The China Study - T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell

Part II. Deseases Of Affluence

HERE IN AMERICA, we are affluent, and we die certain deaths because of it. We eat like feasting kings and queens every day of the week, and it kills us. You probably know people who suffer from heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's, obesity or diabetes. There's a good chance that you yourself suffer from one of these problems, or that one of these diseases runs in your family. As we have seen, these diseases are relatively un- known in traditional cultures that subsist mostly on whole plant foods, as in rural China. But these ailments arrive when a traditional culture starts accumulating wealth and starts eating more and more meat, dairy and refined plant products (like crackers, cookies and soda).
In public lectures, I start my presentation by telling the audience my personal story, just as I have done in this book. Invariably, I get a question at the end of the lecture from someone who wants to know more about diet and a specific disease of affluence. Chances are that you yourself also have a question about a specific disease. Chances are, too, that this specific disease is a disease of affluence, because that's what we die of here in America.
You might be surprised to know that the disease that interests you has much in common with other diseases of affluence, especially when it comes to nutrition. There is no such thing as a special diet for cancer and a different, equally special diet for heart disease. The evidence now amassed from researchers around the world shows that the same diet that is good for the prevention of cancer is also good for the prevention of heart disease, as well as obesity, diabetes, cataracts, macular degeneration, Alzheimer's, cognitive dysfunction, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis and other diseases. Furthermore, this diet can only benefit everyone, regardless of his or her genes or personal dispositions.
All of these diseases, and others, spring forth from the same influence: an unhealthy, largely toxic diet and lifestyle that has an excess of sickness-promoting factors and a deficiency of health-promoting fac- tors. In other words, the Western diet. Conversely, there is one diet to counteract all of these diseases: a whole foods, plant-based diet.
The following chapters are organized by disease, or disease grouping. Each chapter contains evidence showing how food relates to each dis- ease. As you go through each chapter, you will begin to see the breadth and depth of the astonishing scientific argument favoring a whole foods, plant-based diet. For me, the consistency of evidence regarding such a disparate group of diseases has been the most convincing aspect of this argument. When a whole foods, plant-based diet is demonstrably ben- eficial for such a wide variety of diseases, is it possible that humans were meant to consume any other diet? I say no, and I think you'll agree.
America and most other Western nations have gotten it wrong when it comes to diet and health, and we have paid a grave price. We are sick, overweight and confused. As I have moved on from the laboratory stud- ies and the China Study and encountered the information discussed in Part II, I have become overwhelmed. I have come to realize that some of our most revered conventions are wrong and real health has been grossly obscured. Most unfortunately, the unsuspecting public has paid the ultimate price. In large measure, this book is my effort to right these wrongs. As you will come to see in the following chapters, from heart disease to cancer, and from obesity to blindness, there is a better path to optimal health.