Tag: China study

Lessons from The China Study

Colin Campbell was a nutritional biochemist at Cornell University. In the 1960s, he was involved in nutritional programs in the Philippines to help families provide for their critically undernourished children. Peanuts were one of their preferred sources of protein. It is a legume— great for improving the soil, easy to grow, and is nutritious and tasty.

At the same time, children younger than 10, were dying at alarming rates from liver cancer. Normally liver cancer is an adult disease— and the children dying from the disease were from the most affluent suburbs in Manila. These are the families that could afford the best housing and the best food.

Whilst in the Philippines, he read a paper in an obscure medical journal. Rats were fed aflatoxin— one of the deadliest carcinogens known. One group of rats was given a diet of 20% protein —and they all died of liver cancer. The second group was given a diet of 5% protein— and they all lived. 100% deaths compared to zero deaths. They were all fed aflatoxin— but only those rats that had a high protein diet died.

A 20% diet of wheat protein, gluten, or pea protein did not result in liver cancer deaths whereas casein, which comprises of 80% of the protein found in cow’s milk, and albumin, which is found in egg white, did result in liver cancer deaths. Plant-based diets are often considered to be lysine deficient. However, adding the amino acid lysine to the wheat protein to match the level found in casein also resulted in cancer deaths.

Significantly, peanuts and corn in the Philippines were often contaminated by aflatoxin— and the wealthy ate Western-style diets, one rich in protein.
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1 March 2021
Letter to Diggers – October 2018

In the Spring 2018 edition of Diggers, Bel P claims that What The Health has been “expertly torn to pieces”. No effort has been made to justify this claim. What The Health web site has listed approximately 300 references for the movie with the elapsed time that the information was presented.

In the absence of a valid critique of What The Health, I will present some evidence presented by the movie for the health benefits of a whole-food, plant-based diet. All references provided are from primary sources for which I have the paper or electronic copy.
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29 October 2018
How do we know what we know?

Many “facts” have a long history of discovery, with a sometimes bitter and acrimonious debate before a final acceptance.

In Life, the Universe and Everything (part of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series), Douglas Adams explains our inability to take in new information as a result of the Someone Else's Problem field. Effrafax of Wug utilised the SEP field to create an invisibility device that would run for a hundred years on a single torch battery.

It relied on people's inability to see anything that they do not want to, were not expecting or cannot explain.

We obtain our information initially from parents and from interacting with the world around us. We learn that fire is something that should be avoided if we put our hand in it.

As we grow older, we learn from other people, reading, school, television. Observation is not always a reliable guide. It is obvious that the sun and the moon revolve around the earth - we see the sun rise each morning in the east and set at night in the west.
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14 April 2016
Men’s Shed Morpeth – 28 February 2014

The transcript of a talk given at Morpeth Men's Shed on 28 February 2014.
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27 February 2014
What are the Health Benefits of Coconut Oil?

Coconut Oil is passionately advocated as a wonderful product that has a multitude of health benefits. An example of the potential benefits is shown below.

The health benefits of coconut oil include hair care, skin care, stress relief, cholesterol level maintenance, weight loss, boosted immune system, proper digestion and regulated metabolism. It also provides relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, HIV, and cancer, while helping to improve dental quality and bone strength. These benefits of oil can be attributed to the presence of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and their respective properties, such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-fungal, antibacterial and soothing qualities.
It sounds too good to be true.
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10 January 2014
What is a Heart Attack?

Below is an overview of the mechanism that leads to cardiac myocardial infarctions (or heart attack). It took many decades for a basic understanding of this process.

The consensus at the beginning of the 20th century was that heart disease is a normal part of aging. In 1913, a 28 year old pathologist, Nikolay Anitschkow (or Anichkov), working at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, showed that by feeding rabbits cholesterol dissolved in sunflower oil induced vascular lesions closely resembling those of human atherosclerosis, both grossly and microscopically. Controls fed only the sunflower oil showed no lesions.

Another difficulty in understanding heart disease is that there are a number of factors involved. Researchers, practitioners and the public become attached to one aspect. Some argue passionately regarding one aspect of heart disease and become blind to other factors.
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6 January 2014
About Richard Harding

I have been a lecturer in nutrition in Newcastle, Australia at WEA Hunter and has been involved in the design of nutrition courses for degree and diploma qualifications in Health Sciences.

I worked in the IT industry since the 1970s as a computer programmer, system designer and project manager for companies such as CBC Bank, National Australia Bank, Burroughs Australia and Unisys working on projects for ANZ Bank, State Bank of NSW, Health Insurance Commission (Medicare), NRMA, Reserve Bank of Australia, City Bank, North Power, Chase Manhattan Bank and ACIRL (Australian Coal Industry Research Laboratories).

I worked as the system manager for a large pathology business that had a network of 10 pathology laboratories, from Coffs Harbour in northern NSW to Sydney - a distance of 500 km (300 miles) which operated online 24 hours a day for 6 days a week.

My website consists of over 140 webpages and with more than 120,000 words. Most are related to health and nutrition with others relating to the environment, agriculture, philosophy and psychology. Many issues that the ancient Greeks wrestled with are still relevant today.
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2 July 2013