The China Study and Diet Wars

I've posted about my concerns with my doctor. My mother works for the medical group that he is a member of. She basically told me that he would most likely try to convince me to forego the Paleo Diet. I was therefore surprised when he seemed to be supportive, (though only after telling me to avoid red meats, shell fish and dairy). He then took a page from his prescription pad and wrote down the following, "The China Study". He told me, "I have read that book from cover to cover and it is the best book on nutrition available. With your family history of heart disease, you need to read this book and follow its findings".

Well, ok, I did not read the whole 900 + page book, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study. It basically boils down that the nutritionist author, (Dr. Campbell), says that all animal protein sources are bad for your health, and will increase your prevelance for Cancer, Heart Disease, Depression, and other medical issues. He basically is saying that the Vegan diet is the healthiest diet choice. I am not a scientist, but the first thing that jumped out at me, was that if this premise/conclusion was true, then why don't a number of tribes in Africa and all of the Inuit, Eskimo, and other people's of the polar region, (who I know from both my college studies and individual research), subsist on a diet consisting of almost 90% of their total caloric intake from animal based sources, have horribly high rates of such diseases? In fact, many of these groups have exceedingly low rates of cancer and heart disease.

Similarly, a couple of years ago, I watched a documentary about a group of "homesteaders" that were living in Alaska. These primarily "caucasion" families made the decision to leave the cities where they had resided in, and move into the wilderness of Alaska where they subsisted primarily on a hunter-gatherer diet. Even though they consumed an enormous amount of fat based on their primary meat based diets, their incidence of high cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart disease was WAY below the statistical average for their racial and age groups, and in almost every case, was significantly better than their original tests that were taken upon the beginning of their new wilderness existance.

Dr. Campbel simply equates a Chinese group's eating of more meat, causing them to have worse health. Again, I am no medical expert, but having studied China at some depth back in my college days, it was only the middle class and above that could afford a more western diet. This western diet, not only included more meat proteins, it also included more processed and refined foods. No where did I find any evidence that this study separated the impacts of these high starch, low nutrient processed foods, from that of increased meat protein.

So again I am left with a number of questions as to the legitimacy and scientific support for the author's conclusions. I suspect that Robb Wolf probably has a plethora of studies, citations, and other isms, that could better put this study in its place, but I thought I would post the citation for anyone who is interested in seeing the study. Here is one of the critic's reviews that I found quite informative. http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html

I come back to the one thing that every doctor, trainer, and healthy person I know seems to be in agreement on. Reduce your intake of processed and highly refined foods. Seems to me the China Study, as well as a number of other studies regarding social groups living a subsistence existance, all tend to show that people can be healthy living on either a primarily plant based or animal based diet, but these same groups all tend to suffer dramatic increases of "Western Diseases", once they start increasing their intake of highly processed and refined foods. That seems to be the nexus, and the reason I feel the Paleo Diet is a good and healthy choice for me.