The China Study Solution

Part 1

FOUNDATIONS OF HEALTH

Chapter 1

The China Study

"I think you mean the high-protein diet," she said. I looked back at her, a bit confused as to why my teacher would tell me I was wrong. I probably started to disagree. "I think you mean the rats that ate more protein ran more," she said again. "But that's okay. Thank you for telling us about the experiment." She turned to the class. "Class, thank Tom for the opportunity to learn about this experiment." That was probably the first nutritional disagreement of my life, and honestly, I had no idea what was going on.

I was in grade school, standing in front of the class giving a presentation. My dad, T. Colin Campbell, PhD, had long been a nutritional biochemist who, among other things, had been conducting cutting-edge research on the influence of diet on cancer at Cornell University. He had a robust research program that was gaining national recognition, and some of his research utilized rats eating different types of diets. He had offered my teacher the opportunity to conduct a little experiment in class involving rats. Nothing pleases elementary students more than having rodents in the classroom, so of course this seemed like a perfect idea.

The experiment explored the following question: If you fed rats different levels of protein, which rats would exercise the most? Each of the rats I brought in was housed in a cage with an exercise wheel that had a counter rigged up to register the number of times the rats turned the wheel. It was like a rat pedometer. The rats would intermittently get on the wheel and run and run and run--with purpose. It made me wonder if they knew they were not going anywhere, but I suppose you could ask the same thing at your local gym. Animals just need to exercise, I guess, even if it involves not actually going anywhere.

Both groups of rats ate exactly the same dietary chow with just one variation: One group had a low-protein chow (probably about 5 percent protein)

Thomas Campbell, MD, is an instructor of clinical family medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He coauthored The China Study, which sold more than a million copies and inspired the 2011 documentary Forks over Knives. He also is director of the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies, a nonprofit organization in Ithaca, New York, that promotes optimal nutrition through science-based education, advocacy, and research in partnership with eCornell, Cornell University's online course provider. He lives in Rochester, NY.