Sustainable Health

(Material adapted courtesy Doctors Colin Campbell & Joel Fuhrman with thanks)

“Very few people truly know what they should be doing to improve their health because the public is drowning in an ocean of very bad information.”

The China Study,   directed by Colin Campbell, Emeritus Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, New York City, turned the nutrition world upside down, proving many ‘nutritional facts’ to be totally false. It has been described as·

“the Grand Prix of all epidemiological studies,a the most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease.”
"the most comprehensive survey of food, environment, social practices and diseases ever made in China - and one of the largest epidemiological studies ever done anywhere."

Campbell et al found that as the amount of animal foods increased in the diet, even in relatively small increments, so did the emergence of the cancers that are common in the West. Western diet consumers, compared to vegans, were at risk of cancer by a factor of 200:1.

The incidence of cardiovascular disease rates, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, renal insufficiency, and kidney stones were 20:1 comparing western diet consumers to vegans. Most cancers and heart attacks occurred in direct proportion to the quantity of animal foods consumed.

The strongest protective effect came from the consumption of green leafy vegetables. Even at high levels of intake, plant proteins including from wheat and soy were found to be safe and did not promote cancer.

It is not surprising that in Australia every second person dies from heart attack or stroke, and one third from cancer, because the vast majority of symptoms for which people visit doctors have a nutritional cause Cancer. An unnaturally rapid growth and premature puberty are risk factors for cancers and other diseases later in life. Excessive growth in childhood increases the occurrence of cancer in general.

Slower growth and taking longer to reach maturity is predictive of a longer life in animal studies. Rats that grow and mature the quickest die earliest. In fact the slower a child grows, the slower he or she is aging. A study 70 years ago showed that rats fed vegetable protein grew more slowly than rats fed animal protein.

With all species, the longer an animal takes to reach maturity, the longer it lives. Women who mature earlier, as measured by their age of puberty, have the highest risk of breast cancer. So, a good reason to avoid ‘high-protein’ diets, particularly animal protein based diets, is that they promot56941e premature growth and maturity.

Myth: Foods are good for us if they help us grow bigger and faster.
Fact: Earlier maturity and larger stature result from our greater consumption of animal protein and animal fats.

Campbell’s animal research proved that low protein diets inhibit the initiation of cancer by toxins, even by highly carcinogenic toxins such as aflatoxin, regardless of how much carcinogen was administered. Aflatoxin is a chemical that experimentally turns on cancer in 100% of cases in test animals at routine relatively small levels of intake, not extraordinary levels.

Campbell proved that even in the presence of aflatoxin, cancer could be turned on and off by dietary means. He proved that cancer producing Aflatoxin was neutralised by a low-protein diet. In fact, dietary protein proved to be so powerful in its effect that he could turn on and turn off cancer growth simply by changing the level of dietary protein consumed.”

Campbell describes cancer as proceeding through three stages, analogous to planting grass. “The initiation stage is when you put the seeds in the soil, promotion is when the grass starts to grow, and progression is when the grass gets completely out of control, invading the driveway, the garden and the footpath.

Carcinogens, after entering our cells, are converted to chemicals that are more reactive, with the help of critically important enzymes. These carcinogen-enzyme products then bind tightly to the cell’s DNA to form carcinogen-DNA complexes.

Nature repairs most of these products fairly quickly. However, if carcinogen-DNA complexes remain in place while cells are dividing to form new daughter cells, genetic damage occurs and this new genetic defect, called a mutation, is passed on to all the new daughter cells formed thereafter. Such complexes genetically transformed or mutate normal cells into cancer prone cells.

Once the new daughter cells are formed, the process of initiation is complete.” Campbell at al showed that the lower the protein intake, the lower the amount of aflatoxin-DNA complexes to rat liver DNA macro molecules.

He proved that less aflatoxin entered the cell, cells multiplied more slowly, toxin-enzyme activity was reduced, the quantity of critical components of the relevant enzymes was reduced, and less aflatoxin-DNA complexes were formed. Lower protein intake dramatically decreases cancer initiation.

Tiny microscopic clusters of cancer like cells called foci, appear right after an initiation is complete and are the precursor clusters of cells that grow (undergo promotion) into cancers. Campbell found that foci development (promotion) was almost entirely dependent on how much protein was consumed, regardless of how much aflatoxin was consumed!

He found that after initiation with aflatoxin, the cancer foci grew (were promoted) far more with a diet which contained 20% protein (i.e. where twenty percent of calories came from protein) than a protein diet of 5% (i.e. where five percent of total calories came from protein). Subsequent animal experiments proved that these foci could be turned on and off by increasing or lowering the intake of calories from dietary protein between the range of 5 – 20 percent. Campbell also demonstrated in animal studies that toxins leave a genetic cancer imprint that will lie dormant at protein intake levels of 5% but will be ‘reawakened’ to form foci with 20% dietary protein.

This begged the question: how much protein is too much or too little? Using rats he investigated a range of 4-24 % dietary protein. Foci did not develop with up to about 10% dietary protein.  Beyond 10% foci development increased dramatically with increases in dietary protein. Foci developed only when the animals met or exceeded the amount of dietary protein (12%) needed to satisfy their body growth rate. [1]The protein required for growth in young rats and humans as well as the protein required to maintain health for adult rats and humans is remarkably similar. Humans should be getting about 10% of our energy from protein, though this is considerably more than the actual amount required.

The average American consumes 15-16% protein. Ten percent dietary protein is equivalent to eating about 50-60 grams of protein per day. One hundred calories of spinach (710 grams) contains about twelve grams of protein. Americans consume about 150 grams of protein a day, about five times the protein amount actually needed, which most unbiased researchers set at about 30 grams per day (though some estimates are as low as 10 grams per day).

[2]^{[3] [4]} This excess protein, not to mention the fat that accompanies it, is extremely damaging. In China, the average protein intake is only about 65% of the average intake in the US. But, more significantly, in China only about 10% of the protein is provided by animal based foods, whereas in the US, it is about 70%. Thus, on an energy intake basis, animal protein intake is about 10-fold higher in the US than China, causing major differences in many nutrient intakes.

It is not surprising that every second person dies from heart attack or stroke, and one third from cancer, because the vast majority of symptoms for which people visit doctors have a nutritional cause. This was proven beyond doubt in The China Study. Campbell investigated whether protein intake could modify the effect of aflatoxin dose on foci formation. Foci in rats increased in number and size as the aflatoxin dose was increased in animals fed 20% dietary protein.

In the animals fed 5% protein, the dose response curve completely disappeared, there being no foci responses even when animals were given the maximum tolerated aflatoxin dose. It is possible, Campbell believes, that cancer does not occur unless we consume foods that promote and nurture tumour development despite being exposed for most of our lives to small amounts of cancer causing chemicals. In all of the experiments by Campbell he was using casein, which makes up 87% of cows milk protein.

His subsequent experiments demonstrated that plant protein did not promote cancer growth even at the higher levels of intake. Rats fed 20% soy protein diets did not form early foci, nor did rats fed 20% wheat protein (gluten) diets. Cow’s milk protein is an exceptionally potent cancer promoter in rats dosed with aflatoxin. Rats normally and generally live for about two years.

All rats administered aflatoxin and fed regular 20% levels of casein were dead or near death from liver tumours at 100 weeks. All rats administered the same level of aflatoxin but fed the low 5% protein diet were alive, active with sleek hair coats at 100 weeks. These results were almost identical to original studies in India.

[5] There is also a relationship between animal protein and heart disease. Apolipoprotein B is positively associated with animal-protein intake and inversely associated (lowered) with vegetable-protein intake (e.g. legumes and greens). Apolipoprotein B levels
correlate strongly with coronary heart disease. [6]Animal proteins have a significant effect on raising cholesterol levels, while plant protein lowers it. [7]

The same study showed that eating beans, peas, or lentils at least twice a week was associated with a 50 percent lower risk than never eating these foods. The data from the China Project shows that cancer incidence is so low in China and that animal-food consumption is so much lower than in America. Even those consuming the most animal products in China consume less than half the amount American do.

As animal-food intake increased from about once a week in the lowest third to about four times a week in the highest third, breast cancer rates increased by 70 percent. Of note is that the only difference among the diets was the addition of meat in varying amounts. Consumption of fresh vegetables in all groups was about the same, offering little chance of confounding variables.

There was a strong increase in the occurrence of breast cancer mortality with increasing animal-product consumption. Animal protein is getting a bad rap by legitimate nutritional researchers and scientists, who have discovered a link between animal protein and cancer in both laboratory and human epidemiological studies, and reducing one’s consumption of animal protein slows down the aging process. [8]In the past ten years the fat in animal foods has also been linked to cause cancer and heart disease. Animal-product consumption in general is proportionally associated with multiple types of cancer. A massive international study that amassed data from fifty-nine different countries showed that men who ate the most meat, poultry, and dairy products were the most likely to die from prostate cancer, while those who ate the most unrefined plant foods and nuts were the least likely to succumb to this disease.

[9] Researchers found that as the amount of animal foods increased in the diet even in relatively small increments, so did the emergence of the cancers that are common in the West. As animal food consumption approached zero in China, cancer rates fell. Areas of the country with an extremely low consumption of animal food were virtually free of heart attacks and cancer. Mortality data from 65 counties across China showed a significant association with animal protein intake (even at relatively low levels) and heart attacks, with a strong protective effect from the consumption of green vegetables.

[10] All animal products are low (or completely lacking) in the nutrients that protect us against cancer and heart attacks- fibre, antioxidants, phytochemicals, folate, vitamin E, and plant proteins. They are rich in substances that scientific investigations have shown to be associated with cancer and heart disease incidence: saturated fat, cholesterol, and arachidonic acid, [11]and high blood levels of the hormone IGF-1, which is a known risk factor for several types of cancer. [12] The China Project showed a strong correlation between cancer and the amount of animal protein, not just animal fat. [13]

Lean meats and poultry still showed a strong correlation with higher cancer incidence. Consuming excess protein produces certain toxins, by-products of animal food digestion, which enter our bloodstream. These toxins have the ability to cause central nervous system symptoms, such as mental confusion and headaches. The effects of these toxins become most noticeable when the digestive tract is not busy digesting, and glucose levels are low. The liver attempts to break down the excess and excrete it in the form or urea, via the kidneys.

The by-products of protein digestion have a powerful, toxic effect on the brain, and can as their levels rise in the body cause hypoglycaemia, mental fatigue and confusion. Chicken has about the same amount of cholesterol as beef, and the production of those potent cancer-causing compounds called heterocyclic amines (HCAs) are even more concentrated in grilled chicken than in beef. [14] The greatest contributor of HCAs to cancer risk was chicken. [15] Chicken is almost as dangerous as red meat for the heart.
Regarding cholesterol, there is no advantage to eating lean white instead of lean red meat. [16] The best bet for overall health is to significantly limit or eliminate all types of meat. Animal protein (in addition to animal fats) are implicated in disease causation: “dietary protein… is more significant, as far as cholesterol levels are concerned, than is saturated fat…. Animal protein has a quick and major impact on enzymes involved in the metabolism of cholesterol… animal protein generally only causes mischief.”

[17] Cholesterol levels can be decreased by reducing both saturated fat and animal protein while eating more plant protein. Those countries and areas of China with extremely low rates of Western diseases did not achieve them merely because their diets were low in fat. It was because their diets were rich in unrefined plant products. Never forget that coronary artery disease and its end result- heart attacks, the number one killer of all American men and women- is almost 100 percent avoidable.

Pouring through nation-by-nation mortality data collected by the World Health Organisation, poorer countries have less than 5 percent of the adult population dying of heart attacks. [18]There were virtually no heart attacks in populations that consume a life-long vegetarian diet and almost no heart attacks in populations consuming a diet that is rich in plant foods and less than 10 percent of its calories from animal foods.

The major risk factors associated with heart disease - smoking, physical inactivity, and animal-product consumption- are avoidable. American women who reduced their fat intake surprisingly did not have a decreased risk of breast cancer. [19]This is still a high-fat diet and even higher than the group with the highest fat intake in China. It’s like cutting back on smoking from three packs a day to two and expecting to get a significant decrease in lung cancer risk.

The lowest-fat group in China, whose diet was almost entirely composed of plants, was getting 6 percent of their calories from fat, and the high-fat group in China consumed about 24 percent of their calories from fat. The low-fat group in China… their cancer rates were so low not solely because the diet was low in fat and animal protein but also because, unlike Americans, they actually ate lots of vegetables.

The results from population studies in the West are not very accurate. They generally study adults who have made some moderate dietary change later in like, past the age when dietary influence has the most effect. Certain cancers, such as breast and prostrate cancer, are strongly influenced by how we eat earlier in life, especially right before and after puberty. Even small intakes of foods of animal origin are associated with significant increases in plasma cholesterol concentration, and in turn, with significant increases in chronic degenerative disease mortality rates.

[20]Populations with very low cholesterol levels have not only low heart-disease rates but low cancer rates as well. As long as Americans continue to practice nutritional indifference, they will suffer the consequences. Don’t expect any significant protection from marginal changes. Because refined grains are low in fibre, they do not make you feel full until after you have taken in too many calories from them. Their nutrient-to-calorie and nutrient-to-fibre ratios are extremely low.  Castelli, Director of Framingham Heart Study in Massachusetts: “We tend to scoff at vegetarians, but they’re doing much better than we are.

Vegans have cholesterol levels so low, they almost never get heart attacks. Their average blood cholesterol study is about 125 and we’ve never seen anyone in the Framingham study have a heart attack with a level below 150.” Those who avoid meat and dairy have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity.
[21]Vegetarians live longer in America, probably a lot longer. For optimal health you must receive the majority of your calories from unrefined plant food. It is the large quantity of unrefined plant food that grants the greatest protection against developing serious disease. Women are now twice as likely to develop breast cancer as they were a century ago.

Women are still in the dark about what they can do to protect themselves. The reason is that breast cancer, like most cancers, is multicausal. The good news is that genetics plays a minor role and the disease does not strike at random. The war against breast cancer can be won. Woman are not the only sex affected;

the same increased risk as a result of early maturation is seen with both prostate cancer and testicular cancer. [22] Ominously, the onset of menstruation has been occurring at a younger and younger age in Western societies during this century. [23] According to the WHO the average age at which puberty began in 1840 among women in the USA was seventeen.

[24] This age has now dropped to twelve. There has been a concomitant change in Western eating habits. There has been an increased consumption of fat, refined carbohydrates, cheese, and meat and a huge decrease in the consumption of complex carbohydrates such as starchy plants. Girls on vegetarian diets characterised by more complex carbohydrates and no meat show a later age of menarche and as one would expect, a significant reduction of acne as well.

[25] A greater consumption of animal foods leads to a higher level of hormones related to early reproductive function and growth. [26]The stage is set by our poor dietary habits early in life. Breast and prostate cancer are strongly affected by our dietary practices when we are young. Protein richness of one’s diet is a more sensitive marker of early menarche than increased body weight. [27]Then in the 1990s, when the data from the massive China-Oxford-Cornell Project was dissected, we again saw the high correlation between breast-cancer incidence and the consumption of animal products. [28] Serum testosterone levels had the best correlation with breast cancer, even better than estrogen. Increasing levels of testosterone significantly increase the risk of both breast cancer and prostate cancer.

Testosterone rises as well with increasing levels of obesity, and being overweight is another consistent risk factor. [29] We consume an enormous amount of cheese. Consumption is alarming: a 193 percent increase in the past twenty-five years. Cheese has more saturated fat than any other food. Fat consumption early in life has huge repercussions.

[30] There is almost no breast cancer in populations that consume less than 10 percent of their calories from fat. [31]The Journal of the National Cancer Institute studies failed to show the relationship between animal-product consumption and breast cancer suffered from methodological problems. [32] Pesticides, especially PCBs and DDT, may promote further pathologic changes. Women who have breast cancer have a higher concentration of these chemicals in their breast tissue than do women who do not have cancer.

[33] There is a particularly high rate of breast cancer as the result of eating coastal fish. Exercise Powerfully Reduces Cancer Risk Can the diet you eat make a difference if you have cancer? Scientific data indicates that the answer is yes. Saturated fat in the diet promoted a more rapid spread of cancer. [34] High fruit and vegetable intake improved survival, and fat on the body increases the risk of a premature death.

[35] Similar findings are found regarding prostate cancer and diet. For humans, too much animal food is toxic. Subjects who ate meat, including poultry and fish, were found to be twice as likely to develop dementia than their vegetarian counterparts in a carefully designed study.

[36] The same diet also causes kidney stones, renal insufficiency and renal failure, osteoporosis, uterine fibroids, hypertension, appendicitis, diverticulosis, and thrombosis. [37] Osteoporosis Most people consider a diet without dairy unhealthy.

Is it true or have we been brainwashed? Hip fractures and osteoporosis are more frequent in populations in which dairy products are commonly consumed and calcium intakes are commonly high. American women drink thirty to thirty-two times as much cow’s milk as the New Guineans, yet suffer forty-seven times as many broken hips. Milk consumption has a high statistical association with higher rates of hip fractures.

[38]It brings into question that drinking cow’s milk prevents osteoporosis. The data does not support that milk protects against hip or forearm fractures. [39] This does not mean that dairy causes osteoporosis. Studies show fruit and vegetables are protective against osteoporosis.

[40] Osteoporosis has a complex etiology that involves a dietary acid-alkaline balance, trace minerals, phytochemicals, exercise, sunlight, and more. “Ironically, osteoporosis tends to occur where calcium intake is highest and most of it comes from protein-rich dairy products.

The Chinese data indicate that people need less calcium than we think and can get adequate amounts from vegetable source plant food.” There was basically no osteoporosis in China, yet the calcium intake ranged from 241 to 943 mg per day (average, 544). In the U.S. the average is 1143. When you compare the calcium density of meat to green leaf such as sirloin and lettuce for calcium, there is a hundred fold difference in concentration in favour of green to red (United States Department of Food & Agriculture).

If you consume 1000 mg of calcium a day, about a third gets absorbed. If you excreted 350 mg would you be in a negative or positive calcium balance? A negative calcium balance means more calcium is excreted in the urine than is absorbed through digestion. A positive calcium balance means more calcium is absorbed than excreted. A negative balance over time results in bone loss, as the additional calcium must come from our primary calcium storehouse, our bones.

The continual depletion of our calcium reserves over time, from excessive calcium excretion in the urine, is the primary cause of osteoporosis. Factors that contribute to this excessive excretion include:

Dietary factors which induce calcium loss in urine:
·         Animal protein
·         Salt
·         Caffeine
·         Refined sugar
·         Alcohol
·         Nicotine
·         Aluminium-containing antacids
·         Drugs such as antibiotics, steroids, thyroid hormone
·         Vitamin A supplements

Dietary protein excess eventually leads to a vicious cycle of weakness, confusion and psychosis, evident in alcoholic liver disease toxicity, the result of nitrogenous waste product excess and the inability of the liver to detoxify it. Even egg whites increase the cholesterol. Animal proteins trigger an immune response because the body recognises peptides sequences similar to its’ own, over reacts to them causing an autoimmune response we recognise as Multiple Sclerosis, Systemic Lupus Erythematosis, Psoriasis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, etc etc. Use animal products only as condiments if you have to use them.

Immune disorders, allergies etc take 1 – 2 years to resolve once the nutrition is good. A diet high in protein is thought to be an outdated and potentially dangerous misconception. High Protein Diets An example of a dangerous way to lose weight is to follow a high-protein, carbohydrate-restricted diet. Ethically-misnomered 'diets,' made to sound like 'fasts', especially the expensive OptiFast and MediFast, liquid-protein diet weight-loss schemes, have proved to be TRULY dangerous--even deadly.

[41]When the body can't find enough carbohydrate to properly run its machinery, it looks for emergency fuel that can be utilized in times of crisis, fasting, or starvation. This fuel is called 'ketones'. "Ketones are a fat-breakdown product that many cells can use as an alternative (emergency) fuel, rather than carbohydrate. As ketone production increases, a condition called 'ketosis' occurs, and the acids rise in our bloodstream.

This can be measured by checking the acidity of our urine. "If the dieter maintains a high-protein, low-carbohydrate program for a prolonged period of time, the excess protein consumed that cannot be stored in the body, as well as all the acids created by protein metabolism and as a result of ketosis, must be eliminated by the kidneys; High-protein weight-loss plans inevitably speed up the aging of the kidneys, and unknowingly destroy functional units in the kidneys called 'nephrons' because the signs that damage has occurred will not be noticeable by blood test until more than 80% of the kidneys are destroyed.

This can be especially dangerous in diabetics or individuals with high blood pressure, because their kidneys are already under stress from their medical condition. "Additionally, as these acids are washed through the kidneys, many minerals, especially calcium stored in the bones are washed out, too, causing osteoporosis. [42] "Every single person who follows a high-protein, carbohydrate-restricted diet will speed up the aging of the kidneys, and increase the risk of kidney stones and nephrocalcinosis (hardening of the kidney).

Even worse, since animal-based foods are almost 100% fat and protein, and contain no carbohydrate or fiber, and none of the protective antioxidant nutrients, a diet based on animal food is closely linked to early death from cancer (especially colon cancer, prostrate cancer, and breast cancer) and heart attack.”

Many books are touting the benefits of high-protein diets for weight loss and are getting much publicity. Many Americans desire to protect their addiction to high-fat, nutrient-inadequate animal foods. This is topsy-turvy scientific-sounding quackery.

A strict vegetarian diet is not as important as eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables. Multiple studies have shown that vegetarians live quite a bit longer than non-vegetarians do. [43] Those who weren’t as strict had longevity statistics that were equally impressive as long as they consumed a high volume of a variety of unrefined plant foods.

Long-term vegans almost never get heart attacks. If you have heart disease or a strong family history of heart disease, you should consider avoiding all animal-based products. Avoid processed foods as well. Good luck.

[1]Dunaif GE, and Campbell TC. “Dietary protein level and aflatoxin B1-induced pre neoplastic hepatic lesions in the rat.” J Nutr. 117 (1987) : 1298-1302.
[2]Agatha Thrash M.D., & Calvin Thrash M.D., Seale. Alabama: Nutrition for Vegetarians. New Lifestyle Books. 1982. pp: 55-56.
[3]Shelton, Herbert. Superior Nutrition. San Antonio, Texas: Willow Publishers Inc. 1987. p 58
[4]David Reuben, M.D. Everything you always wanted to know about nutrition. New York, New York: Avon Books, 1978, pp 153 – 155.
[5]Madhavan TV, and Gopalan C. “ the effects of dietary protein on carcinogenesis of aflatoxin.” Arch. Path. 85 (1968): 133-137
[6] Ibid.
[7] Descovich, G.C., C Ceredi, A. Gaddi, et al. 1980. Multicentre study of soybean protein diet for outpatient hyper-cholesterolaemic patients. Lancet 2 (8197): 709-12; Carroll, K.K. 1982. Hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis: effects of dietary protein. Fed. Proc. 41 (11): 2792-96; Sirtori, C.R., G. Noseda, and G.C. Descovich. 1983. Studies on the use of a soybean protein diet for the management of human hyperlipoproteinsemias, in Gibney, M.J., and D. Kritchevsky, eds. Animal and vegetable proteins in lipid metabolism and atherosclerosis. New York: Liss, 135-48.
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[10] Campbell, T.C., B. Parpia, and J. Chen. 1998. Diet, lifestyle, and the etiology of coronary artery disease: the Cornell China Study. Am. J. Cardio. 82 (10B): 18-21T.
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[17] Campbell, T.C. 1995. Why China holds the key to your health. Nutrition Advocate 1 (1):7-8.
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[3] The China Study is a must read; for more details follow the links on my website, johngreen.mybigplanet.com
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