The Protein Myth

Some readers may remember my major review of Colin Campbell's seminal book The China Study in 2006. This book takes Campbell as a starting point and argues along similar lines that the diseases of civilisation like cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and Alzheimer's can be greatly reduced by eliminating animal products from our diet. It is striking and symptomatic that expenditure on health increased from $250 billion in 1980 $2 trillion by 2006. These increases are likely to continue so long as we maintain our current junk-food lifestyles alongside the high-tech drug based approach to health. The latest figures are that 1.7 billion people are overweight as against 840 million undernourished – in other words twice the figure. One of the features of Campbell's book was an expose of revolving doors between government and the pharmaceutical industry and the stacking of committees by representatives of drug companies. Indeed, as readers will be aware, the entire medical system is run for the benefit of these companies who sponsor most of the research and have shaped medical education since the Flexner report of 1913. Among the scholars mentioned in this book are Dean Ornish, Max Gerson and the cardiologist Caldwell Esselstyn. There is a striking quotation by Albert Schweitzer about Max Gerson, who treated his daughter. Conspicuous by their absence Sir Robert McCarrison and Weston Price, who questions the emphasis on low-fat and meat free diets, having researched many healthy societies. However, in most respects this book is spot-on in calling for a radical overhaul of our diets and health systems.