
“The China Study” and Longevity - sridca
https://steemit.com/health/@engineerdiet/the-china-study-and-longevity
======
colinhmit
>"The above analysis is trivially simple. Just data preprocessing simple
correlations and filtering, using the most high-level overview the data allows
for regarding food intake and health. The possible effect of different foods
on longevity. No massaging of the data, no exposure to birthday paradox
spuriousness, no statistical tricks, questionable adjustments for, etc"

There is also no controlling for anything! It seems a no-brainer that higher
"Saturated Fat" and "Animal Protein" intakes correlate with higher
income/access to modern health care infrastructure. Which means the author is
really measuring an underlying latent "prosperity" variable. The author almost
groks it with:

>"The correlations speak for themselves, the top X correlations for longevity
are relatively strongly correlated amongst themselves. It is likely that
multiple of these columns are indeed major contributors to longevity, yet
given the inter-food correlations, it is quite impossible to isolate these
from the variables that are just along for the ride."

Once the author controls for the prosperity that is the causal for all the
correlated "dependent" variables, it might turn out that a Vegan diet is
better than a non-Vegan diet. Or it might not. But this piece adds no value to
the conversation, IMHO.

*As lspears points out, even worse is the wrong endpoint. Prob of making it to 80 != lower chance of death from Western diseases (heart attack/cancer).

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Certainly true, but I don't think anyone will draw the opposite conclusion
that poverty contributes to longevity...

~~~
pergadad
There were a few studies showing that rats fed less than their normal assumed
calorie intake urged to live longer. I can't speak for the effect pathway, but
similar things could also be true in humans.

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markstos
Could someone quote from the book the claim on longevity or "All Cause
Mortality" that this post is refuting?

The book is primarily about correlating the Western diet and animal protein
with some western diseases.

There is no data here about the central claims of the book.

I read the book and don't remember the specific claims about longevity. I
wouldn't be surprised if he found a correlation with longevity, though.

The US NIH found that Seventh-Day Adventists tend to live 4-10 years longer
than the general population on a primarily vegetarian diet.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-
day_Adventist_Church#H...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-
day_Adventist_Church#Health_and_diet)

The large scale "Nurses Study" and the "Health Professionals Follow-up Study"
also correlated plant-based diets with decreased risk of death.

[https://www.mygenefood.com/plant-based-diet-
longevity/](https://www.mygenefood.com/plant-based-diet-longevity/)

Also important, plant-rich diets are one of the top solutions for climate
change ( [https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-
rank](https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank) ). That's another
great reason to scale back animal protein consumption.

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getpost
Denise Minger thoroughly critiques T. Colin Campbell's (seemingly incompetent)
interpretation of the data in this study.

[https://deniseminger.com/the-china-study/](https://deniseminger.com/the-
china-study/)

EDIT: TCC's reply: [http://www.vegsource.com/news/2010/07/china-study-author-
col...](http://www.vegsource.com/news/2010/07/china-study-author-colin-
campbell-slaps-down-critic-denise-minger.html)

~~~
amarka
Why should I trust Denise Minger over Colin Campbell?

I read Capbell's China Study and I'm definitely interested in counter points
to his findings, but it seems like Minger is a food blogger (and recent book
author) while the other is a biochemist with a long history in their field.

~~~
superpermutat0r
You shouldn't. Denise Minger does not know what she's analysing. And it's
visible from the response.

TCC said multiple times that his study should have been a starting point for
new research. Not as a definitive statement on what the optimal diet is.

------
stakodiak
The author is missing an important point: dietary sources of cholesterol are
from animal byproducts only.

> Cholesterol comes from two sources. Your liver makes all the cholesterol you
> need. The remainder of the cholesterol in your body comes from foods derived
> from animals. For example, meat, poultry and full-fat dairy products all
> contain cholesterol, called dietary cholesterol.

> Those same foods are high in saturated and trans fats.

from the American Heart Association: [https://www.heart.org/en/health-
topics/cholesterol/about-cho...](https://www.heart.org/en/health-
topics/cholesterol/about-cholesterol)

~~~
tomp
> trans fats.

I’m no expert but this is the first time I hear about this. I thought trans
fats are mainly found in industrially processed (mostly vegetable) fats!

Ah, according to Wikipedia:

> _Animal-based fats were once the only trans fats consumed, but by far the
> largest amount of trans fat consumed today is created by the processed food
> industry as a side effect of partially hydrogenating unsaturated plant fats
> (generally vegetable oils). These partially hydrogenated fats have displaced
> natural solid fats and liquid oils in many areas, the most notable ones
> being in the fast food, snack food, fried food, and baked goods industries._

So eating no fast food, no margarine _and also_ no animals might even further
reduce consumption of trans fats.

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lspears
I think this analysis is incomplete. It's important to separate out longevity
from cause of death. "The China Study"'s central premiss is that a vegan diet
reduces the likelihood of dying of the "Western" diseases such as heart
disease and cancer. A simple correlation between a vegan diet and longevity
doesn't address this and also wouldn't take into account the high correlation
between not being able to afford animal products and a lack of access to
medical care. If you actually read the book the author goes into all this
detail.

~~~
papermill
"Western" disease is caused by high intake of processed foods, soda, etc. It
isn't the vegan diet that helps. It's removing processed food, soda, etc. You
can be an omnivore or a carnivore and remove processed junk food and reduce
"Western" disease. And you can be a vegan and eat a ton of processed vegan
junk food and succumb to "Western" disease.

Processed foods and overeating is the true problem in the western diet.

~~~
bertomartin
This is so true...I believe this wholeheartedly, had to find my long-last hn
login to upvote this. I've read a lot of stories where people start a diet
such as one meal a day, or all potatoes...heck I even heard of a guy who was
"curing" patients with only rice and sugar back in the day. The common thread
among these stories is that they've stopped eating a lot of what they used to
(presumably mostly junk food), and so their body can recover. It's not what
you put in so much as what you've stopped putting in.

~~~
pergadad
Just to stress that the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. It may be true -
or not. But it's important not to assume it's true just because a few stories
say so.

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PeOe
It seems the author is already kind of biased when he set out to analyse the
data.. use of the term 'overzealous vegans' in the first paragraph sets of a
few alarms for me.

I think it would be interesting to look at other long term studies (like the
7th adventist study someone else mentioned here) as well as studies that look
at plant based eating as a cure/preventative method for more specific/acute
diseases (like Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's WFPBN solution for cardiovascular
disease, or Dr. Greger's 'How Not to Die' which compiles and summarizes
research in the WFPB space
[https://nutritionfacts.org/book/](https://nutritionfacts.org/book/))

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scythe
Here is a debate between the author of _The China Study_ and another scientist
in the field who disagrees with his findings:

[http://www.catalystathletics.com/articles/downloads/proteinD...](http://www.catalystathletics.com/articles/downloads/proteinDebate.pdf)
(I have no idea why Campbell chose not to cite any sources.)

and here is a simplified take by the excellent skeptic Harriet Hall:

[https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/385/](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/385/)

As Hall notes:

>He criticizes conventional recommendations for a diet with 45-65% of calories
from carbohydrates, 20-35% from fat and 10-35% from protein, showing how the
following menu satisfies those requirements:

>[example of an obviously unhealthy diet]

>But that’s a bit of a straw man argument. In reality, most current
nutritional advice makes very much the same recommendations Campbell does
except for his strict prohibition of animal protein. For instance, for cancer
prevention the American Cancer Society recommends
([http://www.cancer.org/docroot/MED/content/MED_2_1X_American_...](http://www.cancer.org/docroot/MED/content/MED_2_1X_American_Cancer_Society_guidelines_on_diet_and_cancer_prevention.asp))
a diet high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes and low in red
meat and alcohol, along with regular exercise and weight control.

In these (and other) debates, Campbell repeatedly shows, IMO, an unwillingness
to take his critics seriously, instead always resorting to the broadside of
"reductionist!". At first he seems to have a point, but when you read more of
his responses to more people, you just find yourself hearing "reductionist!
reductionist! reductionist!". This is particularly concerning since all
atomistic theories (i.e. physicalist theories, i.e. the modern scientific view
of reality) are ultimately reductionist in some way. Furthermore, his attack
on the standard recommendations is _extremely_ reductionist, as seen above
(and a similar diet can easily be constructed with less protein and no animal
foods!). I'm particularly glad to link the critique from Science-Based
Medicine as they're equally critical (if not more) of the paleo milieu.

~~~
tomstoms
Campbell does not advocate strict prohibition of animal protein. He observes,
merely, that it’s probably easier to avoid it altogether than to reduce the
intake to safe levels.

The argument is as follows, albeit simplified: When you eat an animal-based
diet you are likely to eat a lot more protein than you should, say 20-40% of
calories. Recommenced is 10% which is nowadays very close to what authorities
generally recommend regardless of source. Campbell argues that it is very
challenging to achieve that 10% on a traditional western animal based diet,
therefore suggests avoiding animal based protein. He does not say that an
occasional meal with meat is harmful.

A varied Whole Foods plant based diet just happens to average out at around
10% protein of calories.

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_bxg1
Projects like Jupyter have so much potential to empower individuals to
understand data and verify claims. But not in their current form. Immediately
after the introduction, the author starts diving in to Python and different
interpreters and dependencies and then a wall of code. Anyone who's never seen
code, much less heard of Python, would be immediately turned-off. Just a tiny
bit of extra work on top of projects like this could exponentially increase
their target audience and turn thousands into amateur fact-checkers.

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Nazzareno
I read that book a few years ago, but I remember several researches that
proved the correlation between casein (milk proteins) and the cancer
development. Which doesn't mean that casein causes cancer, but that casein
speeds up cancer development. SO if you have a little cancer, with animal
protein it will develop faster. The article skips this relevant topic.

~~~
elevenoh
Casein != animal protein.

~~~
shlant
not sure what point you are trying to make here. Casein is a protein. Sources
in our diet come exclusively from mammalian milk. A protein from animal
sources = animal protein does it not?

