The fifth and final McDougall Advanced Study Series DVD review is on T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study. I’m a huge fan of The China Study, which is why I put this lecture last, sort of the dessert for my week of watching lectures. The first lecture on this DVD is “The China Study,” and the second one is “Hidden Hazards of Animal Protein.”

In “The China Study,” Campbell spends half of his hour-long lecture showing the results of his epidemiological work done in China over a more than 30-year period. In a nutshell, his team found that protein was linked to cancer promotion. It is important to point out that Campbell is very clear to use the word promotion, as there are three stages of cancer: initiation, promotion, and progression. Animal protein doesn’t necessarily cause cancers, although it can, but it is amazing fuel to grow a cancer.

In animal experiments whereby all of the subjects were given cancer, they found that diets consisting of five percent protein did not promote cancer growth, whereas 20 percent protein diets would promote growth. In fact, if they switched their diets back from 20 percent to five percent, it actually turned off the cancer promotion.

Further testing found the threshold to be at around 10 percent as to when the cancer promotion actually began. On the same diet over time, all of the animal subjects on the five percent protein survived 100 weeks, the normal lifecycle for a rat, whereas all of the subjects on the 20 percent protein were dead at 100 weeks.

The protein used in all of these experiments was casein, the main protein found in cow’s milk. They found that switching to soy or wheat protein didn’t promote cancer even at 20 percent.

These findings were found to hold up in human populations, as well, as the research team had unprecedented access to the population of China to perform these tests. Rather than experimentation, they based their research on areas where people couldn’t afford animal protein compared to areas where they could. Where the population was able to afford to increase their intake of animal protein, cancer in that region climbed as well.

In the second part of his lecture, Campbell is quick to point out that although his research might appear otherwise, he actually thinks reductionism is a “tragic consequence of Western medicine.” He specifically cited the recent studies attempting to link low-fat diets to cancer promotion, and that there is no way to isolate the fat from everything else a person eats.

Studying their research data, Campbell found that the people who were on the low-fat diets actually increased their animal protein consumption rather than eat more fruits and vegetables, specifically eating lower-fat meat and dairy products. If you factor that into the slide showing no correlations, and switch the criteria to people who consumed animal products (rather than fat or protein), it completely lines up to show an increase in animal product consumption lining up with increased cancer promotion. If you plot out the vegetable protein consumption, no correlation appears.

Campbell ends this lecture by noting how vegetarian diets aren’t new concepts and that books were written on the subject in Ancient Greek times, and by Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Isaac Newton, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and others. It is estimated in a book on the history of vegetarianism that there were over a thousand books by the 1700s on vegetarianism and how it relates to issues of health, which prompts Campbell to ask how that information got lost for so long.

He finishes by saying the information isn’t new, but now we are finally getting the scientific data to support claims that have been around for centuries.

In “Hidden Hazards of Animal Protein,” Campbell starts by giving a history of protein. Discovered in the 1850s, it is immediately heralded as the chief component of life. But by 1908, a researcher already made the connection between increased protein intake, which was primarily synonymous with meat at the time, and cancer.

In 1905, a Yale researcher did tests with the school’s ROTC program and put a group on a plant-based diet, and they reached the same fitness level as people who consumed animal protein and also had a high fitness level. Some people questioned his work as not factoring in the differing fitness levels, so he repeated the test on people who already had a high fitness level and they increased their level even further. But by 1922, this researcher was disparaged within his field and was never heard from.

Revisiting some more research he did before the China Study, he determined that excess dietary protein (especially animal) is more responsible for cancer than chemical carcinogens.

Campbell also goes into the problems with reductivism and public policy. He says we are overfixated on daily recommendations of specific nutrients, when all of this is regulated by our bodies. There is no need for us to micromanage all of the specific components of the food we eat to make sure we are getting everything our body needs if we are eating a healthy plant-based diet.

The only beneficiaries of reductivism are the food and pharmaceutical industries, both of which are adept at affecting public policy to support the nutritional breakdown of their products, such as 2002 government guidelines that recommend, amazingly enough for the prevention of chronic conditions, a diet that includes between 10 and 35 percent protein.

Campbell said the important thing is to think of nutrition as a symphony, whereas one person sitting at a piano and hitting one note over and over… that’s reductive science.

This lecture is part of the McDougall Advanced Study Series DVD set. The DVDs cost $20 each, but you can get all five new DVDs for $60 total, including additional lectures from Howard Lyman, John Abramson MD, Michael Greger MD, and Neal Barnard MD. You can order them from McDougall’s website.

I was inclined to like Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food,” which is a follow-up to his book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” before I even started reading it. I mean, the thesis of the book is “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” How could I not support that?

Overall, the book provides a lot of valuable information about the world in which we currently live, and how a simple statement like “Eat Food” is not as easy as it might seem in a world of foodlike substances masquerading as nutritious food. I think it is an important book, especially for people who haven’t read a lot on this topic and are interested in learning more.

While I like the book overall, certain things seemed to be completely misleading. All of the correct information is in the book, but sometimes written in a way that might lead people to the wrong conclusion. Pollan writes about two major studies that look at the link between low-fat diets and cancer risk. In both cases, he admits that no one in either study was consuming what is considered a low-fat diet, but then he proceeds to question other flawed elements that could have contributed to the lack of results. Was the problem possibly looking at one component of food separately? Maybe how the information was gathered?

While I think it is fair to ask these questions of nutritional studies in general, it seems strange to keep probing why no link was found when the first thing he admits is that no one on the study followed the low-fat diet in the first place. If in a low-fat study, no one in the low-fat group is able to follow a low-fat diet, is there any benefit to even reporting the findings of the study let alone question what else might have contributed to the study’s problems? Newspapers were quick with the headlines that no link was found between a low-fat diet and cancer risk, but once again, it seems the fact that no one here followed the guidelines that would have led to such a correlation is just one of many things that were wrong with the study. No link can be found between two things if one of the two things is not present in the equation, which is not how a lot of people absorbed the conclusions of those studies.

If anything, the main question is why these low-fat studies were allowing 20 percent calories from fat, when all of the low-fat advocates use a diet of about 10 percent calories from fat. That’s the range where you find the people making such claims in the first place, be it McDougall, Ornish, or The China Study (And Pollan references T. Colin Campbell pointing out this very fact about this study in this very section, which is even more confounding). It just seems to reinforce the same confusion Pollan is trying to avoid by referencing a study that was flawed from the start and trying to further discern what went wrong.

Pollan also seems to leave the door open to meat eating whenever he mentions the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. It seemed reminiscent of how Mark Bittman went through such pains to ensure people knew he only authored a nearly 1000-page vegetarian cookbook; he wasn’t directly advocating a vegeterian lifetyle, God forbid. On one hand, I do think this will help Pollan get out his message to meat-eaters more directly, since he is on their side and not a “radical vegetarian,” it is also confounding that he soft-sells his own thesis so directly. Talking about heart disease and cancer, Pollan writes it is not a good idea to eat tremendous quantities of meat, and that studies show the greater your meat intake the greater your risk, he adds that “studies of flexitarians suggest that small amounts of meat – less than one serving a day – don’t appear to increase one’s risk.” In a book rife with large footnotes, and a detailed list of sources at the end, I was unable to figure out the studies from which that tidbit of information was found.

To be fair, I dismiss the whole flexitarian language as a bit of a catch-all for people who like the notion of eating vegetarian, except for when they don’t want to. Do we really need a special term for people who eat everything, albeit in supposed moderation? Don’t get me wrong, I suppose I’m happier to give them this term than have more vegetarians who eat chicken and fish. Anything that can bring a bit more purity to vegetarian meaning only ovo-lacto and vegan meaning no animal products is possibly a step in the right direction, but I just call them omnivores. Why do we need a new term for what boils down to animal products and everything else vegetarian? They’re just omnivores.

When it comes to eating meat, Pollan admits that, save for vitamin B12, “every nutrient found in meat can be obtained somewhere else.” He even notes that B12 is bacteria-based and not anything unique to meat. Of course, he goes on from there to add: “But meat, which humans have been going to heroic lengths to obtain and have been relishing for a very long time, is nutritious food, supplying all the essential amino acids as well as many vitamins and minerals, and I haven’t found a compelling health reason to exclude it from the diet.”

So, after he says there’s nothing unique in meat from a nutrition standpoint, he reinforces all of the nutritional elements (that he already said can be found somewhere else) that are in the meat. And since we know Pollan is familiar with the work of T. Colin Campbell linking animal protein consumption to cancer promotion (The China Study is listed in the sources at the end of the book), it makes you wonder what would qualify as a “compelling health reason” if cancer risk doesn’t make the list.

Pollan also writes that “in all my interviews with nutrition experts, the benefits of a plant-based diet provided the only point of universal consensus.” It did strike me funny that his thesis about nutritionism looking for specific nutrients or components in food for your health didn’t prevent him from pointing out that scientists may disagree what is beneficial about eating plants. “Is it the antioxidants in them? The fiber? The omega-3 fatty acids?” he questions on behalf of scientists, whereby his acceptance of meat gets a pass based solely on history and culture. I realize he wasn’t really probing this point, but it seemed strange in a book advocating a whole food, plant-centered diet.

Certain advice in the book does sounds worthwhile. Not buying food your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as being food is fine, but I also find that the cultural argument connected to that notion has a breaking point. In my experience, it seems too easy to mistake eating culturally without enough regard that what we’re calling dinner would have been our ancestor’s special occasion or holiday meal, tipping toward the meat and rich foods that could never have been a part of their normal routine if for no other reason than cost alone. This is covered by Pollan’s admonition to eat “not too much,” of course, but that piece seemed to not get as much attention.

He also admires the notion of the Slow Food Movement and its grass-fed meat from pastured cows, and the usual take that anything outside of industry and animal agriculture is better. Now, there’s no question it is better for you than McDonalds or what you can probably get in your local supermarket. But, this whole argument would never work on a large scale, as the ability for everyone to eat organic, pastured meat worldwide is not realistic based on the cost and requirements to switch to a system that requires so much more land and upkeep. So, it’s better, but no matter how much Alice Waters and company push this concept, I can’t imagine that it will ever grow beyond being an elitist exercise for people with expendable income without major changes in the way everyone eats worldwide.

There is definitely language used that fits into the Slow Food mentality, such as when he writes: “Eating a grass-fed burger when you can picture the greener pastures in which the animal grazed is a pleasure of another order, not a simple one, to be sure, but one based on knowledge rather than ignorance and gratitude rather than indifference.” Although I’m not one to reject things based solely on animal rights claims, to seemingly fetishize the happiness contained within the environment the animal experienced before it, sadly, had to be humanely sacrificed because you like burgers, rings a bit perverse to me.

Although I’m pointing out the problems I had with this book, I do think there is more good information than bad in it, and anything that gets people to start thinking about the things they eat is a step in the right direction. And I do think messengers like Pollan get the benefit of sliding past people whose defenses would be raised if some vegan was talking about why plant foods were better to eat for your health. Ironically, it is why I specifically follow the people I do, most of my heroes (Campbell, McDougall, Lyman, etc.) were led to veganism by the evidence and not the dogma. They didn’t work backwards from their conclusions. Campbell and Lyman killed thousands of animals, if not more, on their respective paths to veganism.

I applaud Michael Pollan for raising these issues in a world where people are giving up on knowledge in a world of conflicting studies and health claims. I know from personal experience how quick people are do dismiss any health claims (“Ehh, you say this, another study will say the opposite, forget it, I’ll just eat what I want.”) Like Bittman, Pollan sees the future of meat as more of a side dish than the main course, and that is a future that is at least headed in the right direction, as far as I’m concerned.

I am perfectly happy buying copies of this book to give as vegetarian Trojan horses to friends and family who I suspect might give it more credit since it doesn’t tell them point-blank to stop eating animal products. It does tell them to eat less of it, and to eat mostly plants. That’s a good start.