I’ve answered plenty of reader questions about The China Study over the years. Most simply ask, “I appreciate the research and thought you’ve put into getting us this information about how pre-industrial diets can help curb the diseases of industrialization (heart disease, diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, obesity, etc.), and I support your conclusions 100% based on my own experience. But I have friends who have read The China Study, and they say that it’s real, hard science disproving what you’re promoting. What’s your response to them?”
I’ve never written a post about The China Study, so rather than point them to my own content, I point them to a hodge podge of various posts online written by people whose scientific judgments I trust as more valid than my own — some are doctors, some have Ph.D.s in nutrition research, and some are just folks who are science junkies. While I’ve found those handful of articles to be helpful, I’ve never found any one of them individually to be all that comprehensive or thorough.
That changed yesterday.
Now, I’ve finally read what I consider the go-to article online for helping folks in love with The China Study see the light. The post is written by someone who took the raw data from The China Study and mapped it out to see if she could draw the same conclusions that the famous book’s author (T. Colin Campbell) drew.
After spending a solid month and a half reading, graphing, sticky-noting, and passing out at 3 AM from studious exhaustion upon her copy of the raw China Study data, blogger Denise Minger decided it was time to voice her criticisms. And there were many.
Her 9,000+ word essay is as thorough as they come, and she concludes with this thought:
In sum, “The China Study” is a compelling collection of carefully chosen data. Unfortunately for both health seekers and the scientific community, Campbell appears to exclude relevant information when it indicts plant foods as causative of disease, or when it shows potential benefits for animal products. This presents readers with a strongly misleading interpretation of the original China Study data, as well as a slanted perspective of nutritional research from other arenas (including some that Campbell himself conducted).
In rebuttals to previous criticism on “The China Study,” Campbell seems to use his curriculum vitae as reason his word should be trusted above that of his critics. His education and experience is no doubt impressive, but the “Trust me, I’m a scientist” argument is a profoundly weak one. It doesn’t require a PhD to be a critical thinker, nor does a laundry list of credentials prevent a person from falling victim to biased thinking. Ultimately, I believe Campbell was influenced by his own expectations about animal protein and disease, leading him to seek out specific correlations in the China Study data (and elsewhere) to confirm his predictions.
So, if you’ve been wanting an in-depth rebuttal to T. Colin Campbell’s The China Study, go read her 9000+ word summary conclusion. And if you want even more detailed analysis, take a look at the complete series of articles she’s posted over the past month as she’s dissected both the raw data and the famed best-selling book.
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The China Study Discredited http://ow.ly/28W4m #chinastudy
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Thanks, as always, for the good reading. Can’t wait to get my teeth into that data… always great to see someone standing up and fighting when they know they’re right.
.-= lo´s last blog post …Greens- Theyre Whats for Dinner- Saag Tofu =-.
You’re welcome. 🙂
Oh I am so glad you did this. I only had scant familiarity with the study but wondered about it in light of what I know about traditional foods.
.-= Soli @ I Believe in Butter´s last blog post …Real Food On The Big Screen =-.
Well, it’s Denise who did the hard work. Her analysis is so well done, so neutral in tone, that it seems like it should be in a scientific journal somewhere instead of just on her blog. Please be sure to read her analysis and comment there, too. 🙂
Actually, she did not do the hard work- she herself admitted she is not a real researcher and would love the help of some real ones. She also deleted comments from REAL ones who didn’t support her research and showed how flawed her’s was. Also, she is not neutral, but has direct ties to Weston Price Foundation. She and her backers are very interested, for profit reasons, in skewing the data. She has been discredited, and never should have been credited in the first place. People were just quick to accept it, as cigarette smokers certainly were in the 80s, because they wanted to go back to eating cheese and steak. If they had done their FULL research, and seen the exposure of Minger’s MANY flaws, they would have realized that Campbell was, in fact, correct all along.
@beepalmer You should at least skim this nutrition article: http://bit.ly/aAMT3l
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
‘he “Trust me, I’m a scientist” argument is a profoundly weak one. It doesn’t require a PhD to be a critical thinker, nor does a laundry list of credentials prevent a person from falling victim to biased thinking.’
I think this is the most critical point made in the excerpt you posted. It’s one most people miss. It’s one scientists themselves don’t seem to realize. The fact that they are scientists does NOT mean that their evidence and their work is more important than anyone else’s. It does not mean that someone who is not a scientist and thoroughly and critically studies an issue is automatically wrong. Scientists are often thoroughly arrogant simply because they are scientists and they do the “real” work. Drives me insane.
Thanks for posting.
.-= Kate´s last blog post …Harvest House =-.
What a stupid post with u made! I dont go to a farmer if I need a doctor. I dont read a book about science u make if u are not a scientist. Most books about science are made by doctors which are not scientist and never worked first hand on that field so are they trustable? Dr Cambell is a scientist and worked directly on the fields he wrote about so why he cannot state that on his book? Most people are so ignorants!
@austingunter thanks for the heads up on that! RE: The China Study potentially debunked. will def keep this in mind. http://bit.ly/ab2WKa
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
How can you discredit a massive comprehensive collection of scientific studies that took 25 years to complete in 1.5 months? Seems pretty ridiculous to me! I’ll take the 25 years of scientific data anyday over 1.5 months of one person trying to disprove it.
LJ, you’re relying on logical fallacies. It doesn’t matter if it took 25 years or 100 years to compile the data, nor does it matter if it took 1.5 months or 2 days to debunk it. Because one factor takes more time does not make it right. It doesn’t take 25 years to understand that doing research on powdered casein and then applying those results to a whole food and saying that casein should be avoided is dishonest science. Really, if you pay attention to the latest studies as they come out, you’ll know that Campbell and his cohorts at the PCRM are being continually discredited in regards to their views on fat and animal products.
addendum: if you’re not familiar with the term “logical fallacy”, look it up. Namely, affirming the consequent and appeal to the majority.
Firstly, people existing on living food look better and healther and suffer less disease than any one else I have ever seen.
Secondly, the hippocrates centre support the China Study, and you’ve lost your mind if you say that centre doesnt cure what Medicine has failed at “curing”.
Thirdly, you might just want to spend some time on pubmed, and read the real research being done by the very scientists the Western World love and rely on. They will show you clinical studies done on a myriad of diseases and their link with meat, fish and/or dairy products.
Regardless of whether you feel the data presented in the book may be biased, you might want to look at the apparently un-biased data being presented by the multi-trillion dollar meat and dairy industry…but I wonder….who would I trust the most?
And if you couldn’t care less either way, cant we all just eat less meat and reduce the taxing of this planet on the supply of meat to the hungry revenous humans constantly thinking or desiring that next juicy steak? If you dont believe in the China study, do your own research. I think you’d agree, the largest meat eating cultures are the unhealthiest. That’s enough for me, regardless of scientific research or whatever crap a trillion dollar industry wishes to feed everyone.
Further to another comment. How can you discredit a study without any of your own research? I think I remember reading an article on discrediting the claims that smoking was bad for you. Or that Aspartame is harmless. Funny how easy it is to discredit, but difficult to replace with any of your own valid data.
John,
It is very easy to lie with statistics (read the book “How to Lie With Statistics”) and that is why you can find studies proving one thing is true and other studies proving that very same thing is false. But about nutrition, have you done your research? Can you name one culture/society that is vegetarian, always has been, and is thriving and healthy? Outside of the Biblical Garden of Eden, I don’t think you can.
If animal milk (cow, goat, yak, whatever) is so bad for us, then why is it, back in the days before formula was thought of, that when a baby that couldn’t nurse from his/her mother that he/she would be given cow or goat milk. And that baby would live. If dairy is so bad for us, then surely it would kill a baby, not help him to thrive. In fact, I have a friend whose baby was sick. She had trouble keeping anything down, tried most or maybe all the formulas out there. Finally, my friend gave her baby fresh, real milk (from cows that are allowed outside to eat all the fresh green grass they want) and her baby lived, finally gained weight and grew and is now a healthy young lady.
I’ll tell you what is bad, though. It is the milk that you can buy in any grocery store. Why is it bad? Because the cows are kept in a barn all day, every day. They are fed corn, soy, and who-knows-what-else along with some hay and pumped full of drugs to keep them “healthy” and giving lots of milk. More milk than they were designed to make. The government says this milk is good for you “out of one mouth” and “out of another mouth” the government says this milk is not good for you.
One more thing, the studies showing meat makes us sick probably used meat from animals from CAFO’s.
Oh, btw, you ask “who would I trust most?”, I assume that’s between Campbell or the meat and dairy industry? NEITHER!
Hi Kristen,
In addition to Denise’s spectacular and awesome work on The China Study, you might also enjoy my latest post, which is a comprehensive review of Campbell’s animal research. It reveals some pretty surprising omissions:
http://westonaprice.org/blogs/the-curious-case-of-campbells-rats-does-protein-deficiency-prevent-cancer.html
Enjoy,
Chris
Thanks Chris!
You work for a company who is interested in discrediting information that would hurt their profits. Furthermore, YOUR research and Minger’s have been proven false. It’s very difficult to believe you when there are clear motives for your say on this matter- money. Dr. Campbell does not have those motives (who’s paying him, almond farmers? Coconut farmers? Some secret coalition we’ve never heard of?). Whereas you have one foundation, one source backing you who have clear and obvious motives for attempting to discredit him– just as Exxon attmepted to discredit Clair Patterson on his leaded fuel research, and big tobacco attempted to discredit the mountain of evidence that has now gotten cigarettes out of mainstream culture. You are just another in the long line of profit-motivated non-scientists who attempt to slow the progress of society for your own gains. Not to mention, YOUR science has been discredited and Minger has been unable to defend herself, even admitting openly that “she could use the help of REAL professional researchers to develop a discussion on Campbell’s work. That’s actually sad, you aren’t even scientists. I wonder how you sleep at night.
Denise Minger, and Chris Masterjohn are both associates of the Weston A Price foundation: Notably criticised by quackwatch.Dpon’t belive me? Look it up, google is your friend. In fat, 99% of the ciritcisms of the china study i have come across are directly linked back to weston A Price foundation persons or resources.
An epidemiologist myself, Mr. Mingers 1.5 months of data trulling reads like gibberish… She has no basic understanding of epidemiological principles, and embarrasses herself with how poorly she misunderstands the basics of scientific investigation. caveat emptor. go look it up.
It’s hard for me to believe that somebody (oh, I forgot, you’re an “epidemiologist”) is taking “quackwatch” seriously, since quackwatch exists solely to discredit anything that doesn’t fit with the allopathic medical/pharmaceutical/commercial agricultural paradigm and their backers. quackwatch is about the quackiest thing out there.
I’ve heard a great deal about this book from my room mate; she loves it. She purchased it after getting a cancer diagnosis. I personally have not read the book, but what I do know is that when I changed my diet to a whole food way of eating, I have lost 12 stubborn pounds with ease and my energy is higher. Also, my cholesterol and many other ailments are gone. Proof is in the pudding as far as I am concerned.
People seem to think that if they hurt, just run to a doctor and get a pill. The pharmaceutical companies are eating this stuff up. The doctors, the American Diary Association and others are all in bed with each other.
As long as we keep eating food laced with sugars, chemicals, artery clogging fats, etc., we will have fat, diseased folks running to the doctor instead of taking responsibility for our health.
Does anyone honestly think that fast food and already prepared food are healthier then real food? Do we need flavor enhancers in foods that encourage people to eat more? I think not.
I am not saying the CS is right or wrong, as I said, I’ve not read it, but we do NEED to start thinking differently about our activity level and our food choices if we are to become healthier people.
Hello! Vegan here! While you mention this bloggers several references towards reliable and research-supported data, the truth is that there are equally as many sources from nutrition and university professionals/scientists supporting plant-sourced diets as well. To put it simply, for every study supporting the consumption of animal protein, there is also a study in disagreement with it. The ratio here is 1:1. Unless you want to head north and hunt the marine animals like the intuit people did only to subsequently eat their organs and blubber, then a vegan diet is pretty much the only other thing that will be equally as healthy. Keep in mind that seal meat and farm animal meat are COMPLETELY different in nutrient content. You also won’t have to hurt any cute animals or devote days to hunting. Omnivorous diets in the western world CAN provide all the essential nutrients if enough plant sources are consumed, but you will still hold much higher risks to many diseases in addition to that! Also, there is no point or conclusion that has been made to discredit the China study, not that I care since I don’t use it as a primary for debating with omnivores. Obviously this blogger doesn’t understand what studies or observations are for; they are arguments, often in response to another, made to view a subject from a different perspective. You can always point out flaws and such, but nothing is ever discredited in a scientific study in the way described in this post. Ultimately, I think you should gain a better understanding of how to analyze data as well as do your research before you post such controversial things! Read scientific journals for yourself, don’t rely on an unprofessional blogger to do it for you!
“Campbell appears to exclude relevant information when it indicts plant foods as causative of disease.”
And here YOU are, advocating for “sustainable, organic, local” produce to be consumed, while EXCLUDING relevant information when it indicts plant foods as causative of disease!
Folks, this “trust me, I’m a food renegade” argument is a profoundly weak one. Ultimately, I believe that the food renegade was influenced by her own expectations about sustainable, organic local produce, leading her to seek out specific correlations to confirm her predictions.
A quick search on google shows that your source for the ‘debunking’ of the China Study is not credible. A blogger, with no research qualifications in nutrition, medicine, or anything remotely connected with health, but wants to make a point about gluten, or some such. But apparently she has a major in English, so I am sure she writes well. Also, her criticisms have received a detailed response from the author of the China Study, who by contrast, is a highly qualified and longstanding academic, with research credentials in a number of health related fields. If you want an opinion on T. S. Elliot, I guess you might want to know what someone with a degree in English has to say. If you want an opinion on a health matter, maybe you should try some one who has spent decades doing detailed research on the matter (rather then let your existing prejudices dictate your judgements).
You are feeding people confusion and excuses to continue justifying animal abuse. You seem to take things out of context. The most important thing to realize is that eating animals is abuse, hence unethical, and this is non-negotiable. The health is just a side effect. Put yourself in the position of a bull or cow just about to be slaughtered to rip out their liver, their flesh so humans can consume it. Scary and disgusting, isn’t it? Would you in that moment still try to debunk the China Study? No, you would beg the vegan movement to rescue you. Since we talk about health though, so many vegans including me have become much healthier after going vegan, or is it just luck and strange coincidence that the moment I went vegan, all my health issues such as allergies, headaches, and a couple others disappeared within a couple months? If that isn’t proof enough. The China study only confirms the boost in the health millions of vegans experience. Take responsibility for your actions and lifestyle choices and stop discrediting studies that are genuine and valid. The validity doesn’t only come from the fact that Dr. Campbell is a scientist, but mainly from the comprehensiveness and length of the study. Plus logic and common sense show the study is valid. Humans are herbivores, and again that is also non-negotiable. Do your own research and you will see confirmation in what I wrote.