diet, primarily because he has disease called Muliple Myeloma. The Mayo clinic gave him 11 months to live after receiving his treatment. He radically changed his diet, now eating only small amounts of fish, no dairy, vegetables (raw, boiled, or roasted), and some potatoes, wheat, rice, or oats. That was 6 years ago. His disease is under control with weekly Chemo that began about 2 years ago. There is no indication that he is going to die any time soon. He is way outside the survival stats for his form of myeloma. Did the diet do it? I don’t know. But I can’t believe it isn’t a factor.

    Reply
  557. Pingback: Now, About Those Sources… | Jan's Sushi Bar

  558. Hello to all, how is all, I think every one is getting more from this website, and
    your views are pleasant in favor of new people.

    Reply
  559. Pingback: Paleo Diet News: Red Meat Increases Risk of Death! Really? - Paleo Diet, recipes, articles, news, videos | Paleo Diet, recipes, articles, news, videos
  560. Pingback: Death by Bacon? A Rebuttal…
  561. Pingback: (2005) The China Study | katerbow.de
  562. Pingback: Steve Jobs: Vegans and Pancreatic Cancer | Already Living
  563. Pingback: The Curious Case of Campbell’s Rats — Does Protein Deficiency Prevent Cancer? | Mother Nature Obeyed - Weston A Price Foundation
  564. Pingback: Denise Minger’s Refutation of Campbell’s “China Study” Generates Continued Debate | Mother Nature Obeyed - Weston A Price Foundation
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  566. Pingback: Why is Nutrition So Confusing?

  567. Only the internet could produce a blog entry such as this sounding like, and thus passing as science. The conversation is not a bad thing at all. But the author needs to grow up and use fewer cutsey words, or else just write for Tiger Beat rag for teens.

    Reply

  569. I know I’m not qualified to compare the medical data and draw my own conclusions. I spend a lot of time reading, listening to or watching particular gurus online, and every time I think I’ve finally discovered “the” answer, I am more confused than ever.

    Let’s just say my diet has been adjusted all over the place, and I am so confused about what I should be doing for my health (though I am leaning toward eliminating animal products from my life permanently)

    Over the past three months, I’ve transitioned from a high protein meat-based diet to vegetarianism to now trying to live entirely without animal products (sampling veganism, I suppose, though I haven’t yet “joined the club”). I have to admit, I’m stumbling occasionally on the cheese. And I miss eggs now and again. But overall finding this new way of eating to be satisfying and doable most of the time (but quite tough when eating out or socializing!)

    Now for my confusion: I’m hearing strong evidence in support of eating animal products, and warned of dietary disaster if I don’t consume them, particularly for building muscle, my brain health and especially my hormones ([post-menopausal, nearing age 50). On the other hand, Dr. Fuhrman, Forks over Knives, the China Study…warning against the consumption of animal products and promoting the plant-based diet…

    I remain confused…and erring on the side of vegetarianism for three months now….

    Reply
  570. Pingback: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss & Health - The China Study, Part 2 - Greens Plus Blog
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  572. Do you mind if I quote a couple of your posts as long as I provide credit and sources back
    to your blog? My website is in the very same niche as yours and my visitors
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    Reply
  573. Pingback: The China Study Myth | Weston A Price
  574. Pingback: Presentació de la Denise Minger al AHS12: Coneix la carn que menges! | Diari de l'Albert

  575. Denise, that was a very informative and enlightening post. I took a brief look at Campbell’s “rebuttal” but to judge from the little of it that I read, he seems to be rather a repellant and dismissive individual, who seems to be chiefly interested in pushing an agenda.

    One piece of advice I must give you, however. You need to moderate your comments section. The amount of useless, vicious and insulting, and ignorant comments makes it worse than valueless.

    Reply

    1. Allowing negative comments makes Denise a better person than those that post the comments. It’s a matter of record and I like to know her enemies.

      Reply

  576. Oh I see that you *do* moderate your comments section. You need to more discriminating. Most of the comments on this thread could have been deleted and the thread would have been better off for it.

    Reply

    1. Thanks for your comments, Faraday!

      I just turned moderation on a couple days ago because spam was getting out of control. First-time posters have to pass through moderation, but other comments are published immediately. I agree a lot of the comment sections here have devolved into something quite meaningless — I regret not having more time for blog upkeep. That will be changing soon. 🙂

      Reply
  577. Pingback: A Nutrition Lesson from PETA » Choosing Life - God's Gift To The Unborn

  578. The complete absence of serious statistical methodology in the Campbell book suggests that Campbell dad and junior simple do not know any statistical methodology beyond the Pearson correlation

    Reply
  579. Pingback: STEVEN PLAUT: PETA’S “NUTRITIONISTS” | RUTHFULLY YOURS

  580. With regard to the impact of milk consumption as a whole product on the incidence of cancer as opposed to the effects of its isolated constituents, the results of a major 28 year follow up study including 21,660 participants was just released in The Journal of Nutrition in February of 2013.

    Title: “Whole milk intake is associated with prostate cancer-specific mortality among U.S. male physicians.”

    “Previous studies have associated higher milk intake with greater prostate cancer (PCa) incidence, but little data are available concerning milk types and the relation between milk intake and risk of fatal PCa. We investigated the association between intake of dairy products and the incidence and survival of PCa during a 28-y follow-up. … The intake of total dairy products was associated with increased PCa incidence … Skim/low-fat milk intake was positively associated with risk of low-grade, early stage, and screen-detected cancers, whereas whole milk intake was associated only with fatal PCa … whole milk was consistently associated with higher incidence of fatal PCa in the entire cohort and higher PCa-specific mortality among cases. These findings add further evidence to suggest the potential role of dairy products in the development and prognosis of PCa.”

    Abstract can be read here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23256145

    Reply

    1. As an addendum to the previous comment, the results of an experiment published in 2007 in the peer reviewed journal “Cancer Detection and Prevention,” are particularly pertinent. It was an animal model study using rats exposed to a carcinogen, as in Dr. Campbell’s casein rat experiments, but instead of testing casein they used whole milk, artificial whole milk, non-fat milk, or artificial non-fat milk.

      “CONCLUSION:

      Combining our previous studies, we found the consumption of milk promoted the development of DMBA-induced mammary tumors in rats independent of the fat level.”

      Reply
  581. Pingback: Back with a Bang | The Primal Rabbit
  582. Pingback: Top 5 Reasons Why Vegan Diets Are a Terrible Idea
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  587. Pingback: Five reasons vegan diets are terrible |
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  589. this article is nice, but written by a non scientist after a brief research…it cannot dismiss something like the china study in this way…it lasted for 27 years carried on by people with a huge scientific background belinging to reputable institutions….so if I have to choose who is to believe, I have no doubt…this is and remains a blog article, not a scientific research, and if you are so sure about the conclusion, you can debate and have your article published as scientific research….cheers

    Reply

  590. and by the way, I am a meat eater but if we are talking about the sustainability of our food production system (globally) be prepared because in the future we will be lots and lots more vegetarians….meat costs too much in terms of resources

    Reply

    1. What is not sustainable is agriculture without ruminant animal grazing. Agriculture alone results in desertification of land. Observe areas where animal grazing was removed.

      Reply

      1. Max is nuts. We have no way of knowing if the population will continue to grow. Many industrialized countries all ready have a negative population growth. Common sense tells us 90% of our natural resources are squandered by the rich. Sure Monsanto could save money by feeding humans their GMO corn and soy directly without the cows and chickens but that wouldn’t benefit us any. We’d be lucky to make it to age 18. Most cows live less than 2 years on this stuff.

        Reply
  591. Pingback: Why Vegan Diets Are A Terrible Idea

  592. Just take a look at HOW MANY HEALTHY people there are thanks to following Dr. Campbell, Dr. Esisten, Dr. Chen and Dr. McDougall’s recommendations of A HEALTHY PLANT-BASED Diet! They have cured hundreds if not thousands of people already using this best medicine! Nutrition! PEOPLE ARE THE PROOF. IF YOU BECOME VEGAN AND ARE COMPLETELY HEALTHY ALL THE TIME OFF MEDS! Then this research proves to be STATISTICALLY TRUE>!!!
    Get off meat people! Live longer!

    Reply

      1. Clara is nuts. There is nothing inherently healthy about a vegan diet. Even Gerson therapy isn’t completely vegan. You can achieve the same results with a 100% animal based diet If necessary.

        Reply
  593. Pingback: How to Eat a Healthy Diet

  594. To start, ill introduce myself I suppose (I’ve never commented on a blog before.) I’m 21 years old and have no more than a highschool education. I had been notified about 6 months ago that I have cell changes on my cervix due to an HPV infection and ever since, I’ve been on a quest to find the best way to avoid cancer. In other words, I’m freaking out. I have not read the china study, but I just picked up “Whole”, I believe it is the follow up to the China Study. And being like most undereducated people, I took the bait. After reading this, I’m more confused than ever. So I guess what I want to say is, instead of everybody writing comments on how they’re more educated than the other person or arguing for no reason, can somebody please just interpret the data for me in a clear cut, definitive way, so I can decide how to eat? Or maybe there isn’t a way to do this because there are so many different egos in this place but I just want advice. And please don’t tell me to ask my doctor because if there is one thing I do whole heartedly believe, it’s that the healthcare system in the country is all about money and I’m quite tired of lining the pockets of people who don’t give a damn about me. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
    -Melissa

    Reply

    1. The best nutrition advice anywhere is the Jaminet’s book, Perfect Health Diet.

      To help prevent cancer, in addition to their nutrition advice, take 100mg/day of ubiquinol, the reduced form of CoQ10.

      Reply

    2. Melissa –

      Watch and rewatch this:

      The facts are presented succinct and clear.

      Then go search out . . .
      https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hydrogen%20peroxide%20vs.%20cancer

      This details a safe, effective natural system of eliminating malignant cells:
      http://www.cancertutor.com/hydrogenperoxide/

      Next, read “Cancer: Step Outside the Box.”

      Ty was motivated to find actual methods to reverse malignant cells instead of the pharmaceutical toxic wastes M.D.s are forced by Big Pharma to treat people with, after losing his grandparents and parents to the lethal treatments M.D.s used, NOT the disease.

      Another excellent source of very effective reversal of malignant cell growth is found in Dr. Budwig’s records. Her very well published success is heavily suppressed by Big Pharma, but her system is very effective.

      http://www.budwigcenter.com/johanna-budwig-biography.php

      The main thing to keep in mind is that ALL pathogens are live organisms that cannot live with free oxygen intake to their core center of metabolism. Free oxygen in the blood is used by the immune system to kill and eliminate pathogens, and all effective treatments are based on flooding malignant cells with free oxygen.

      Simple.

      I was being literally choked by a fast-growing lump in my throat five years ago, and like you was absolutely NOT going to ANY M.D. when I frantically searched for weeks to see if any natural treatment was even suggested. I found many, and Ty Bolinger’s book was so helpful.

      Not a trace of that malignant growth ever returned,. But I then discovered that my soaking my mouth with hydrogen peroxide had an even better effect – I did not have even a sore throat during flu season!

      Plus, there was not a trace of any other disease in my body, and my teeth and gums were completely free of all tooth decay, gum disorders, and my breath stayed fresh and nice.

      Needless to say, I still soak my mouth in H2O2 and have had no sore throats, mouth or teeth issues, and no disease of any kind for five years.

      Maybe this will help you, too.

      Reply

      1. Hydrogen peroxide is not a magical cure-all, and it does not cure cancer. It IS antibacterial (though it also sometimes kills “good” bacteria, as well).
        The claim that all doctors & biologists in the world are in the pocket of “Big Pharma” (even those in countries where there is little to no industrialized pharmaceutical influence) is conspiracy-theory territory. Moreso when you pair it with unverified claims that household products can cure even the most complex & fatal of diseases.

        If H2O2 were proven to do any or all of those things, it would be marketed as widely as aspirin, and would cost 10-100x what it does now.

        Reply

            1. “In a 2009 paper published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, Karen Starko proposed that aspirin poisoning had contributed substantially to the fatalities. She based this on the reported symptoms in those dying from the flu, as reported in the post mortem reports still available, and also the timing of the big “death spike” in October 1918 which happened right after the Surgeon General of the United States Army, and the Journal of the American Medical Association both recommended very large (by today’s standards) dosages of aspirin.[66] Further, Starko suggests that the wave of aspirin poisonings was due to a “perfect storm” of events: Bayer’s patent on aspirin expired, so that many companies rushed in to make a profit and greatly increased the supply; this coincided with the flu pandemic; and the symptoms of aspirin poisoning were not known at the time.”

              http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002132346.htm

              http://beforeitsnews.com/eu/2013/05/1918-flu-wasnt-flu-at-all-aspirin-killed-millions-2521188.html

              Reply

            2. “Aspirin packages were produced containing no warnings about toxicity and few instructions about use. In the fall of 1918, facing a widespread deadly disease with no known cure, the surgeon general and the United States Navy recommended aspirin as a symptomatic treatment, and the military bought large quantities of the drug.
               
              The Journal of the American Medical Association suggested a dose of 1,000 milligrams every three hours, the equivalent of almost 25 standard 325-milligram aspirin tablets in 24 hours. This is about twice the daily dosage generally considered safe today.”

              Reply

              1. Vaccines work but they must be virus specific. In any flu season there are several different viruses at work and the major virus is not known until it appears. Vaccines work.

                Reply

                1. waynegage, “The 1918 influenza pandemic killed more than 50 million people worldwide.” Vaccines may have contributed to the flu like symptoms which lead to “High dose aspirin use” which contributed to most of the deaths.

                  Reply

                    1. Side effects vary according to vaccine type, but generally mild side effects may include:

                      Pain, redness, tenderness or swelling at injection site
                      Fatigue
                      Headache
                      Itching at injection site
                      Nausea
                      Dizziness or fainting (most common in adolescents)
                      Fever
                      Mild rash

                1. waynegage, you are forgetting about cdc.gov. Did rense invent the data? “The world has believed for almost a century that a new and virulent virus came out of nowhere worldwide and killed millions in 1918. Two reports, one published in 2008 and the second in 2009, lay that myth to rest for good. The first report came as a press release on August 19, 2008, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).” The second “research by Dr. Karen Starko.”

                  Reply

                  1. Viruses continue always to mutate. New diseases appear quite frequently. The flu pandemic was world wide. Rense is still bullshit. Get your info somewhere else.

                    Reply

                    3. Pneumonia has many possible causes. The most common are bacteria and viruses in the air we breathe. Your body usually prevents these germs from infecting your lungs. But – The Four Common Causes of Low Immune System

                      Stress. Nearly all of us have felt the effects of stress at some point in our lives. Headaches, pounding chest pains, uneasiness and an overall tense feeling are hallmarks of stress. These factors all combine to cause the immune system to have to work harder to defend the body against threats to health, at times suppressing the immune system to such a point that it is severely compromised.

                      Not enough exercise. Your body’s immune system will likely not be at its best if your lifestyle is too sedentary. As an example of how important keeping active can be, medical research has indicated that regular exercise can help the functions of neutrophils, which are cell types that work to kill unwanted and sometimes dangerous microorganisms that can negatively affect health.

                      Lack of sleep. You may not realize it, but while you’re sleeping the cells in your blood that fight infections are working to keep infections at bay. So lack of sleep and fatigue can leave you

                      Improper nutrition. Estimates are that poor diet, especially when combined with lack of exercise, may be responsible for killing between 310,000 and 580,000 Americans each year. Certainly, it’s vital to eat a well-balanced assortment of foods including fruits, vegetables and whole grain sources that help support the immune system by providing crucial vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidants. Just as crucial, fatty junk foods should be avoided whenever possible. Fats, particularly polyunsaturated fats, tend to suppress the immune system. Also be on the lookout for the consumption of too much sugar, which can inhibit phagocytosis, the process by which white blood cells work to destroy viruses and bacteria.

                      Number 5, aspirin overdose, And also: Abelcet Injection, Alferon N, Amphotericin B Lipid Complex, Arava, Bonviva, CellCept, Cymevene, Cytarabine, Cytarabine Hydrochloride, Cytosar-U, Cytovene, Didanosine, Evista, Forteo, Ganciclovir, Gleevec, Ibandronate, Imatinib, Inerferon Alfa, Infergen, Intron A, Leflunomide, Mirapex, Mycophenolate, Oseltamivir, PegIntron, Pramipexole, Prograf, Raloxifene, Requip, Rilutek, Riluzole, Roferon-A, Ropinirole, Stavudine, Tacrolimus, Tamiflu, Teriparatide, Valcyte, Vesanoid, Videx, Videx EC, Vitrasert, Zerit, Zerit XR.

                      And there’s “Hospital-acquired pneumonia” and “Health care-acquired pneumonia”

                  2. “The 20 to 40 million deaths worldwide from the great 1918 Influenza Pandemic were NOT due to ‘flu’ or a virus, but to pneumonia caused by massive bacterial infection.” Anti biotics did not appear until 1940 in a very limited supply. Aspirin as cause is not supported by evidence. Claims mean nothing without evidence.

                    Reply
  596. Pingback: Bill Clinton Explains Why He Became a Vegan - Page 3 - Pelican Parts Technical BBS
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  603. Whilst a bit of passion is laudable (and leads to entertaining internet wars), I feel some commentators would do well to look at their emotional attachment to their views. Not conducive to an open and inquisitive mind.
    Is there any discussion of the fact that the participants in the China Study are from China?! and therefore likely have different blood groups, lactase persistance, and all the other physiological differences between them and most of us in the West? What they should eat may not have significant bearing on what we should eat, perhaps?

    Reply

  605. I haven’t seen any good argument that meat doesn’t cause cancer or that fiber isn’t good. Bottom line, we don’t have the enzyme uricase to process meat and there is no meat only diet that helps people recover from diabetes or cancer, while there are all fruit and fresh vegetables that have helped people recover from both of those and more. end of story.

    Reply

    1. “I haven’t seen any good argument that meat doesn’t cause cancer…” Check your logic. You cannot prove a negative. Very poor logic. And the rest of your post is nonsense.

      Reply

      1. By Davis’ logic, I can claim that I haven’t seen any good argument that plants don’t cause fibromyalgia or arthritis.
        However, if meat DID cause cancer, then you’d expect to see it in a majority of meat-eaters (which is not the case), and never in vegans (also not the case).

        Our bodies do process meat & get many important nutrients from it, though I believe we’re better at processing fish & poultry than red meat (and Americans, in general, eat far too much red meat).

        The rest of your post is indeed pseudo-scientific nonsense. The fact that vegans can – and do – still get diabetes & cancer is a testament to that fact. (My partner’s sister has had cancer twice, despite being a lifelong vegan.) Oh, and the whole “vegan diets cure diabetes” claim is an outright myth. There is NO cure for diabetes yet; some people who cut out certain foods simply have to take less insulin than usual. That has nothing to do with plants-only diets, but a lack of processed sugars & proper monitoring/maintenance of one’s diabetes.

        At least use proper arguments, instead of debunked claims & intellectual dishonesty.

        Reply

  606. Academic economist here. From reading two pages of the China Study and the review above, it seems clear that the major problem with the book is that “the China Study” wasn’t randomized. If one group of people eats meat, and a second group of people eats veggies, these two groups of people will of course differ in all types of other ways, subtle and not-so-subtle, meaning that no causal inference can be drawn one way or another. While this reviewer is more careful, at times she drifts into quite speculative interpretations of the correlations… The real point is that the China Study did not identify any causal relationships. Period.

    Reply
  607. Pingback: Book Review – ‘The Skinny Rules’ by Bob Harper || Chapters 1-3 | Making Sense of Modern Fitness
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  609. The satirical food ideology war is coming…
    On one side is the North American diet, armed with whipped cream, a twinky and a big mac
    One another side are the vegan/vegetarians, armed with a handful of nuts, grains and lettuce and the boned head of a fish.
    In the middle are the Paleo group, armed with beef jerky, a spaghetti squash and a cow femur they just finished eating clean (cooked of course).
    As the battle was about to begin…
    Most of North American dieters were killed off quickly because they fell into an insulin crash and fell asleep. The rest were killed off as they were too fat to fight.
    The vegan and vegetarians got ready for battle, one vegetarian help up a skull of a fish head. Dreaded by the very sight, the vegans got into a heated argument of the mistreatment of the fish. Eventually both groups came to an impasse, shunned each other and separated their own group. Tired and hungry from the argument, they started looking for organic, ethically raised food without GMO and pesticides, but as there was no Whole Foods available, they became weaker and just fell to the ground.
    As for the Paleo people, armed with beef jerky, a spaghetti squash and a big bone to club everyone with, they stood among the fallen and saddled by the loss of life.
    First they tried offered their beef jerky to the remaining vegans and vegetarians…the both cried out in their best Braveheart scream….”MEAT FREEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOM!” then died.
    Then they offered the spaghetti squash to the remaining North American dieters, they became confused and took a pass as it wasn’t properly processed.
    Saddened by everyone passing of their offering, they walked away and went on their next hunt.
    In the days following, the vegetarian and vegans quickly joined mother earth. The North American diets stayed perfectly preserved.
    As for the Paleo group, some lived a long life, some died young during the hunt or died in battle between the Grass fed Only tribe and the Almond flour isn’t Paleo tribe.
    Long story short, no matter what your choice is, remember we are all born with a death sentence.
    Be like the Honey badger….

    Reply

  611. Meat decreases uric acid. It does not increase it. I have experimented with this variable myself. Indeed increased meat consumption *lowered* my too-high uric acid levels.

    ***

    Although high protein, meat based diets contain high amounts of purines and would be expected to promote gout symptoms, protein ingestion actually decreases blood uric acid levels by increasing uric acid excretion (44). This seemingly paradoxical effect occurs because the kidney increases its excretion of uric acid when faced with elevated dietary purines (45). But more importantly, over the course of evolution, humans have evolved a genetic mutation which tends to prevent uric acid synthesis in the liver. Humans avoid the overproduction of uric acid in the face of increasing dietary purine intake from meats by decreasing the activity of an enzyme called xanthine oxidoreductase (46), a key catalyst in the final synthesis of uric acid. Compared to other animals, xanthine oxidase activity is almost 100 times lower in humans (47). This evolutionary adaptation has occurred because the gene coding for xanthine oxidoreductase has been repressed (48). The final proof of the pudding has been borne out by dietary interventions showing that high protein, low glycemic load diets actually normalized serum uric acid concentrations in 7 of 12 gout patients and significantly decreased gout attacks (49).

    ***

    Dr. Loren Cordain, a professor at Colorado State University, argued that “the fundamental logic underlying Colin’s hypothesis (that low protein diets improve human health) is untenable and inconsistent with the evolution of our own species,” and that “a large body of experimental evidence now demonstrates a higher intake of lean animal protein reduces the risk for gout, cardiovascular disease (uric acid!!!), hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity, insulin resistance, and osteoporosis while not impairing kidney function.”

    Reply

  612. In his book Mr Cambell states multiple times that you can not take single food element and make correlations based on it. Isn’t what Denise Minger did in 90% of her arguments?
    To make story short – read the book fully, this article is the same mistake that most Doctor’s community does when analyzing our health. Maybe that is why Americans and European health does so poorly.
    Single most important fact I got from the book is that human digestive system is so complex that no one would ever know for sure what goes on in that chemical chamber. But what is obvious is that Western diet is inferior to Vegetarian based or semi vegetarian based diets in Asian countries or regions of those places. The genetics play little role. Take African Americans and compare them to African population that has very few cases of cancer and diabeties relative to them.

    Reply

    1. Diabetes risk & such have more to do with processed foods than eating animal products.
      Besides, Africans eat quite a bit of meat & fish (when they can get it). Asian countries tend to rely on lots of fish, as well; not to mention the Asian countries that eat pork & dog.

      However, the thing all those countries have in common (as well as the healthier European nations) is a trend away from over-processed foods, refined sugar, and overeating… all things that contribute to poor dietary health in the US & parts of Europe.

      Reply

  613. The nutrition & diet industry is a major player in the commercial market, there are many vested interests in the status quo of a confused public where anything can be promoted or rubbished.
    There will not be just one unique road to health through food choices, life is far more complicated than that but Colin Campbell and many others are attempting to improve our understanding of this subject despite the vast army of critics arrayed against them and despite the fact that most of us don’t want to be told our choice of diet may not be healthy because “we enjoy it, so what!”
    I shall meanwhile try to read as much as I can and after digesting all the information make up my own mind. I shall try not to comprehend the total mystery of the elephant by studying the molecular structure of its toe!

    Reply

    2. “Colin Campbell and many others are attempting to improve our understanding of this subject ”

      Except Campbell went about it the wrong way. Cherry-picking data & misrepresenting the actual science & mathematics is dishonest, plain & simple. By resorting to misleading tactics, Campbell discredited himself & made others look bad by association.

      Reply

  614. “Also, it seems Campbell never mentions an obvious implication of a casein-cancer connection in humans: breast milk, which contains high levels of casein. Should women stop breastfeeding to reduce their children’s exposure to casein? Did nature really muck it up that much? Are children who are weaned later in life at increased risk for cancer, due to a longer exposure time the casein in their mothers’ milk? It does seem strange that casein, a substance universally consumed by young mammals, is so hazardous for health—especially since it’s designed for a time in life when the immune system is still fragile and developing…”

    Dear Denise,
    To me it does not seem that strange. I do not think that everything that is good for a baby mammal must necessarily be as good for a full-grown mammal. Breast milk contains growth factors which were obviously designed by nature for baby mammals. In nature no grown-up mammal consumes breast milk – maybe for reason? Maybe the growth potential in breast milk can conduct various problems in full-grown individuals – maybe it will find its way in structures that nobody wants to grow…

    Besides science, every human interested in nutrition should try to understand what nature´s original master plan might have been.

    Reply

    1. Human milk is 7.4% protein v 22% in cow’s milk. Of that protein, 82% is casein in cow’s milk cf 30 – 40% in human milk. Campbell clearly stated that cancer growth was switched on above a base level (5-10%) and occurred 100% of the time at levels of 20%.

      Reply

  615. I applaud your effort Denise.
    I must, because you’ve taken an arduous task that I would’ve avoided.

    Don’t mistake my applause praising your effort for one praising your skill.
    I make no claim to understand the data, much less of its correctness.

    but for whatever reason, this brave pursuit, made me happy.

    Reply

  616. I just read one of Campbells replies to the criticisms that you pose. I see that he quotes Freelee Banana girl in defense of himself. Thats priceless.

    Reply

  617. I don’t understand why, if The China Study is the holy grail of nutrition, the NIH and SAD have not changed the food pyramid to accommodate this? Didn’t the NIH fund this 30-year(?) long study? Aren’t they heavily respected by our government’s health agencies? Or, are the lobbies for corn, meat, etc. just way out of control. On the flip side, I don’t know your credentials, and I certainly respect the amount of work that must have gone into your research to crtitique this study, but are there any peer-reviewed studies or noteworthy scientists that also dispute it? Please, spare me names of any low-carb or high protein scientists. How about some run-of-the-mill evenly divided macro eater scientists or studies therein. –Thanks.

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  618. Denise! Lovely! i did not even have the time to read all of it, but all i can say is thank you for doing the awesome work you did. That somebody took the time and did his/her own research on the statistics is great. And i thank you for using your time to do it. Blog saved so i can read it after work is done! 🙂
    Ohh not sure on this cause i did not have the time to read it all carefully through, but another factor left out in the China study seems to be the total factor of enviroment. For more on that matter i have to point to dr. Robert Sapolsky and his works/interviews.

    Again thank you!

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  619. You completely misinterpreted the data. Here’s the official response from Dr Campbell which clearly indicates your false assertions. You should be careful with what you publish. There are many patients out there who could greatly benefit from this diet. My husband had a heart attack and we’ve been following this diet for 5 weeks and have already achieved incredible results. http://www.vegsource.com/news/2010/07/china-study-author-colin-campbell-slaps-down-critic-denise-minger.html

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  620. Cholesterol is a repair mechanism and is vital to our health. The fact that it is elevated in sick people is not the cause of their sickness- rather it is a sign that the cholesterol is trying to repair the damage done by chronic inflammation that is mostly caused by eating sugar and high glycemic carbohydrates. Campbell should have never used it as a marker. He is nothing more than a tool for the grain industry.

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  622. soooooooo….a blogger who is self taught vs. someone with a PHD. and has done clinical analysis and thesis in their areas of study………..If I were to get diagnosed with cancer, I will be sure to come here for a second opinion……..I hope these periods are implying sarcasm. I have studied nutrition for over fifteen years, and I would never claim to know more than someone’s study, nor try to arrogantly discredit someone’s schooling. I understand your beef (get it?) with the China Study, like most, who don’t want to hear something that may be against what they believe.

    I’ll be sure to send a message when I need open heart surgery…..since apparently you need school to teach you anything…….period.

    Reply

    1. Try reading her blog rather than drawing conclusions from nothing. Colin Campbell is a fraud. Bad science. Bad statistical analysis. The blogger points out these flaws of Campbell. She did not offer nutritional advice.

      Reply
  623. Pingback: Ancestral Health Symposium 2014: Part 1 | Eat...Enjoy
  624. Pingback: The Post Where I Leave the House (AHS14)

  625. Leave the science to the scientists, dear. You simply don’t have it in you. Nor do you have the education or experience (let alone the knowledge of how to properly analyze data) to challenge the China Study. And the more words you throw on this page, the more holes you create in your already weak standpoint.

    But these are words already said by countless others before me. Just stick to blogging, ok?

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  627. I have recently read this book , and there is quite a lot of nutritional misinformation! Case 1 early menarche is brought on by to much body fat causing high levels of estrogen in young girls! Is fat the cause of Obesity latest science shows its not , refined carbohydrates and sugar not fat drive Obesity < Secondly its also carbohydrates that drive heart disease ! The more carbs the more triglycerides , the more triglycerides the higher the apo bin other words smaller LDL particles count and glycated LDL which oxidises and damages the artery walls , causing inflammation and the laying down cholesterol.
    The diabetes and protein connection mmm lets see about that one as I work with diabetics and have actually cured a few type 2 ! Carbohydrates drive the insulin response not protein, in fact eating protein negates the insulin response, its the over production of insulin that causes insulin resistance which if left unchecked leads to Type 2 diabetes (full blown insulin resistance)
    Its insulin resistance that drives obesity!
    Personally think he is fitting is evidence to his hypothesis and is own belief systems!
    So there are a few fundamental wrongs in his thesis !

    Reply

  628. Wow! How refreshing! To see someone who actually evaluates a study and the numbers instead of inferring and making assumptions and subsequent “statements of fact”. (as in hearing about the Framingham Study’s association of cholesterol and cardiovascular disease and proclaiming cholesterol causes heart disease!) Hopefully we will see more research looking at the effect of oxidative stress, free radicles, ROS, UV radiation, etc. on mechanism of disease and gather a more profound knowledge of etiology, treatment and prevention of disease and consequences of aging.

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  629. Thanks for the statistics. When I read the China Study, what struck me as missing and over-simplifying for an obvious “vegan campaign” is life style factors. Heart disease and cancer are strongly correlated to stress, exposure to toxins, pesticides, etc. Villages where there is a strong community, and people spend their days culturing (exercise) organic (because they can’t afford chemicals) produce in the sunshine would be expected to have lower incidence of disease without any consideration of diet as compared to people living in stress filled cities full of pollution with little exercise and sunshine, who consume corn feed meat and highly processed foods.

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  630. Many thanks for your research and opinion. Well written and thought through. One of the things which really ‘bang’ my brain however was that you certainly believe that casein in human breast milk is the same as casein in cow’s milk. Let me challenge you here a bit ashHuman milk casein proteins are physiochemically different from the casein proteins in cow’s milk, with a different amino acid composition (Lawrence 1999). The caseins in human milk are considered more easily digestible than the caseins in cow’s milk, and may have important immunological properties. Research has shown that human kappa-casein, which is found in human milk, promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria which coats and protects the intestinal system of breastfed infants (Stromqvist 1995)

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  632. ‘Since only frequency and not actual quantity of greens seems protective of heart disease and stroke, it’s safe to say that greens probably aren’t the true protective factor.’

    I’m really not sure what you are saying here. If one eats 10 lbs of greens one week and nothing for 9 weeks thereafter, there would be about 9 weeks without the well researched protective benefits. Are you really suggesting that little and often might not be more protective?

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  633. This desperate attempt at a rebuttal and more than half of the comments here really epitomises the problem of the know-it-all internet expert thinking they can invalidate a landmark study that spanned many years, conducted by learned experts far, far more knowledgable than the author of this blog or any of the commenters. Just because you know how to use Google and create graphs, does not qualify you for a PhD. Period. And the longer your rebuttal is doesn’t make it more “serious” or “comprehensive”, it only opens it up to more holes, many of which have already been pointed out by other commenters.

    Look it’s fine to have a conviction in some diet that seems to work for you, and even OK to evangelise this conviction (freedom of speech and all), but your belief in something – no matter how pure – does *not* automatically make you an expert on the matter. This is exactly like a rabid fanatic born-again Christian thinking they are an expert on matters of morality. And trying to pass yourself off as an expert, consequently fooling others into following misleading and deluded factoids is just irresponsible. Again, the parallel can be made to those Christian evangelists.

    I can only imagine **Dr** Campbell is just chuckling and simultaneously shaking his head at this whole post.

    Reply

      1. You basically are proving my point. You (and Denise Minger) seriously think the study can be invalidated on the basis of some middle school maths. It’s more than a little demeaning.

        And as for deliberate deceit: please readjust your tinfoil hat, your hairline is showing.

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          1. You might want to cut back on the raw milk, it’s eating away at your brain. Your analogy could not be any worse if you tried. I was *science* triumphing over dogma and the standard myopia of humans that proved the world was round instead of flat. It’s basically the perfect example of why you are supposed to believe actual learned doctors, with DECADES of experience and knowledge in a particular field over some nobody with a blog. A far far better is the 1000s of loud-mouthed American football fans who all think they can run a team better than the actual coaches. But hey I know that’s the American, where it’s the loudest voice that sometimes wins over the smartest.

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            1. Mark, You never ask a barber if you need a haircut. You might want to cut back on the junk food, it’s eating away at your brain. Why no evidence to back up your theory? Your analogy could not be any worse if you tried. I was *science* triumphing over dogma and the standard myopia of humans that proved the world was round instead of flat. It’s basically the perfect example of why you are supposed to believe actual learned doctors of nutrition, with DECADES of experience and knowledge in the field over some medicine man with a blog. A far far better is the 1000s of loud-mouthed American football fans who all think they can run a team better than the actual coaches. But hey I know that’s the American, where it’s the loudest and richest voice that sometimes wins over the smartest.

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    2. I’d bet you didn’t read Minger’s critique in whole nor her response to PHD Campbell. Those few of us with a minor interest in those who argue ad hominem, await something from you which would be both original and enlightening on either Campbell’s study or Minger’s response. If you have a court, the ball is in it.

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      1. I think Stephan Guyenet summed it up quite well a few weeks ago: “Regarding Denise Minger, I have not yet seen anything approaching a rational refutation of her points, from Campbell or anyone else. Campbell and other vegan diet advocates have used argument from authority and taken an arrogant and dismissive attitude toward Minger’s work without actually offering a scientific defense of the bizarre methods Campbell used to come to his conclusions.”

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    3. Mark, this desperate attempt to discredit a real scientific rebuttal really epitomizes the problem of the know-it-all internet expert corporate troll. Just because you know how to create graphs and use big words does not qualify you as an authority. And the longer you curse and swear the more it becomes obvious you have no argument.

      Look it’s fine to have a conviction in some diet that seems to work for you, and even OK to evangelize this conviction (freedom of speech and all), but your belief in something – no matter how politically correct – does *not* automatically make you an expert on the matter. This is exactly like a rabid fanatic born-again Christian thinking they are an expert on matters of morality. And trying to pass yourself off as an expert, consequently fooling others into following misleading and deluded factoids is just irresponsible. Again, the parallel can be made to those Christian evangelists.

      I can only imagine **Medicine Man** Campbell is just chuckling and simultaneously shaking his head at these post.

      Reply

        1. My point there Mark was that you didn’t have one. Leave the science to the scientists, dear. You simply don’t have it in you. Nor do you have the education or experience (let alone the knowledge of how to properly analyze data). If you did you would have posed an actual argument. Haven’t you heard of peer review. No real scientist would ask anyone to just take their word for it. And all studies have limitations.

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  634. Campbell is obviously negatively biased from the start. Anyone who would use the word “spawned” instead of published has a emotional non-scientific agenda.

    “On the Cornell University website (the institution that—along with Oxford University—spawned the China Project), . . .”

    I am not vegan or veg, but I am smart enough to know what’s bad for me to eat, and what’s good for me to eat without needing some pseudo scientists to tell me. What has happened to America’s common sense?

    Better to read, Michael Pollan’s book, “In Defense of Food,” “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”

    Reply

    1. Education B.S. (1956), pre-veterinary medicine, Pennsylvania State University Veterinary school, one year, University of Georgia M.S. (1958), nutrition and biochemistry, Cornell University Ph.D. (1961), biochemistry, nutrition, and microbiology, Cornell University. Occupation Nutritional biochemist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Colin_Campbell Dam his pseudoscience and agenda!. It’s not like he grew up on a dairy farm!. Heaven forbid somebody does a basic fact check!

      Reply

  635. Just a cursory thought on claim #3: if Cambell is right, wouldn’t we expect in your chart to see cancer rates rise specifically with those people who themselves had hep. B and who themselves ate higher amounts of animal protein? These numbers, if I understand them, reflect the population of these counties generally, but say nothing of whether the people who had hep. B were the same ones who ate a lot of meat (which seems unlikely, as I would imagine hep. B is more common among poor people while eating meat is more common among wealthier people), or whether the live cancer rates were higher among the specific people who fit the first two criteria or not. This may not be a problem if the hep. B rates were much much larger (say, >50%) and it was known that animal protein consumption were more drastically divergent between counties and known to be fairly evenly consumed across the population within given counties. Am I missing something here? I’m not trained in statistics or health, but logically I can’t see around this.

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      1. I’ve no idea if Chinese eat twice as much meat as Americans. Why do you ask?
        Anyhow, if it wasn’t clear, my point was that the statistics compared in this blog post supposedly show that there’s no correlation btw animal protein and liver cancer that we would expect if Campbell were right, but in fact the statistics this blog post compares aren’t the right ones we would need to show anything one way or the other.

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    2. Aaron, are you criticizing Denise, or Cambell or both? Since the data you are requesting doesn’t exist how does Cambell support his claims? Doesn’t he make the same assumption?

      Reply

  638. What the Buddha Said About Eating Meat – Ajahn Brahmavamso – Since the very beginning of Buddhism over 2500 years ago, Buddhist monks and nuns have depended on almsfood. They were, and still are, prohibited from growing their own food, storing their own provisions or cooking their own meals. Instead, every morning they would make their day’s meal out of whatever was freely given to them by lay supporters. Whether it was rich food or coarse food, delicious or awful tasting it was to be accepted with gratitude and eaten regarding it as medicine. The Buddha laid down several rules forbidding monks from asking for the food that they liked. As a result, they would receive just the sort of meals that ordinary people ate – and that was often meat. In my first years as a monk in North-East Thailand, when I bravely faced many a meal of sticky rice and boiled frog (the whole body bones and all), or rubbery snails, red-ant curry or fried grasshoppers – I would have given ANYTHING to be a vegetarian again! http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma3/meat.html

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  639. your claim #1: you say the also the plant proteins can cause cancer. Thats true but you fail to specify that EVEN SO, vegetarian diet is beneficial against cancer because the protein intakte is less (maybe a lot less) than those having an animal products based diet. I dont have the feeling that you really try to find the truth but you are just trying to prove Chine Study wrong. I cant say anything else about the rest of your arguments, I stopped after #1.

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    1. Ionut Brihacel, Your claim that a vegetarian diet is beneficial against cancer because the protein intake is less (maybe a lot less) than those having an animal products based diet is not based in fact.

      I don’t have the feeling that you really try to find the truth but you are just trying to prove the Chine Study justifies a vegan lifestyle. The Chinese people in the study may have consumed more meat then Americans. Pork has always been popular in china. In rural china the quality of meat and poultry is said to be higher then the U.S. Now that beef has come to china they now consume twice as much as America. Americans get most of their calories from added fats like soybean oil, with gains like wheat running a close second.

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  640. The responses here from the vegan lobby types confirm to me, that a purely vegan diet does immense damage to the mental clarity, of a very large number of vegans. To the Vegan extremists, not everyone is biologically suited to a vegan diet, just as not everyone can eat just anything that is edible, without suffering an allergy, intolerance and other disorders and problems. Is that too hard to grasp?

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  641. True that soluble fiber doesn’t cure those who don’t handle simple sugar and high G.I. foods too well. But it slows the sugars passage down enough in people whom are more on the simple sugar intolerant spectrum, than the diabetic spectrum. Of course, if someone is more predisposed to simple sugar health problems, then no amount of soluble fibre is going to stop the damage done by consuming soft drinks, alcohol, cakes and sweets. The hyper sugar sensitive probably can’t tolarate even a single apple a day.

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  642. I drink pasturized milk, it’s all I can readily get.

    I find useful information for myself in the GAPS, paeleo, fodmaps diets.

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  643. Hey Mike, check out http://dogtorj.com/ this guy has some very interesting diet information. He’s a bit of a religious nutter, but everyone has their faults. He’s a vet that seen the results of additives and foods on many different animals, and humans too.

    Reply

    1. Does this article say Amino acid inhibitors/activators are dangerous to humans? And doesn’t it say they are similar to glyphosate which is much less toxic than Roundup with it’s surfactants. doesn’t Roundup also affect aromatic amino acids? But I agree, it does look like there are other herbicides we may need to look out for.

      Reply

      1. mike – the article makes no claims about these toxins, when used the right way, causing problems in humans. It’s a article to inform farmers on what is best to use. I posted it as a wake up to those of us, including myself, that may be sensitive to the foods treated by these herbicides. I can only speak from an individual perspective. What I’ve noticed, after you pointed out that corn, wheat, dairy and soy productivity is bolstered by roundup, is the common link amoungst the foods that make me more fatigued, irritable and lacking in concentration. They are foods that have been heavily reliant on roundup and other herbicides as I listed. On researching, I was shocked to discover cane sugar is commonly ripened with glypho too. Previously, I was led to believe that I simply had a bunch of unlucky intolerances. Now, not so convinced. When I fine tune my diet some more (more organics and less glypho treated foods). I’ll go back to wheat, sugar and 600 flavor enhancers, which are by far my biggest problems. And see if my body has the adequate minerals and amino acids to process these normally once again.

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  645. http://www.sbreb.org/brochures/herbicide/amino.htm

    Looks like Roundup and glyphsate are not the only Amino Acid Synthesis Inhibitors we should be more vigilant about when it comes to the individuals health.

    Sulfonylurea, imidazolinone and sulfonamide are other herbicides widely used on common foods aswell.
    ———————
    Besides that, it’s still not precisely known how glyphosate kills plants or affects cellular redox homeostasis and related processes in glyphosate-sensitive and glyphosate-resistant crop plants.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3165874/

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      1. rawmilkmike,

        I’m not sure what that has to do with the study. The studied compared a variety of diets and pescatarians did far better than other diet types. lacto-ovo-generians did better than a standard diet, but not as good as vegan. It’s that simple.

        It doesn’t matter what great arguments people make or some biochemical analysis – or even bench science says – because the BEST and most RECENT large study (linked above in my original comment) is very clear that diet makes a huge difference in mortality – and raw milk does not far well when compared to pescatarians – but does better than a standard diet. Sorry mike…I wish it were different because I love cheese.

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        2. There is no study on raw milk aside from the ones that show it prevents asthma, so called foodborne illness, and all the illnesses caused by pasteurized milk and cooked meat.

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            3. The CDC has inadvertently proven that raw milk has a negative risk factor and prevents foodborne illness.
              …
              “Health officials in Minnesota warned Wednesday that based on a 10-year(CDC sponsored) study. They estimated that more than 17%(or 1.7% per year) of the state’s residents who drank raw milk got sick during the 10-year study.” http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sn-minnesota-raw-milk-20131211,0,1666103.story#axzz2tOoRRo3j
              …
              While as many as “48 million people (That’s 15% or1 in 6 Americans) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases, according new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2010/r101215.html
              …
              This means you are 9 times more likely to suffer a foodborne illness if you don’t drink raw milk.

              Reply

        3. Jeremy, This is not a study of vegans or raw milk drinkers. – Vegetarian Dietary Patterns and Mortality in Adventist Health Study 2 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4191896/ Dietary patterns were determined according to the reported intake of foods of animal origin. Thus, vegans consumed eggs/dairy, fish, and all other meats less than 1 time/mo; lacto-ovo–vegetarians consumed eggs/dairy 1 time/mo or more but fish and all other meats less than 1 time/mo; pesco-vegetarians consumed fish 1 time/mo or more but all other meats less than 1 time/mo; semi-vegetarians consumed nonfish meats 1 time/mo or more and all meats combined (fish included) 1 time/mo or more but no more than 1 time/wk; and last, nonvegetarians consumed nonfish meats 1 time/mo or more and all meats combined (fish included) more than 1 time/wk. For some analyses, the 4 vegetarian categories (vegan, lacto-ovo–vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian, and semi-vegetarian) were combined as “vegetarian.”

          What Do Seventh-day Adventists Eat? Each member eats a little differently and their food choices may consist of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, dairy products, healthy fats, and clean meats including chicken, turkey, beef, fish, venison, lamb, and goat-among others. Most Seventh-day Adventists (SDA) try to stay away from processed foods, sugar, sugar substitutes, and food additives.

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          1. Mike,

            Of course it is a study of vegans – and all other types of diets – and OF COURSE they defined each term. What else would you expect? Read more studies if this concept seems confusing.

            Here is my point. This is a comprehensive epidemiological study on several different diet types in a relatively homogenous population that CLEARLY shows that a Vegan diet is better than a lacto-ovao-vegetarian and semi-vegatarian, and a pescotarian is better than vegan. They are ALL better than a standard diet. In other words, eating PLANTS with fish and avoiding ALL other animal protiens provides protection against death as a consequence of disease – it especially will help avoid large bowel tumors.

            I am not jumping to any conclusions not made in the study.

            Now – what is your point?

            (I didn’t watch the youtube videos. I would prefer we stick to peer reviewed articles in reputable journals.)

            If, by the way, your point is that raw milk seems to provide health protection – than I can’t say anything against that since I am unaware of ANY peer reviewed, well designed study that can make such a conclusion.

            I would suggest – however – that in the absence of data – that we look to the highest quality of data that is available.

            I also find it strange that you think that somehow the protein in milk that has been shown to be so harmful in other studies all of a sudden becomes protective when it is consumed fresh. I will say this however – I grew up on raw milk and it is tasty.

            Reply

            1. Of course it is not a study of vegans Jeremy. It’s a study of Seventh-day Adventists. There were no vegans in the study. There is no way to know what would have happened if they would have cut out all animal products or switched to only raw animal products like the paleos or to processed plant based products like real vegans.

              If they were a homogenous population they wouldn’t have been able to separate them into groups. You should reread the other studies you think show the protein in milk to be so harmful. If you grew up on raw milk then you know it doesn’t taste that much better and is seasonal so it doesn’t always taste better the Supermarket milk.

              Please watch the YouTube videos they explain what epidemiology and peer reviewed articles in reputable journals are even before you misunderstand their results.

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              1. You did not link any study – just articles discussion another study…unclear why.

                Also, I’m sorry but what you say doesn’t make any sense to me. I am clearly not following what you are saying…perhaps I am not clever enough. There were vegans in the study.

                Let me ask you this Mike. If you were in the study, and you don’t eat any meat, nor dairy product, nor eggs, but eat fish daily. What category would you call yourself? What category would they put you in?

                Another question, lets say I don’t eat ANY animal protein. How would you classify me? How would you think the study would classify me?

                Let’s take this one step at a time so we can arrive in the same place. So first answer those questions. Just the questions…no need to give any more diatribe….just answer those two sets of questions.

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                1. This is not much a discussion if you are not going to respond to anything I say. You did not link any study either – just abstracts…unclear why.

                  Also, I’m sorry but what you say doesn’t make any sense to me. I am clearly not following what you are saying…perhaps I am not clever enough. How do you know there were vegans in the study? If there were, why didn’t they have a classification for people who ate no animal products?

                  A person that didn’t eat any meat, nor dairy product, nor eggs, but eat fish daily would have been counted as pesco-vegetarians. If you don’t eat ANY animal protein but still eat animal fat you are definitely non-vegetarian. What’s your point?
                  diatribe

                  Are you saying my comments are bitter and abusive(or sarcastic) or just too long? Did you watch the videos yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKmxL8VYy0M and this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C42AwvaZ-04 Do you still think science this large has a hard time telling a lie? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23836264 Correlation without argument(peer-reviewed ), biochemical analysis and bench science is not science.

                  You know, there was also a study suggesting under fed people live longer and one showing that anorexia reduced cancer risk. Is this maybe your point?

                  Reply

                  1. Now we are getting somewhere! Thanks for answering the first question.

                    Eating animal fat but not any animal protein as you mention…I wouldn’t know how to classify them. How did the study classify them? We will get to my point shortly.

                    So, lets say I eat all plant based foods, and no animal protein or fat – how would you classify me? How would the study classify me? Let’s answer this first, then we can move to the next point in the discussion.

                    Now to your youtube videos – really interesting. I really enjoyed the TED talk. He brings up an excellent point – and that is that publication bias exists and is difficult to combat. Most scientific journals are for profit and will not publish negative studies – again well known to the scientific community. In addition, there are ALL SORTS of other types of bias that researchers do their damndest to try and avoid – but bias is difficult to overcome when conducting studies. So, what are some ways that you could think of to get rid of bias in studies? After you name some, I’ll come up with some as well. (I will say that his answer to fix the problem is ridiculous. You can’t publish all studies. Most studies are done so horribly with obvious bias that they certainly should NOT be published. BAD data has no place being in scientific journals.)

                    The next video discusses – again – another point but is the same point really – just a different bias – and that is – how can you conduct good research without bringing bias? Again – extremely difficult. Much has been written recently in many scientific journals about the over usage and misunderstanding of p-values. I agree.

                    So I agree with the feeling of the videos, but not sure how you are using that argument against me and my point (which you have missed but I will restate again when we get there).

                    By the way, I did link to the articles – or the pubmed link to the articles. You need access to download the PDF. That is how scientist usually communicate with stuff like this – to a pubmed link. I apologize if this concept is new…I’m not trying to make you look silly.

                    Finally, this would probably be a good place to mention – because it will certainly come up soon – that evidence his a quality hierarchy.

                    The highest is several randomized double blinded placebo controlled (when possible) large studies. If you look at some of the guidelines, they will define “large” but I don’t remember.

                    The next level is several small, or one large randomized, placebo controlled trials – better if double blinded.

                    Next level is controlled non randomized trials – obviously large is better than small. A subset of this type of trial is an observational trial. Most epidemiological studies fit into this category.

                    Lower is retrospective trials.

                    Lower is case series and case reports.

                    Lowest of all is expert opinion.

                    Reply

                    1. Jeremy, “The irony is that when UK statistician Ronald Fisher introduced the P value in the 1920s, he did not mean it to be a definitive test. He intended it simply as an informal way to judge whether” the statistical evidence was worthy of an empirical study. “The idea was to run an experiment, then see if the results were consistent with what” the epidemiologists proposed.

    3. If any thing, the pescetarian or semi vegetarian diets has been proven the healthiest by sheer numbers of it’s users having amoungst the longest life spans. Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy), Nicoya (Costa Rica), Icaria (Greece).

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  650. Rawmilkmike, You need to address these two studies. You talk about “scientific proof” and “studeis” then somehow make an arguement.

    Yet the BEST and MOST RECENT and largest study to date completely negates what you are saying.

    Please everyone posting on these – take a look at least the abstract of these two studies. They are VERY LARGE with regards to epidemiological studies which adds significant support to the conclusions made.

    Both STRONGLY support eating “Weeds” that grow from dirt.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25751512

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23836264

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    1. both strongly support a pescatarian diet. Interesting studies that confirm what I’ve gathered from various sources.

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  651. There are Four Cycles the body and mind must go through to create health – Cleansing, Building, Energizing, and Rest. This is the Wheel Of Health. The Vegan diet is a strong cleansing diet and that is good. But can cause an imbalance in the others when used over an extended period. Yes, you can over cleanse the body and mind as well as over build, energize (stimulate) or REST them The human organism is a TRI consisting of a Mechanical Body, Chemical Body, and a Electrical Body (Nervous System). The ions in meat are more higher than plant based foods (because of the structure). This causes a greater energy field and should be balanced by a good plant food to stabilize it. Any research is one-sided because of an over consumption of one food source being investigated. We need water and air, but they too are lethal when over consumed. I too was a strict vegan for 15 years and did very well. Then I started having liver, gallbladder, and kidney failures. One of the normal functions of the human body is cleansing. We can create a weakening of these organs by eliminating certain foods that make them work or function properly. Such as…a small amount of grease makes the gallbladder stronger, not weaker. The real problems with health is found in OILS, SUGARS, and FLOUR products, not in eating meat, dairy, and eggs in moderation. We certainly should do our best to treat animals in a more humane way. Grass fed…cage free. But, to create a wave of idealistic view points on what is RIGHT or WRONG is NOT humane to those who may need to eat higher density protein source. I’m a Zerotarian ( A Zerotarain is a person who can make sudden changes in diet when needed. They live in a 360 degree View Point that see’s ALL has its place). As state earlier – The Vegan Diet is a great Cleansing Diet and should be used for that purpose. But, one should understand – If there’s noting to clean – what you’re doing is slowly robbing the body of vital nutrients as well. Stay in touch with a Reality. GOGDIET.COM

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  653. What I find great about this debate is that this is a very personal matter. Contrary to other debates such as gun control, abortion, fight against terrorism and so on, what you eat essentially affects you and you alone, and not your neighbor, not co-worker, not other commenters on a blog. Therefore, I really don’t care what you think is true or who you believe. I couldn’t care less if you eat junk and suffer the consequences years down the road. So happy eating to all!

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  654. What I find great about this debate is that this is a very personal matter. Contrary to other debates such as gun control, abortion, fight against terrorism and so on, what you eat essentially affects you and you alone, and not your neighbor, not co-worker, not other commenters on a blog. So what we should all do is gather info and opinions from both sides and decide on our own for ourselves what path we should take.

    I really don’t care what you think is true or who you believe. I couldn’t care less if you eat junk and suffer the consequences years down the road. So to all, happy eating whatever you like!

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  655. Though I don’t have time to research it, I do question some other data in the China study, in the graphs comparing different diseases by country (not counties in China). For example, El Salvador boasts one of the lowest incidences of heart disease (per TCS), and also one of the lowest intakes of animal fat – near the bottom. But look into Salvadoran cuisine, and it includes a lot of animal products. So I would raise a question about the integrity of the original data.

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  656. I just finished reading the China Study today. Based on everything I have read, watched, or seen, T. Colin Campbell is an honorable researcher and human being who has dedicated a significant portion of his life to helping all of us (including animals) live better, more healthful lives. Moreover, he has no ax to grind. Other than the conclusions that he came to by way of exhaustive research over many years (all the while putting his career and reputation in jeopardy), the only special interest he appears to serve is the truth.

    I have read much of this post as well as Campbell’s response to it. That he would deign to respond to this very young woman further illustrates to me his integrity, as well as his good will.

    All that being said, I am no scientist. I don’t have the time or ability to competently review all of the material in depth (Campbell by the way includes upwards of 800 references and citations over more than 30 pages in his book). I read the book with great interest and attention, but I am no expert.

    I’ve read many comments in this thread and have seen many who at least appear to know about statistics, multi-variate analyses, etc. I won’t pretend here to be an expert. I am however a pretty good judge of character. It is clear to me that the author of this post has a bone to pick and with more than a little arrogance presumes to tear down the work of one of the world’s most highly respected researchers with what seems to me to be very little compunction. Moreover, she seems to be succeeding at this. She’s generated a lot of attention. Unfortunately, for all her dubious success she is still part of the problem and unlike Campbell, contributes only to our collective downfall.

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  657. Love all the comments. I guess it really comes down to this. Accept the book for what it is and change your diet or keep doing what your doing and hope. All I know is this… There is way too much sugar in everything. Yes we probably eat way too much meat and not enough fruits and vegetables. Dairy, ya probably bad for you. Bottom line, learn more about nutrition and eat to live not live to eat.

    Ask yourself this one question. If the China Study is accurate and we can prevent most diseases with diet, would the Government and everyone in charge adopt it?

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    1. Different parts of the US have different farming models that work for better for their particular area. Consider those that live inland vs coast and all the different soils and topography and rainfall. Senator George McGovern got the whole ‘low fat’ ball rolling back 1977 with the dietary goals from the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs. Now my question to you, Have we gotten healthier since then?

      “We don’t need a law against McDonald’s or a law against slaughterhouse abuse–we ask for too much salvation by legislation. All we need to do is empower individuals with the right philosophy and the right information to opt out en masse.”
      ― Joel Salatin

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  658. Beyond all the stats and numbers, it comes down to believe (You see what you believe). I have been trying all kinds of diets since the early 90’s on myself. More plants, some animals and all plants (raw) and no animals. I have determined through this process what works best for me. What I hope to impart is my desire to see all you “dieters” out there take a broader scope of how food gets to your plate. I’m talking about “Farming models” or “Systems of food production”. Rather than putting so much attention on whether one should or shouldn’t be eating a particular food, I hope you would take time to research the farming models that are regenerative and can sequester carbon for your particular location on this beautiful earth. Here are a few “bread crumbs”: Allan Savory (Find his TED talk and book: Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision Making), Joel Salatin (Book: Folks, This Ain’t Normal), Weston A. Price (Book: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and website: http://www.westonaprice.org , Mark Shepard (book: Restoration Agriculture), Ben Falk (Book: The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach).

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  659. Just a side point:

    You cannot choose to be ‘no longer vegan’ as once someone is truly vegan, that’s it. So this is like an oxymoron. You see the world differently and realise you can be healthy and happy without the violence. No one who ‘goes there’ can go back. Perhaps you were plant based though.

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  660. I am an american living in china and i have never heard of the small city’s towns mentioned in the study why did they choose such small town’s villages for this study?

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  662. This site is full of distorted information coming from a girl with SERIOUS mental problems. So if you are smart, please go for real science, not this sh*t.

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  664. How about looking at the one common denominator that people eat in their diets, ANIMAL PROTEIN (Acidic)! Morning, noon, and night (milk, cheese, eggs, meat) is the typical diet. Obviously you would look at that first, since food is only eaten to Fuel the body. That is why cancer has been around for hundreds of years , and will continue for hundreds more. I am also talking from experience. 40 years animal eater with Colitis, colds, flus, etc every year like everyone else. Now 14 years Vegan with so much more energy, and have only been sick once in all that time. Also CURED my colitis naturally, throwing away my toxic Pharmaceuticals. Humans are not suppose to live in sickness. Putting acidic, burned, toxic, dead carcasses, milk that only humans drink past infancy, and from another species (DUH) is a cause! If I am designed to eat these poor, murdered animals, then why can I live super healthy with no animal what so ever as a vegan. I should be sick or dead if animal is suppose to be part of my diet!!!Love to hear your theory on that. Too bad you are preaching this misinformed info you chose to follow, as the benefits of Veganism are AMAZING. I have learned people feed their taste buds, instead of Fueling their bodies. In a way it is good, because this planet really needs population control anyway. Enjoy knowing millions of animals are murdered yearly just so you can enjoy degenerate diseases, and cancers. Enjoy!

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    1. Mike: Your comment is a bit radical at the end but it is the most enlightening of all the comments. This anti-campbell article writer is a ranter. Why she picked, Colin Campbell to trash, I’ll probably never know but it is possible that one day we might find out. Too many people give her article credibility because she sounds believable but she is just one woman who rants and has no real basis for any of it.

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  666. In the beginning when you were talking about plant protein relating to different cancers, where are your sources? You support no evidence of fact to back it up. Just numbers that you might of made up. Please send me the sources.

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  667. Thank you, my close friend became vegetarian and wants to be vegan… she swears by this book and I just don’t know how to cope. This post cleared my head. Thank you again, rgds

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  668. Love this, thank you! I read about half way through as I had a short debate on the China Study yesterday. I will read the rest. What I am here to share is the choleserol issue is always the cart before the horse and the egg before the chicken. Cholesterol is long known to raise for the simple reason of getting pathogens, gungus, bacteria, fungal mycotoxins of which plant products are loaded and wine/alcohol define. They ARE fungal (yeast) mycotoxins which require cholesterol in part to remove from the body. I could go on and on about this but please look at the massive work on this from 18 year WHO head of mycology, A.V. Costantini and Doug Kaufmann of knowthecause.com. Ask yourself why they use a fungal mycotoxins in the lab to induce diabetes and cancer in rats. Why does using a statin that dangerously lowers cholesterol, allows diabetes to run full bore? Well, they just cut the very thing trying to keep you alive and mycotoxins manipulate and cause insulin changes/resistence. Breast cancer rises with wine and alcohol. both defined as a fungal mycotoxins proven to cause at least 20+ cancer. Thank God for choleserol because for the wiser, they know it is trying to save your life, attach to poisons and flush them out. For the rest…they lower the choleserol, loose thier choleserol founded brain, heart cells, etc…and wonder what happened. See Fungalbionics and knowthecause.com. It could save your life just as this article likely has. Thank You Denise!!!

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  669. I have to add here something long proven when using corn added to anything hoping for good result for cancer tests.
    “So what were the results of Campbell’s experiment? According to the study, both the casein/corn oil and fish protein/corn oil groups had significant preneoplastic lesions. We don’t know whether to blame this on the protein or the corn oil, since—according to the researchers—“intake of corn oil has previously been shown to promote the development of L-azaserine-induced preneoplastic lesions in rats.” However, the group that ate fish protein plus fish oil exhibited something radically different:”
    Corn is LOADED with fungal mycotoxins that have long been known to cause cancer. Fungalbionics is the best place to start on this or knowthecause.com. Campbell using the casien/corn test is worse than a joke. As you said Denise, its the sin of omission. Corn oil is deadly at best and corn universally contamininated with fungal mycotoxins that kill.

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  670. I’m not a vegan, but try to base my diet on whole foods, lots of plants, use a little butter made from grass fed cows as well as a tiny bit of cream while limiting as much as possible in this processed world we live in vegetable oils…

    A coupe of things that have stood out to me…

    You asked…”Why would frequency be more protective than quantity? What accounts for this mystery?” You think it’s some other environmental or geographic uniqueness…but

    It seems to me that greens taken daily have a greater reduction in cancer or other health risks because they are constantly repairing damage done, vs. those areas where greens are only eaten say in the summer months and the rest of the year the damage done by environment, bad foods, whatever don’t get the healing until months later?

    Also you criticized “But the good news is this: Greater plant protein intake was closely linked to greater height and body weight. Body growth is linked to protein in general and both animal and plant proteins are effective!”

    It seems clear to this casual reader that he meant when we grow in both height and weight we are more well balanced. A healthy body mass index…. If we are only growing in weight than our body mass index is off. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt that’s what he meant anyways…not the conclusion that you seem to be drawing that he meant tall fat people are somehow more healthy than short fat people.

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  671. Denise, I am afraid that at least right now, I am way out of my depth in terms of understanding the data you`ve presented here so I can`t interact with the science you`ve presented though I am impressed with the amount of due diligence you`ve put in 🙂 But I have a thought to include in the discussion if you don`t mind.

    Regarding the pros and cons of animal protein, one thing I have noticed with most of these folks who insist animal protein is all bad, is that they don`t differentiate between animals raised according to their design and animals factory farmed and chemically altered by both medications, hormones and unnatural diets.. I`d be interested to see if there was a difference in the outcomes of these studies if they had one control group who only consumed meat from animals raised according to their natural design, and drank only unpasteurized milk from such animals. Is the cancer REALLY caused by animal protein per se, or is it caused by food from animals who have been fed a very unnatural diet, raised in feed lots or confinement houses and medicated? It seems to me that there might be a connection between the rise of diseases and altering of our food supply. Many cultures for centuries have consumed goats, cattle, fish, etc without these kinds of health problems.

    One interesting sort of home based experiment was conducted by Canadian dairy farmer Michael Smith (?) who raised two calves, one on its mother`s milk and another on milk that had been pasteurized and sold in the grocery store. When the calves reached a certain age he slaughtered them and examined their organs. The difference in the liver and other organs of the calf that consumed pasteurized milk was significant not to mention, gross! Suffice to say, what the animal is eating is just as significant. Thanks for considering my thoughts 🙂

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  672. I’m looking for citations and finding none.
    Denise, it also appears you do not understand how to read or make sense of scientific data. I suspect you are out of your league and maybe need to take a few classes on stats, research methods, and nutrition science.

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  673. “Looks to me like breast cancer may have links with sugar and alcohol, and perhaps also with hexachlorocyclohexane and occupational hazards associated with industry work. Again, why is Campbell singling out fat from animal products when other—stronger—correlations are present?”…….Are you kidding me.. Really haha
    )…. looks to me…..may have…..and perhaps…..what are you trying to do here? If you want folks to belive you…you have to have the fackts…studys..proof… You havenot what you have is. …hokus pokus mombo jombo…

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  674. I’m pretty certain that all of the dietary modifications that people become fanatical about (ex: vegan, gluten free, no refined sugar, no dairy, etc.) cause them to feel better because those items are fast, calorie dense foods that, when eliminated from the diet, force the eater to seek out more nutrient dense foods generally in the form of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. It seems like common sense to me that the standard Am. diet is garbage and causative of disease due to its low content of nutrients and that any time you reduce those foods and replace with nutrient dense foods, overall health will improve. However, I am not convinced that shooting up rats with casein is proof that all animal products should be removed. More likely, they should just be very much reduced and it would provide similar effects. It’s more interesting to study the “Blue Zones” of longevity. Most of those include meat and dairy but at very temperate levels.

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    1. Most blue zones of longevity have diets that are low in calories by western standards and broader in food variety as well. They also tend to be at lower latitudes, meaning more sun exposure.

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  675. This is an excellent study done on The China Study book. Thank you.
    Personally, I’ve favoured a vegetarian diet in the past but found the high comsumtion of carbohydrates without proteins contributed to health issues like hormone imbalance, infertillity, skin disease and cysts. A balanced diet has had far better possitive overall results on my health.
    If someone has a specific health issue, they need to see a specialist in it. Not just read a book and self diagnose.
    The China Study is an extemists view and people can be all too vulnerable when it comes to a ‘quick fix’ idea instead of doing the hard yards, being diciplined with good eating habbits (ie reducing alcohol instead of protein), excersice and staying on heart and colesterole medication until you do.

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  676. For the average person, it all adds up to more and more stress. I have a friend who was a die hard Campbell follower eating vegetarian who died at 70 from colon cancer. Sad to say he took his beliefs in vegetarianism right up to his early demise. I’m one who can’t believe any of these people.

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  677. You see Denise, the problem is that even if you are right, you have little credentials against such a reputable researcher, doctor, biochemist.

    Your cruzade against his book and findings may bring you some reputation as status challenger, but most people would rather believe a scientist than a blogger. (no, I don’t think you should be flipping burguers).

    The thing is, even if you are right, it doesn’t matter much.

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  678. Hi …. thanks for the critique. I’m not sure I really understand all sides of the equation and remain somewhat confused at to who is righter than the other. Across the dietary approaches there must be some common science results that indicate that a particular diet has statistically significant health outcomes e.g. plant-based, animal-based, or a combination thereof. A book I read years ago compared our intestine length to other animals. Are we somewhere in the middle of plant eating herbivores and strictly meat eaters? Ditto for teeth?

    All I want to know is which of the diets can reverse cardio vascular disease if you have it. I read Campbell’s, Esselstyn’s, Pritikin’s, Furhman’s etc. books and for the most part I don’t know if their science gives a causative answer. They give great interpretations of their approach but none seem to have published their data from all their patients. There are plenty of anecdotal information but not hard data. I would hope that this is doable and these plant-based eating arguments would be much easier to accept. Not that I reject them just I find it confusing.

    I’m a little curious about the data set. Is the data for the China Study available on-line? I’m surprised that regression or even principal component or path analysis has not been undertaken to identify causation. Has anyone done this? Where can I get the data please?

    I saw the video by Denise at the Ancestral Health Conference 2014. I applaud the need for good science and being published in peer reviewed journals. With all the published results there still doesn’t seem to be an approach that is the best. Why not? Is this a big task and beyond our scientists? In Australia, the federal government Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization came up with a diet. It was touted as the best summary of dietary science. Is it? how does it compare to all the other diets e.g. paleo, blood type, etc.

    Every book I read about diet seems to be more about accepting a belief, almost evangelically, rather than hard data that shows what causes good and bad health and really how to get better.

    Your guidance would be appreciated.

    Thanks, Mark

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    1. Mark,

      Your questions are good ones. I think doing a PCR or PLS analysis on the data would be fascinating. I hope you are able to do that.

      I bet you could contact TC Campbell and discuss the issue with him directly. He would probably be interested in learning about PCR and PLS.

      Regarding the hard data, as you know, in medical studies, the hierarchy of evidence is very important when discussing these matters. Quality of evidence is key in these discussions. I find that people will often critique a study (ie..china study) and then use lesser quality evidence to support their side. That doesn’t work. I think all studies can be critiqued, and I have yet to find a study ever done on any subject that didn’t have bias and flaws. Doing good medical human research is really hard.

      Anyway, I present you some hard data as you requested.

      The only double blinded randomized controlled trial with diet that I am aware of was done in the 60s.

      Here is a recent description and re-look at that data set.

      Ramsden, Christopher E., et al. “Re-evaluation of the traditional diet-heart hypothesis: analysis of recovered data from Minnesota Coronary Experiment (1968-73).” bmj 353 (2016): i1246.

      Recently, some really high quality epidemiological studies have been done that confirmed the findings of the China Study.

      Orlich, Michael J., et al. “Vegetarian dietary patterns and mortality in Adventist Health Study 2.” JAMA internal medicine 173.13 (2013): 1230-1238.

      Orlich, Michael J., et al. “Vegetarian dietary patterns and the risk of colorectal cancers.” JAMA internal medicine 175.5 (2015): 767-776.

      I hate meta-analysis and you won’t find them listed in any heiarichal list of strength of evidence (because they suck and often lie), but be that as it may, here is a meta-analysis that seems to confirm the findings of the China Study (meta-analysis pools lots of studies and tries to use the data from each to come up with a overlying answer).

      Dinu, Monica, et al. “Vegetarian, vegan diets and multiple health outcomes: a systematic review with meta-analysis of observational studies.” Critical reviews in food science and nutrition 57.17 (2017): 3640-3649.

      Honestly, I find it strange that people are still arguing against eating more vegetables and eating whole foods and avoiding concentrated fats and oils. It is very weird actually. That is basically what TC Campbell argues. Eat more vegetables because they contain tons of phytonutrients that isn’t contained in bacon – and people have a problem with this?

      Finally, here is a great case series that needs to be mentioned.

      Have you heard about the Blue Zones? Take a look at the findings from that research and see what you think.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone

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  679. Vegetables grown organically don’t have the poisons of non-organic vegetables. Would that make a significant change on the statistics? I have read part of Dr. Gibson’s book. That is the book I am interested in for conquering cancer. Thank you

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  680. Kudos to the author – beautifully and intelligently written – We meat eaters applaud you.

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  681. I am a vegan (for health reasons) and read the China study recently, but found this page looking for some criticism from someone who wasn’t in T.C.C.’s corner. I don’t plan to change my diet based on the critique you proposed, (in short because I don’t see any good reasons to include animal products in my diet given the enormous suffering the industry which produces them causes) but I am glad to have a slightly more nuanced perspective on the field of play here, so thank you.

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    1. You might benefit from watching and/or reading anything that Natasha Campbell-Mcbride is featured in or has written. Also, look up Lierre Keith. God Bless!

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