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Depending on how many Yahoo!s you follow, you might have heard about The China Study a few times now. T. Colin Campbell recently visited Yahoo! to give a talk and hand out some free books.

His book points to numerous studies that correlate animal protein intake with cancer and other "diseases of affluence", such as heart disease and diabetes.

His talk came while I've been making an effort to change my diet already. I won't be going vegetarian soon, but I think cutting down animal protein by 75% is easily doable. (He shows studies where mice given a 5% protein diet did significantly better than those on a 20% diet.)

The part of the book that really pushes my buttons, though, is the last section. If things like casein, the primary protein in cow's milk, is really so bad for us, why hasn't science revealed this? His book outlines the actions and influence of powerful industry groups, and ways that science self-censors away "unpopular" viewpoints. Taken just as a contrarian story, it's gripping reading. And if even a fraction of it's true, even more so. -m

posted at: 19:48 | under: 2006-03 | 0 comment(s)