VeggieJews
You Are What You Eat
HUMAN HEALTH
Are you concerned about your health? These days, who isn't? It seems that not a month goes by without a new study showing that what we eat is slowly killing us.
But not all the news is bad. Medical research is also revealing how to take care of our bodies and protect our health for a long and productive lifetime.
No study has done this better than The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., a professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University, and his research team. Dr. Campbell, backed by Oxford University, Cornell University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, followed the death rates of 880 million Chinese citizens over the course of 20 years and made some startling discoveries about the connection between diet and diseases. [Campbell, T. Colin (2006), The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health, Benbella Books]
According to The China Study, diets high in animal protein (meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy) are directly related to higher incidences of cancer, heart disease and type II diabetes. In order to reduce the risk of contracting those diseases and others, Dr. Campbell recommends avoiding all sources of animal protein, including meat, fish, poultry, eggs and dairy, and eating a plant based diet rich in whole foods.
The China Study is only one of many recent studies that show a direct relationship between consumption of animal products and human disease.
Not all cancers are the same, but the causes seem to be. Countries in which people consume more animal fat have a higher incidence of breast cancer. [Carroll KK, Braden, LM. Dietary fat and mammary carcinogenesis. Nutrition and Cancer 1985] Similarly, consumption of animal foods have been found to increase the likelihood of colon cancer. [Willett WC, Stampfer MJ, Colditz GA, Rosner BA, Speizer FE. Relation of meat, fat, and fiber intake to the risk of colon cancer in a prospective study among women. N Engl J Med 1990] While animal foods contain no fiber, high fiber, plant based diets rich in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and cabbage, have been shown to lower the incidence of colon cancer. [World Cancer Research Fund. Food, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective. American Institute of Cancer Research. Washington, DC: 1997]
Animal foods have also been linked to the development of multiple sclerosis. [Lancet 1974] Roy Swank, M.D., former head of the University of Oregon's neurology department, observed that MS patients improved on a low fat diet. He concluded that a diet very low in saturated fat (commonly found in animal products) is the best way to arrest multiple sclerosis. [Treating Multiple Sclerosis with Diet: Fact or Fraud? John A. McDougall, M.D., Vegetarian Times]
Animal fats and protein have been found in study after study to be related to the development of prostate cancer in men. [Howell MA. Factor analysis of international cancer mortality data and per capita food consumption. Br J Cancer 1974; Mettlin C, Selenskas S, Natarajan N, Huben R. Beta-carotene and animal fats and their relationship to prostate cancer risk: a case-control study. Cancer 1989] People who live in countries that consume few animal products and more rice, vegetables and soy products have been shown to have fewer prostate cancer deaths and vegetarians have the lowest death rates of all. [Phillips RL. Role of lifestyle and dietary habits in risk of cancer among Seventh-day Adventists. Cancer Research 1975]
A low fat, plant based diet has been shown to be very helpful to people with diabetes. That's because diabetes is not only related to sugar but also to fat. A 2006 study of diet and type II diabetes conducted by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine with George Washington University and the University of Toronto found that a low fat, plant based vegan* diet (*with no animal products) allowed 43% of participants to reduce their medications, reduce their weight and lower their LDL (bad) cholesterol while eating as much as they wanted. [Barnard ND, Cohen, J, Jenkins DJ, et al. A low-fat, vegan diet improves glycemic control and cardiovascular risk factors in a randomized clinical trial in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care. 2006]
A study by the University of California at San Francisco by Dr. Dean Ornish has shown that heart disease can be stopped and even reversed by a low-fat vegetarian diet combined with reduce stress, mild daily exercise and cessation of smoking. [Ornish D, Scherwitz LW, Billings JH, et al. Intensive lifestyle changes for reversal of coronary heart disease: five-year follow-up of the Lifestyle Heart Trial. JAMA. 1998] Vegetarian diets have also been shown to lower blood pressure, [Berkow SE, Barnard ND. Blood pressure regulation and vegetarian diets. Nutr Rev. 2005], a major cause of heart attacks and strokes.
A study of rheumatoid arthritis patents found that eating the protein in dairy foods considerably worsens the disease. But a 2002 study showed that a low fat, vegan vegetarian diet significantly improves rheumatoid arthritis symtoms in only four weeks. [Skoldstam L, Larsson L, Lindstrom FD. Effects of fasting and lactovegetarian diet on rheumatoid arthritis. Scand J Rheumatol 1979]
Studies of osteoporosis have shown that it is not the amount of calcium that you consume that helps to prevent the disease but the amount of calcium that you keep. Animal proteins have been shown to reduce the body's ability to preserve calcium in the bones and cause it to leach out into urine which is then excreted. Specifically, meat and egg consumption has been shown to increase the excretion of calcium so that less is retained by the body to help prevent osteoporosis. [Breslau NA, Brinkley L, Hill KD, Pak CYC. Relationship of animal protein-rich diet to kidney stone formation and calcium metabolism. J Clin Endocrinol 1988] But, despite the cows' milk industry claims, calcium is not only available from animal products. Calcium can also be obtained from leafy green vegetables and legumes without the animal protein that causes it to leach out of the body. [Weaver CM, Plawecki KL. Dietary calcium: adequacy of a vegetarian diet. Am J Clin Nutr 1994]
What do all of these studies have in common? They all reveal that the best way to preserve human health and longevity is to eat a low fat, preferably vegan vegetarian diet. Study after study reveal that this is the best way to look and feel your best for years, decades and, hopefully, a long and healthy lifetime.
So, if you're not a vegetarian, what are you waiting for?
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By Pete Cohon, founder
[Thanks to the Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine and The China Study from which the facts in this essay were obtained.]
"G-d said, 'See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food.'" [Genesis 1:29]
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