Ok - first snippet from the book.
Prof Campbell discovered that the cancers he studied, although initiated by a carcinogen, only progressed to tumour development when the diet contained animal protein - and the cancer could be switched on and off simply by adding or subtracting animal protein in the diet.
The back story is that as an expert in toxins he was sent to the Philippines as part of a US Government task force to investigate the high level of child liver cancers. The culprit was found to be Aflatoxin - one of the strongest carcinogens ever discovered - which is found in mould on peanuts and corn. But there was an odd pattern to the cancers in that they disproportionately affected the children of wealthier families. In order to test the hypothesis that this was due to the greater protein content of the wealthy families’ diets, he embarked on a series of experiments that ran for many, many years.
He started with rats and gave them high or low doses of Aflatoxin. He then fed different groups on high or low amounts of plant or animal protein. Those fed plant protein all lived their natural life span of two years - even those given a high dose of Aflatoxin. They were slim, healthy and twice as active as a control group - none developed cancer. ALL those fed animal protein developed cancer and died. But remarkably, the speed with which they developed cancer correlated not with the amount of Aflatoxin they were given, but with the amount of animal protein they were fed. The protein they were fed is Casein - the protein in milk! He found that those fed low toxin but high (20%) casein developed cancer almost 20 times faster than those fed high toxin but low (5%) casein.
In case these results were a fluke, the experiment was repeated many, many times over many years always with the same result - the rats on a plant protein diet lived long and healthy lives with 0% cancer, but 100% of those fed even small amounts of casein developed liver cancer and died.
Prof Campbell then expanded the research to different animals, different toxins and different cancers - the result was always the same - 0% on a plant diet died vs 100% on a casein diet died. They had gone a long way to proving the hypothesis that it was diet leading the wealthier children to develop liver cancer at a higher rate than the poorer kids. They then went a stage further. After initiating cancer with casein, they started switching the diets to plant protein and back again. They found they could switch the cancer on and off merely by changing the diet.
They then went looking for mechanisms of action - to find out why animal protein was promoting cancer. They found so many they stopped looking for more. For instance they found that a plant diet decreased enzyme activity, and decreased carcinogen binding to DNA, Chromatin and Protein.
It was this body of work that led to the China Study - a twenty year collaboration between Oxford University and Cornell to study the effects of a plant based diet on the inhabitants of rural and semi rural China. At the time it was the largest nutritional study of it’s kind ever undertaken. What they found to a large extent mirrored the results with animals.
This is just a small part of the book - there is much, much more. And if you have a relative with heart disease or diabetes (even Type 1) there is much in the book to encourage them that their disease can be reversed simply with diet.