The China Study

A Comprehensive Study on Disease Causing Lifestyles

Chinese Symbol for Creativity

For Christmas I received a gift that got me thinking: The China Study, a book by T. Colin Campbell and his son, Thomas Campbell. Author of over 350 research papers, the senior Campbell is Professor Emeritus at Cornell University in Nutritional Biochemistry and is in the forefront of nutrition research. The China Study of the title refers to the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever undertaken, a survey of diseases and lifestyle factors in rural China and Taiwan begun in 1983 and continuing still. It investigates the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease, and looks at the connection between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes and cancer. It also examines the source of nutritional confusion produced by powerful lobbies, government entities, and opportunistic scientists and groups.

The book was an interesting read. The conclusion, backed by listed scientific studies, is that people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease, and that people who ate the most whole plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.

Something Dr. Campbell wrote focused my attention. On page two of his book he states that based on his experience, “Synthetic chemicals in your environment and in your food, as problematic as they may be, are not the main cause of cancer.”

The China Study by Colin Campbell

Giving that statement some weight is the fact that during the course of his career, Campbell was instrumental in the discovery of Dioxin and Aflatoxin, two of the most potent carcinogens ever found, as well as involved in research into the following alleged carcinogens: Aminotriazole (herbicide used on cranberry crops), Alar (apple spray), DDT, Nitrites, Red Dye Number 2, artificial sweeteners.

Campbell’s opinion is that scientific conclusions from carcinogen studies that yield only marginal results in laboratory test animals are questionable, not definitive. Yet these questionable results make very big waves in the public arena. His claim is that the majority of cancers are caused instead by poor diets and passive lifestyles. He believes that to funnel research dollars into sometimes outlandish investigations trying to prove a carcinogenic link to a chemical is a waste of resources.

Campbell takes a humorous turn to illustrate his point, when on pages 44 through 46 he writes how absurd and flawed many of the studies of possible carcinogens are. He refers to a particular study of nitrites, a substance used in the processing of hot dogs, bacon and preserved meat. Nitrites can form N-nitrososarcosines (NSAR), which may be a human carcinogen. The study involved the testing of rats in two groups. In the first, the rats were given a high dose of NSAR, and in the other, a low dose (half the amount of the high dose). The result was that all the rats given the high dose died prematurely, but that “only” 35% of the low-dosage rats died, all of throat cancer.

A reasonable question here is how much NSAR were the rats fed? Campbell puts the dosages in layman’s terms.  Let’s say you want to give someone throat cancer using NSAR compounds that exist in bologna. You would have to feed an individual 270,000 bologna sandwiches, with a pound of bologna per sandwich. Assuming the eater ate a sandwich at each meal, it would take approximately 25 years to digest the entire amount of the suspected carcinogenic substance, in this case NSAR. If your victim accomplishes this gluttonous feat, he will have had as much exposure to NSAR (adjusted for body weight) as the rats in the low dose group.

After reading Campbell’s book, I considered the international furor against plastics, especially Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC). The fear that most of us feel toward cancer is capitalized on by special interest groups (SIGS). They discredit products for reasons that are often not clear or sound.

To me it doesn’t make sense to mount a campaign against PVC (or any other plastic) as an alleged carcinogen. The spotlight should focus more fittingly on the origins of most cancers, poor lifestyle choices such as alcohol consumption, tobacco use, lack of exercise and a diet high in dairy and animal fats..  It also isn’t convincing to contemn PVC resin plants, many located in Texas, as being producers of cancer causing chemicals, when the state with the highest incidence of cancer per 100,000 population is Maine (Texas isn’t even in the top 30). ¹

I think the vinyl industry ought to invite Dr. T. Colin Campbell to a gathering and ask him to address the myths, lies and half-truths perpetrated by SIGS against plastics. Perhaps his involvement could add additional credibility and prestige to the promotion of the industry’s efforts, similar to that added by vinyl spokesperson Dr. Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace.

Note: 1. National Cancer Institute 2006 data

David A. Chasis

Chasis Consulting Inc.