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| The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health | 
 enlarge | Authors: T. Colin Campbell, Thomas M. Campbell Ii
Creators: John Robbins, Howard Lyman
Publisher: Benbella Books
Discount Category: Book
Selling Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $6.00
Potential Savings: $10.95 (65%)
New (44) Used (19) from $6.00
Customer Ratings:  485 comments
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st BenBella Books Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 417
Shipping Weight (pounds): 1.3
Dimensions (inch): 9 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 1932100660
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.2
EAN: 9781932100662
Publication Date: June 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Cover bent. Sound Copy. Mild Reading Wear.
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| Customer Comments:
 For those who love life, it's a "must read" May 20, 2005
22 out of 40 found this comment useful.
With all due respect to the fellow who can't give this book a 5 star rating because it was "boring," I gotta say I couldn't put it down! I thought it was fascinating and extremely well-written, particulary considering the need to give some explanation and evidence for the research findings presented.
I've been a vegetarian for 25 years, and mostly vegan for about 8 years, but still had the occaisional dairy food, and indulged quite a bit in refined sugars and carbohydrates. Despite my relatively low consumption of animal products, I've been 30 to 50 pounds overweight for years. I love to eat! I love to feel really full. Maybe you're like that, too. Now, I've been following Dr. Campbell's eating recommendations for just a few days and taking him at his word that I can eat as much as I like of whole, plant-based foods. I'm pigging out, and never had better tasting or more fulfilling food. I already feel much better and I do believe I'm losing weight! This book is just so amazing. I recently lost a friend to cancer, and my cousin's wife will be undergoing a mastectomy for breast cancer soon. I so wish we hadn't been lead astray for so long by those who's profit lies in keeping us addicted to animal products, which overwhelming scientific evidence has shown for many years to be disaterously unhealthy for us. I just bough 4 more books to give to friends and family, and I'll continue doing that every month. Give yourself and those you love the gift of this book; eat whole, plant-based food; dramatically improve your health, reduce your chance of illness; and give the animals a break.
I can't say enough good things about this book May 18, 2005
24 out of 38 found this comment useful.
What a fantastic book. I started to take a deep interest in my health when I discovered something in my body called a sciatic nerve several years ago in my late 30's...I had pain so severe that I really didn't know what pain was until I experienced my case of sciatica. This was my wake up call. To make a long story short, I realized I was almost 50 lbs over what my ideal weight was suppose to be which certainly is, to say the least, not very helpful for one with back pain/sciatica...plus all the other bad things that come along with excess weight. This was weight that I gained very slowly over the years via my careless eating, ie especially from my bad habit of eating to many empty calorie snacks late at night. After doing a bunch of research on the internet, including reading some of the general conclusions reached by Mr. Campbell from The China Study posted on the internet, I gradually concluded that with all the scientific evidence out there, a Vegan diet was the way to go for me. I lost my extra 50 lbs and have kept it off for over 1 1/2 years now. What shocked me is how much BETTER I feel...so much more energy, clearer thinking,intestinal issues I used to have are completely gone, etc. Eating as a Vegan, I'm shocked at how filled up I feel all the time eating a whole food Vegan diet....I have a BIG TIME appetite and that's saying a lot!!!
Again, I can't recommended this book enough. Even after all the reading I've done on diet and nutrition over the last several years, I still learned so much from this book. Reading this book just strongly reinforced the fact that my wife and I feel we made the correct decision for our health and well being in eating a whole food plant based Vegan diet. Mr. Campbell's writing style is extremely clear and kept me interested right to the end of the book. I'm a skeptical person by nature, but I feel this study proves its point beyond any reasonable doubt using both lab type studies and analyzing real world eating patterns of people. Comparing the differences in disease between cultures/people eating a plant based diet vs. a more "Western Diet" is truly an amazing comparision.
 Essential information May 13, 2005
14 out of 33 found this comment useful.
I just finished the china study, and cannot give it five stars simply because it was very boring and difficult to finish. However, the information in it is of extreme importance and the research behind it is formidable. Campbell has worked much of his career as an objective doctor/scientist, and did not start out with a theory he hoped to prove, but did experiments to test variables, and from the outcomes he became convinced that a whole-grain plant based diet is the underlying cure for most diseases of affluence. He has a holistic approach which he explains thoroughly, in which the body is too complex to study with cartesian reductionism. I think that most people could benefit just by reading areas of interest in this book, but would not recommend plowing through start to finish--it just is not written in an engaging style to hold your interest.
Finally, the question what you should eat has been answered May 5, 2005
29 out of 48 found this comment useful.
The China Study was a HUGE study that went on for 30 years; it resulted in over 8,000 statistically significant correlations between diet and disease. It surveyed a vast range of diseases and diet and lifestyle factors in rural China, and more recently, in Taiwan.
A monumental nationwide survey was conducted in China in the 1970s on cancer death rates from twelve different types of cancer. More than 2,400 Chinese counties and 880 million citizens were involved. This resulted in a color-coded atlas showing where certain types of cancer were high, and where they were non-existent. This provided information on over four dozen different kinds of disease, including cancers, heart diseases, and infectious diseases.
The China Study was a grand design; it gathered data on 367 variables, and compared each variable to the others. They went into 65 counties across China and administered blood tests and questionnaires to 6,500 adults. They took urine samples, and directly measured everything families ate over a three day period. And they analyzed food samples from markets across the country.
When they were done, they had an unmatched comprehensive study. They then compared these findings with animal experiments. But Dr. Campbell's conclusions did not rest on the findings of his animal studies, and the studies of China; he sought out the findings of other researchers and clinicians, and included dozens and dozens of studies.
Dr. Campbell and his colleagues received a total of 74 grant-years of funding, and did 74 years of study in less than 35 years. From this research, he authored or co-authored over 350 scientific articles, from which he received may awards. Dr. Campbell did not start with any preconceived notions about the worthiness of any particular diet. His conclusions are largely empirical, based upon observation and measurement, and not from hypothesis or anecdote. The results from all the studies were consistent.
What is so convincing is the breadth of the evidence from so many studies. Hundreds, even thousands of studies show the benefits of a plant-based diet. His conclusion can be summed up as follows:
"Eat a whole foods, plant-based diet, while minimizing the consumption of refined foods, added salt and added fats." Eliminate all animal-based products, but don't obsess over it. If a dish contains a small amount of meat, the quantity very likely will be nutritionally unimportant. Benefits were shown to increase as meat consumption decreased, even when the percentage declined from 10% to 0%.
Lessons from The China Study
1) Breast cancer is associated with consumption of animal fat (but not plant fat).
2) Heart disease is associated with animal protein consumption. Stop eating animal protein, and most heart disease will reverse.
3) Type 1 diabetes is associated with consumption of cows milk. Do not feed your children cows milk, at least until 2 years of age, and preferably never.
4) Type 2 diabetes is associated with increased fat intake.
5) Colon cancer is associated with meat consumption.
6) Multiple Sclerosis is associated with cows milk consumption.
7) Increased hip fractures from osteoporosis are associated with increased milk consumption.
8) Kidney stones are associated with animal protein intake.
9) Macular degeneration and cataracts, forms of eye disease, occur when we fail to eat enough highly colored fruits and vegetables. Both diseases are likely to be increased by animal based foods.
10) Cognitive impairment, memory loss, and Alzheimer's disease are associated with an animal-based diet.
A cautionary note: The China Study is based on the consumption of conventional food sources worldwide, whatever they may be. If those conventional sources happen to be toxic, then naturally by reducing their consumption you will see improved health. Consider the following examples:
The China Book suggests reducing the consumption of salt. We know that salt is an essential nutrient, and farmers keep their livestock healthy by allowing them free access to salt licks. Animals will chew fence posts etc. to get needed minerals (this is called pica). I would conclude that regular supermarket salt is toxic due to the additives and bleaching, and this is borne out by research that shows it to cause illness. However, sun dried (not kiln dried) sea salt, free of additives, is necessary for good health.
The China Book shows that the consumption of milk causes disease including osteoporosis. But this is the homogenized pasteurized version mass consumed and available in supermarkets. Pasteurized milk will putrefy; raw milk will not, but will sour, so there is a difference in properties. Pasteurized milk may cause osteoporosis, but I am told there is research that shows that raw milk does indeed build strong bones.
The China Book shows that consumption of meat causes problems, but this would no doubt be cooked meat. The consumption of raw meat appears to be very beneficial, but few in this culture would want to do that.
The China Book recommends minimally added fats, but this no doubt means the toxic versions that most people consume from market shelves. Udo Erasmus, in his book "Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill", suggests a diet of 15-20% of total calories consumed in fat, but of course, the non toxic versions. The toxic versions are the cause of diabetes [...].
Comprehensive, But A Person Is Behind It, Not Just a Mask May 2, 2005
17 out of 37 found this comment useful.
The China Study is long reaching and you won't find a book anywhere with more background information. Speaking for myself, a man who's always in a hurry to find out the "meat and potatoes" of a book (pardon the metaphor), I did not appreciate being first treated to the lengthy autrobiographical chapter about Dre. Campbell's early life on the farm. To me, this was not strictly necessary. And yet, when I look back, I see this as a way of humanizing the doctor and making us see that even geniuses had boyhoods (or girlhoods as the case may be). Some of us grew up in cities, some in unspoiled rural areas, some in the suburbs, but the cold truth is that there are in actually no "unspoiled areas," for the food and drug industries, together with the medical establishment, have establihed outposts and dug in their heels in every nook and cranny of the world. That is why a boy like the young Colin Campbell was force fed lies about protein that it took him a whole lifetime to regurgitate, and why he finally found it necessary to do his work in the far counties of rural China, where THE GOOD EARTH once took place, but now, well, they live a plant-based lifestyle but one which is rapidly changing.
In fact, I hope that a far-seeing film company gets the rights to this book and makes a movie out of it. "What?" you say. "A movie based on a diet plan?" But THE CHINA STUDY is not only a diet book, nor is it only a condemnation of the linked, globalized drug and meat interests. No, there's a human interest story in here of a gentle young boy put in charge of a herd of innocent cows and then, in outward circles, we see the boy grow up and become a man, in a tale reminiscent of the old favorite A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, so sensitively helmed by Robert Redford.
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