Anyone heard of The China Study?

[KHep]

I had an extra credit assignment from my biomedical ethics class that involved attending a lecture presented by a biochemistry professor from Cornell and then writing a summary. Can't pass up something that easy.

It turns out that the professor is lecturing about his new book that takes 30 years of his research in nutritional biochem along with something like 700 independent research articles and points to a "causal" relationship between animal protein consumption and cancer. The first study that he talked about involved a 20% casein intake and liver cancere that dates back to the the first decade of the last century. He claims that the reason why it's not general knowledge is because the dairy and meat industries have too many people lobbying congress and are often directly funding advisory panels.

I ended up buying the book; I don't have time to read it right now, but my husband has been reading it and is now convinced that we need to drastically reduce our animal protein intake. This is a meat and potatoes kind of guy, so it's a bit shocking...he's also an engineer, so not totally gullible.

So, I'm curious if anyone out there has heard about this. If you have, tell me what you think. I wouldn't mind being a vegetarian, but it would be very hard to be vegan (I am a huge cheese lover).

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[DD214_DOC]

You do realize you're eventually going to die regardless of what you do, right? Plenty of people live to their 70s or 80s, or even longer, and eat plenty of meat.

I'd rather enjoy life and die at 60 than hate life and die at 80.

 

[KHep]

You do realize you're eventually going to die regardless of what you do, right? Plenty of people live to their 70s or 80s, or even longer, and eat plenty of meat.

I'd rather enjoy life and die at 60 than hate life and die at 80.

Of course, I realilze this; I've had several family members live well into their 90's

 

[babyruth]

Did he talk about confounding factors? like genetics, lifestyle in general, what part of the world eats the most protein and the way they live their lives?

 

[sfrduder]

Yeah, thats a pretty old study. I thought the guy might be dead by now. So I'm kind of suprised that something is just coming out now about it.

 

[sfrduder]

You do realize you're eventually going to die regardless of what you do, right? Plenty of people live to their 70s or 80s, or even longer, and eat plenty of meat.

I'd rather enjoy life and die at 60 than hate life and die at 80.

I hope you never have to give any nutitional advice to a patient.




Part of the idea of eating a diet with less meat is also less degrading on the environment. You are eating lower on the food chain. So that is another area that people in the study are interested in.

Raising cattle or other livestock requires much more inputs then growing vegtables. And raising a large amount of livestock (or factory farming) produces a lot of excess pollution, mostly in the form of nitrates which easily pollute water sources out in the midwest.

The study is not saying, do not eat meat. Its for the american or anyone who eats sausage for breakfast, a burger for lunch, then steak for dinner. It is suggesting that people limit the amont of meat they eat, and comsume more grains and vegatables.

 

[MasterShakeDO]

"Only in America do we say something as stupid as red meat will kill you...If you're one of the chosen few who are lucky enough to get your hands on a piece of steak, bite the $#@! out of it." - Chris Rock

 

[KHep]

Did he talk about confounding factors? like genetics, lifestyle in general, what part of the world eats the most protein and the way they live their lives?

Yep. He did address those concerns, but not thoroughly. He had already gone over on time the night of the lecture. I'm sure he addresses it in the book, but like I said, I haven't read it yet. That was my first thought too.
People who eat meat can afford it, which usually means that they live in an urban area. Exactly one of the reasons that I thought I would ask what other people know about this.

The interesting thing was that it wasn't just cancer; he showed correlations between other diseases too...osteoporosis, heart disease.

He seems compelling because he grew up on a dairy farm and initially set out to sythesize the best form of protein out there, so that he could help the undernourished.

 

[KHep]

I hope you never have to give any nutitional advice to a patient.




Part of the idea of eating a diet with less meat is also less degrading on the environment. You are eating lower on the food chain. So that is another area that people in the study are interested in.

Raising cattle or other livestock requires much more inputs then growing vegtables. And raising a large amount of livestock (or factory farming) produces a lot of excess pollution, mostly in the form of nitrates which easily pollute water sources out in the midwest.

The study is not saying, do not eat meat. Its for the american or anyone who eats sausage for breakfast, a burger for lunch, then steak for dinner. It is suggesting that people limit the amont of meat they eat, and comsume more grains and vegatables.

Exactly. Most of the studies showed that if you decreased your animal protein consumption down to about 5%, there was a decreased risk for disease.

But, he did also say, that vegetarians (because of their large dairy intake) are not any better off than people who eat the typical meat consumption (20%).

Yes, he is absolutely not saying to become a vegan, but to drastically cut back on animal protein consumption and to adopt a whole food diet, instead of food fragment laden diet.

 

[babyruth]

Our dietician here at DMU said basically the same thing.... that Americans eat wy too much protein, and not just protein, but fatty, rich protein. His studies didn't correlate it to cancer but did mention renal problems and osteoporosis, possibly due to the acids that you are synthesizing and secreting.

 

[EMTLizzy]

You do realize you're eventually going to die regardless of what you do, right? Plenty of people live to their 70s or 80s, or even longer, and eat plenty of meat.

I'd rather enjoy life and die at 60 than hate life and die at 80.

I don't know about others, but my motivation for eating healthy is my quality of life from that 60-80 year mark. Yes, I'd prefer to enjoy life and drop dead instantly at 60 rather than nit pick every single thing I eat and be constantly worried about my fat intake and die at 80.

The problem is when you have the massive heart attack that drastically reduces your quality of life. Or diabetes does a job on your vascular system and you end up an amputee.

Watching my dad and his horrible died over the years, and watching him life with and die from heart disease, diabetes, and two strokes (the second one killing him) I think it's wiser to be careful at a younger age before the damage is done.

That being said, I think a lot of it is genetics. Buut I don't think that means we have no control over it. I could develop diabetes just like my dad did when I'm 56, but I can choose to not have the two bowls of ice cream a night like he did too.

 

[deejayshakur]

"Only in America do we say something as stupid as red meat will kill you...If you're one of the chosen few who are lucky enough to get your hands on a piece of steak, bite the $#@! out of it." - Chris Rock

haha mastershake, i love chris rock.

 

[docslytherin]

sort of like burgess meredith said in grumpier old men (after espousing the virtues of eating bacon all day) "i keep livin' and the experts just keep dyin'. sometimes i think god forgot about me."