China Study Shows Need for Eating Plant-Based Diet

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This was posted on another group - Although from 1994, we can still strike

up another point for for vegetarians...

Oran

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China Study Shows Need for Eating Plant-Based Diet

 

By Susan Lang

 

[Cornell Chronicle (12/01/94)]

 

Americans will not reduce their rate of cancers, cardiovascular disease and

other chronic, degenerative diseases until they shift their diets away from

animal-based foods to plant-based foods, according to research findings

emerging from the most comprehensive project on diet and disease ever done.

 

Findings from the study suggest that even eating just small amounts of

animal-based foods is linked to significantly higher rates of cancers and

cardiovascular diseases typically found in the United States, said Cornell

nutritional biochemist T. Colin Campbell, director of the

Cornell-China-Oxford Project on Nutrition, Health and Environment.

 

Further, he added, merely eating some low-fat foods or complying with

current U.S. dietary recommendations is unlikely to prevent much disease.

The dietary recommendations, Campbell said, do not go far enough in

reducing the total fat content of the diet, or, more to the point, in

advocating the exchange of foods of animal origin for foods of plant origin.

 

" To get really significant changes in disease rates, it will be necessary

to shift the American diet from its heavy reliance on animal-based foods to

one that relies far more on plant-based foods, " said Campbell, who along

with his colleagues has been analyzing the data from the the China project,

a collaborative effort of Cornell, the Chinese Academy of Preventive

Medicine and University of Oxford.

 

The project, which just received $200,000 from the American Institute for

Cancer Research to continue analyzing data, is a massive survey designed to

study diet, lifestyle and disease across the far reaches of China; it

includes almost 7,000 Chinese families. By investigating simultaneously

more diseases and more dietary characteristics than any other study to

date, the project has generated the most comprehensive database in the

world on the multiple causes of disease.

 

The diets of rural China are mostly plant based and are, therefore, much

lower in fat and animal protein and much higher in fiber than American

diets. Chinese diets also go beyond the dietary recommendations now being

promoted for long-term health in the United States and other Western

countries. As a result, researchers not only could investigate the

relationship of diet with disease, but also the worthiness of American

dietary recommendations.

 

They have found, for example, that although chronic degenerative diseases

are much more common in the United States than in China, the rates for

these diseases are significantly higher in those areas of China where the

intake of animal-based foods is higher.

 

" Whereas current dietary guidelines recommend that no more than 30 percent

of calories (from the present 35 to 38 percent) come from fat, data from

the China study suggest that reducing fat to about 15 percent of total

calories would prevent 80 to 90 percent of chronic degenerative diseases

such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes before about age 65, "

said Campbell, also an author of the original 1982 dietary recommendations

on cancer prevention by the National Academy of Sciences.

 

" One of the most significant problems with the American diet is the

excessive intake of animal-based foods and the inadequate intake of

plant-based foods, " said Banoo Parpia, a senior research associate on the

project. She said that study after study shows that a diet rich in a

variety of high-quality fresh plant-based foods with a minimum of

animal-based foods is optimal for long-term health.

 

Such a diet not only would lower the risk of these Western diseases, but

also would save an estimated $120 billion per year in health care costs

while reducing the use of the Earth's resources needed for livestock,

Campbell pointed out.

 

In the past two years, Campbell and his colleagues have published more than

three dozen studies on their findings, which are partially summarized in

two chapters Campbell wrote for the recently published book, Western

Diseases: Their Dietary Prevention and Reversibility edited by N. Temple

and D. Burkkitt, (Totowa, N. J.: Humana Press, 1994).

 

Among the new insights and relationships emerging from the Chinese data:

 

* Breast cancer: Women who eat diets rich in animal foods reach

menarche earlier, thereby producing more estrogen over their lifetimes and

developing breast cancer at a significantly higher rate. In other words,

" low-fat, high-fiber diets are linked with lower levels of female hormones

and a lower risk for breast cancer, " Parpia said.

* Osteoporosis: Women who eat diets rich in animal foods excrete more

calcium in their urine, providing a negative calcium balance -- a high risk

factor for osteoporosis.

* Liver Cancer: A primary cause of this cancer is chronic infection

with hepatitis B virus, but the mortality rate for this disease is

significantly correlated with plasma cholesterol which is correlated, in

turn, with the consumption of animal-based foods.

* Esophageal cancer: Chinese who eat little fruit have a five to nine

times greater risk of developing this cancer than those who eat more fruit

(the lowest quartile compared with the highest quartile).

* Other cancers: As the consumption of animal-based foods increases and

levels of cholesterol in the blood increase accordingly, the risks for

eight different cancers go up as well, including colon cancer. Vitamin C

emerged as one of the most important factors for a wide range of cancers.

" In the final analysis, we have strong evidence from this and other studies

that nutrition becomes the controlling factor in the development of chronic

degenerative diseases, " Campbell concludes.

 

" Even small intakes of animal foods, which simultaneously alter the intake

of countless nutrients and other constituents, is capable of significantly

elevating plasma cholesterol and similar biomarkers, and thereby elevate

the risk of degenerative diseases.

 

" Mere tinkering with our diets by consumption of a few low-fat foods or

special nutrient supplements, although possibly useful under some

circumstances, will likely only have minimally useful effects and almost

certainly will not be a panacea for disease prevention. " Rather, he

stresses, Americans need to shift to a more plant-based diet.

 

The typical American diet contains 10 times more animal protein (as percent

of calories) than does the typical Chinese diet. The average dietary fat

intake in China is 15 percent of calories compared with 38 to 40 percent in

the United States. The average consumption of dietary fiber is 33 grams a

day in China compared with 10 to 12 grams in the United States

 

 

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