''The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health'' is a book by

T. Colin Campbell Thomas Colin Campbell (born March 14, 1934) is an American biochemist who specializes in the effect of nutrition on long-term health. He is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University. Campbell ...

and his son, Thomas M. Campbell II. The book argues for health benefits of a whole food plant-based diet. It was first published in the United States in January 2005 and had sold over one million copies as of October 2013, making it one of America's best-selling books about nutrition.

Synopsis

''The China Study'' examines the link between the consumption of

animal product An animal product is any material derived from the body of an animal. Examples are fat, flesh, blood, milk, eggs, and lesser known products, such as isinglass and rennet. Animal by-products, as defined by the USDA, are products harvested or man ...

s (including dairy) and chronic illnesses such as coronary heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and bowel cancer. The book is "loosely based" on the China–Cornell–Oxford Project, a 20-year study which looked at mortality rates from cancer and other chronic diseases from 1973 to 1975 in 65 counties in China, and correlated this data with 1983–84 dietary surveys and blood work from 100 people in each county. The authors conclude that people who eat a predominantly whole-food, vegan diet—avoiding animal products as a source of nutrition, including beef, pork, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese, and milk, and reducing their intake of processed foods and refined carbohydrates—will escape, reduce, or reverse the development of numerous diseases. They write that "eating foods that contain any cholesterol above 0 mg is unhealthy." The book recommends sunshine exposure or dietary supplements to maintain adequate levels of vitamin D, and supplements of vitamin B12, vitamin B₁₂ in case of complete avoidance of animal products. It criticizes Low-carbohydrate diet, low-carb diets, such as the Atkins Nutritional Approach, Atkins diet, which include restrictions on the percentage of calories derived from carbohydrates The authors are critical of Reductionism, reductionist approaches to the study of nutrition, whereby certain nutrients are blamed for disease, as opposed to studying patterns of nutrition and the interactions between nutrients.

Publication

The book was first published in 2005. A revised and expanded edition was published in 2016. The book has also been published in German, Polish, Slovenian, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Romanian, Swedish and Urdu.

Companion volumes

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Reception

Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, said in his documentary ''The Last Heart Attack'' in 2011 that ''The China Study'' had changed the way people all over the world eat. Former American President Bill Clinton became a supporter when he adopted a plant-based diet after a heart attack. Wilfred Niels Arnold, professor of biochemistry at the University of Kansas Medical Center, reviewed the book in ''Leonardo (journal), Leonardo reviews'' in 2005: "[T]he authors anticipate resistant and hostile sources, sail on with escalating enthusiasm, and furnish a working hypothesis that is valuable. In fact, the surprising data are difficult to interpret in any other way." Harriet A. Hall, Harriet Hall, writing for ''Science-Based Medicine (website), Science-Based Medicine'', said that the book had references which do not support directly the claims made by the authors and that it did not explain the exceptions to his data, such as high rates of stomach cancer in China. Stephan Guyenet reviewing the book for ''Red Pen Reviews'' commented that ''The China Study'' is a "scholarly and well-written book" but three of its key scientific claims are "not very well supported overall".Guyenet, Stephan. (2019)
"The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health"
Redpenreviews.org. Retrieved 17 August 2021.

References

External links

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The China Project Data and References

Asians' switch to Western diet might bring Western-type diseases, new China-Taiwan study suggests

Cancer and diet: What’s the connection?

Protein
{{DEFAULTSORT:China Study Books about food and drink Health and wellness books Health in China Plant-based diets Vegetarian-related mass media Vegetarianism in the United States BenBella Books books 2005 non-fiction books