The China Study

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted And the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, And Long-term Health by T. Colin Campbell

This book was THE BOOK which finally motivated me to leave cheese behind. Karen had read it and was equally blown away, but she was further along in her plant-based eating journey. We had watched the documentary Forks Over Knives which distills the information from The China Study down into easy to digest nuggets. The book itself is more meticulous in describing the science behind it all – the controls, the trials, the data crunching – how one discover led to another. The biggest “WOW” for me – they are able to turn cancer on and off by controlling the amount of casein ingested by lab rats. Crazy stuff. If you read for enjoyment only, this one’s a stretch. While they have done a great job breaking the science down into lay terms, it’s not like reading a novel or memoir (though there IS a story-line – this is the story of Campbell’s life as much as it’s about nutrition).

Description from Amazon.com:
Even today, as trendy diets and a weight-loss frenzy sweep the nation, two-thirds of adults are still obese and children are being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, typically an “adult” disease, at an alarming rate. If we’re obsessed with being thin more so than ever before, why are Americans stricken with heart disease as much as we were 30 years ago?

In The China Study, Dr. T. Colin Campbell details the connection between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. The report also examines the source of nutritional confusion produced by powerful lobbies, government entities, and opportunistic scientists. The New York Times has recognized the study as the “Grand Prix of epidemiology” and the “most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease.”

The China Study is not a diet book. Dr. Campbell cuts through the haze of misinformation and delivers an insightful message to anyone living with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and those concerned with the effects of aging.