This is the beginning of the Kresser Week. It goes without saying that I don't see everything the same as Chris, but that's never mattered. What matters is how much clear thought and good information you can get from his site.
Usually I direct those folks to Chris Masterjohn’s excellent critique of the China Study. Now, however, I’ll be sending them over to read Denise Minger’s freshly published China Study smackdown.
http://chriskresser.com/rest-in-peace-china-study
Denise got hold of the raw study data and took it apart with a fine-toothed comb. And what she found is that the claims Campbell made in his China Study book are not supported by the data. She also found important data points Campbell never bothered to mention in the book because they didn’t support his vegan agenda.
For example, Campbell conveniently fails to mention the county of Tuoli in China. The folks in Tuoli ate 45% of their diet as fat, 134 grams of animal protein each day (twice as much as the average American), and rarely ate vegetables or other plant foods. Yet, according to the China Study data, they were extremely healthy with low rates of cancer and heart disease; healthier, in fact, than many of the counties that were nearly vegan.
You can read more – and I mean a lot more – over at Denise’s blog. I recommend starting with her article China Study: Fact or Fallacy? For many of you, it will be more than enough. But if you’re interested in this stuff, she has written several other articles worth reading.
There are also reviews of Denise’s article at Free the Animal, Whole Health Source, Robb Wolf and PaNu.
The China Study is a fascinating phenomenon, first that they did it, and second, how it became the Holy Grail of those who want to prove that eating animals will kills you, and now - as an example of why peer review is considered a cornerstone of science. It's also pointing at a truth - professional journals are no longer either necessary, or useful, in the peer review process, since they have to compete with highly motivated and brilliant investigators like Ms. Minger.
And for the record, again, I don't care if you don't want to eat animals. I don't, however, want you to use fraud or the force of the government to keep me from eating animals. I have as much right to eat animals as tigers, fish and sharks do. Take that back - animals don't have rights and shouldn't. I am a human and I have rights as I should.
Politics of food and science and such aside, the China Study was a massive observational study. The value of observational studies in science is that they allow detection of corellation, so that the correlations may be further investigated in order to determine causality. In my opinion, we already have far more observational studies than we can use as regards diet and health. We need to spend a bazillion dollars for an outrageously expensive, long term intervention study that will be almost impossible to execute well - or just hang up our "spurs." There really is little more to be learned from observational studies of generalized diet and health matters.
One thing we have learned is that the China Study never meant what it was purported to mean.
Nevermind what any of the observational studies say - eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, little fruit or starch, no sugar/wheat so that your body will manage your glucose, your lipid profile will reflect the health that is your homo sapien birthright, and you will therefore have the best chance to enjoy your days and maximize your purpose.
Usually I direct those folks to Chris Masterjohn’s excellent critique of the China Study. Now, however, I’ll be sending them over to read Denise Minger’s freshly published China Study smackdown.
http://chriskresser.com/rest-in-peace-china-study
Denise got hold of the raw study data and took it apart with a fine-toothed comb. And what she found is that the claims Campbell made in his China Study book are not supported by the data. She also found important data points Campbell never bothered to mention in the book because they didn’t support his vegan agenda.
For example, Campbell conveniently fails to mention the county of Tuoli in China. The folks in Tuoli ate 45% of their diet as fat, 134 grams of animal protein each day (twice as much as the average American), and rarely ate vegetables or other plant foods. Yet, according to the China Study data, they were extremely healthy with low rates of cancer and heart disease; healthier, in fact, than many of the counties that were nearly vegan.
You can read more – and I mean a lot more – over at Denise’s blog. I recommend starting with her article China Study: Fact or Fallacy? For many of you, it will be more than enough. But if you’re interested in this stuff, she has written several other articles worth reading.
There are also reviews of Denise’s article at Free the Animal, Whole Health Source, Robb Wolf and PaNu.
The China Study is a fascinating phenomenon, first that they did it, and second, how it became the Holy Grail of those who want to prove that eating animals will kills you, and now - as an example of why peer review is considered a cornerstone of science. It's also pointing at a truth - professional journals are no longer either necessary, or useful, in the peer review process, since they have to compete with highly motivated and brilliant investigators like Ms. Minger.
And for the record, again, I don't care if you don't want to eat animals. I don't, however, want you to use fraud or the force of the government to keep me from eating animals. I have as much right to eat animals as tigers, fish and sharks do. Take that back - animals don't have rights and shouldn't. I am a human and I have rights as I should.
Politics of food and science and such aside, the China Study was a massive observational study. The value of observational studies in science is that they allow detection of corellation, so that the correlations may be further investigated in order to determine causality. In my opinion, we already have far more observational studies than we can use as regards diet and health. We need to spend a bazillion dollars for an outrageously expensive, long term intervention study that will be almost impossible to execute well - or just hang up our "spurs." There really is little more to be learned from observational studies of generalized diet and health matters.
One thing we have learned is that the China Study never meant what it was purported to mean.
Nevermind what any of the observational studies say - eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, little fruit or starch, no sugar/wheat so that your body will manage your glucose, your lipid profile will reflect the health that is your homo sapien birthright, and you will therefore have the best chance to enjoy your days and maximize your purpose.
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