Comments for meli-mello

Comment on The China Study – #2 – Evidence by admin

admin — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:49:42 +0000

Dr. Swank was the guy’s name who did the MS research, and here is the study I could find with about 5 minutes of googling:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PII0140-6736%2890%2991533-G/abstract

Comment on The China Study – #2 – Evidence by admin

admin — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:35:57 +0000

I don’t know enough about MS to properly say, I suggest you read it and follow the citations for yourself and let us know.

He personally didn’t study people with MS, he pulls on research done by people in that field – there is no possible way that someone could do all the research mentioned above in their lifetimes. So he cites hundreds (literally) of independent sources, which severely limits my skepticism about his biases.

He also grew up on a dairy farm as a kid, drinking two quarts of milk a day. He was part of the “protein gap” initiative in the 60s, and started off advocating a higher protein diet for the kids in the Phillipines that were contracting crazy amounts of liver cancer.

Like a good scientist, however, after many years of his own research and talking with independent researchers he had to change his mind about things. That, if anything, is a sign that I need to read what he has to say.

Comment on The China Study – #2 – Evidence by melanie

melanie — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 20:10:09 +0000

I threw out the pesto the other day (and then made some homemade spinach-walnut pesto which tastes better than the store-bought kind anyway). I threw out the cheese this morning.

Comment on The China Study – #2 – Evidence by Jocelyn

Jocelyn — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:06:09 +0000

This is really interesting, Mister. I admire you guys making such a big change AND adjusting to being a two kid family. I hope you keep posting about this because I’m super interested in learning more about this – will have to pick this book up (considering it’s scientifically valid )

Comment on The China Study – #2 – Evidence by Heather

Heather — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:30:57 +0000

The bit about MS suppression gives me pause. Disease suppression in MS is often more to do with the relapsing-remitting course that it often takes – or the introduction of immune-modifying therapies and intervention. The idea of a low-fat/low animal protein diet is not new in MS research, either – the Swank diet was alive and well in the sixties, but was not something that significantly impacted the rate of disease progression. My grandfather followed the Swank diet to the letter, but never did see any remission or cure for his disease. And typically, people do not die from MS. Did he study people with similar types of MS, or has he lumped in people with primary progressive and people with benign or relapsing-remitting MS? Very, very different disease processes at work there.

Sounds like this book runs towards an advocacy piece with a heavy-duty agenda and a confirmation bias.

Comment on The China Study – #1 by Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:26:37 +0000

Ah, I posted before I saw your response above…

Comment on The China Study – #1 by admin

admin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:03:36 +0000

I have already been pointed to the Wikipedia criticisms by multiple people, and I have looked into some of it already.

1) First criticism is by Dr. Eades, whose associations are with the Atkins club – and I haven’t seen anything to indicate that Campbell is hiding conflicting evidence.

Furthermore, Campbell pulls on research from a multitude of sources – *not just his own research*. The breadth of evidence and variety of research groups that are quoted is quite remarkable.

2) Correlation is not causation, and Campbell recognizes this. But after you read about hundreds (literally) of studies by independent groups that all give the same answer, it is hard to ignore the evidence.

3) The rest is pretty much about Minger, an interesting story in and of itself

http://www.vegsource.com/news/2010/07/china-study-author-colin-campbell-slaps-down-critic-denise-minger.html

And I started perusing through her rebuttals (as content is more important than the source), but when she started throwing in bad statistics and misunderstood the use of linear regression, I admit that I stopped reading. Smells like a front for some lobby group IMO.

——-

If you believe this research, then high quality meat and dairy are about the worst things you can eat.

I suggest you pick up a copy of the book and judge for yourself. YMMV

Comment on The China Study – #1 by Michelle

Michelle — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:00:36 +0000

Between The China Study, John Robbins’ books (The Food Revolution), the Crazy Sexy Cancer woman’s book, Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s books (Eat to Live, and Disease-Proof Your Child) I’m completely sold on eliminating or at least minimizing our animal protein consumption as much as possible. All my life I’ve heard “eat plenty of raw fruits and vegetables”, and “eat your veggies!” as good health advice… so it boggles me when we talk about doing so and suddenly it becomes “you’re not eating enough meat!” etc etc. You can bet your bippy there is backlash against The China Study – I wonder, if we were able to dig down to the root of it, just who subsidized the counter-studies and experts on that said, though.

Comment on The China Study – #1 by wil

wil — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 18:30:48 +0000

I’m all for whole-food, heavily-plant-based diets (personally, I eat high-quality meat + dairy + lots of fruits and veggies). I wish you guys luck with the new diet.

If you’re interested, you might want to check out some of the criticisms leveled at The China Study:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study#Criticisms

Comment on The China Study – #1 by admin

admin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:42:23 +0000

Milk protein, casein, was sufficient to turn on/off various forms of cancer in mice and rats.

The epidimiological studies didn’t differentiate tytpes of milk, and they were conducted across various countries and over decades of time, and gave consistent results.

With that much geographical and time variation, I assume that there is a large range of types of milk represented, so my assumption is that it is irrelevant.

He also describes at least two mechanisms by which milk causes problems: surpression of activated Vitamin D and acceleration of the cancer cycle – but they’re related anyways.