Dr Mercola vs T Colin Campbell
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See! You're still doing it!
Ok, but what's a this?
Why, I forgot.
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Please, don't you start this too!
Don't play dumb with me. You know exactly what you're doing. *Everyone* knows exactly what you're doing.
Continued behavior like this will lead to further admonishments from me. You've been warned.0 -
See! You're still doing it!
Ok, but what's a this?
Why, I forgot.
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Please, don't you start this too!
Don't play dumb with me. You know exactly what you're doing. *Everyone* knows exactly what you're doing.
Continued behavior like this will lead to further admonishments from me. You've been warned.0 -
See! You're still doing it!
Ok, but what's a this?
Why, I forgot.
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Please, don't you start this too!
Don't play dumb with me. You know exactly what you're doing. *Everyone* knows exactly what you're doing.
Continued behavior like this will lead to further admonishments from me. You've been warned.
Jof thread admonishments work on a three(ish) strike system. You now have one strike.0 -
See! You're still doing it!
Ok, but what's a this?
Why, I forgot.
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Please, don't you start this too!
Don't play dumb with me. You know exactly what you're doing. *Everyone* knows exactly what you're doing.
Continued behavior like this will lead to further admonishments from me. You've been warned.
Jof thread admonishments work on a three(ish) strike system. You now have one strike.0 -
See! You're still doing it!
Ok, but what's a this?
Why, I forgot.
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Please, don't you start this too!
Don't play dumb with me. You know exactly what you're doing. *Everyone* knows exactly what you're doing.
Continued behavior like this will lead to further admonishments from me. You've been warned.
Jof thread admonishments work on a three(ish) strike system. You now have one strike.
0 -
See! You're still doing it!
Ok, but what's a this?
Why, I forgot.
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Please, don't you start this too!
Don't play dumb with me. You know exactly what you're doing. *Everyone* knows exactly what you're doing.
Continued behavior like this will lead to further admonishments from me. You've been warned.
Jof thread admonishments work on a three(ish) strike system. You now have one strike.0 -
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to be reasonable.
De nada0 -
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to be reasonable.
De nada
De nada is Spanish for "no problem". I just realized this was an English only forum and I didn't want there to be confusion0 -
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to be reasonable.
De nada
De nada is Spanish for "no problem". I just realized this was an English only forum and I didn't want there to be confusion
0 -
See! You're still doing it!
Ok, but what's a this?
Why, I forgot.
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Please, don't you start this too!
Don't play dumb with me. You know exactly what you're doing. *Everyone* knows exactly what you're doing.
Continued behavior like this will lead to further admonishments from me. You've been warned.
Jof thread admonishments work on a three(ish) strike system. You now have one strike.
That's three strikes. As a result of your three strikes, you have now earned one admonishment. Three admonishments will result in a rebuke. Three rebukes will result in a firm talking to. Three talking tos will result in a demerit. Three demerits will result in a chastisement. And you don't even want to know what happens when you get three chastisements...oh, no sirree. It's bad.0 -
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to be reasonable.
De nada
De nada is Spanish for "no problem". I just realized this was an English only forum and I didn't want there to be confusion
Thank you for the clarification...and for following the rules.0 -
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to be reasonable.
De nada
De nada is Spanish for "no problem". I just realized this was an English only forum and I didn't want there to be confusion
Thank you for the clarification...and for following the rules.
pas de problème0 -
OMG STAHP!!!
0 -
OMG STAHP!!!
I don't understand what you're saying. Could you please rephrase it using at least 4000 words and a dozen gifs?0 -
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to be reasonable.
Since my phone battery dies before I get to the bottom of this page I'm just going to reply here.
What's new? Any good developments in this thread? Can a brother get an update?0 -
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to be reasonable.
Since my phone battery dies before I get to the bottom of this page I'm just going to reply here.
What's new? Any good developments in this thread? Can a brother get an update?
It turns out they were on Earth the WHOLE TIME!0 -
In...0
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What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to be reasonable.
Since my phone battery dies before I get to the bottom of this page I'm just going to reply here.
What's new? Any good developments in this thread? Can a brother get an update?
It turns out they were on Earth the WHOLE TIME!
0 -
If by "titans" you mean "crazies" then sure.0
-
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to be reasonable.
Since my phone battery dies before I get to the bottom of this page I'm just going to reply here.
What's new? Any good developments in this thread? Can a brother get an update?
It turns out they were on Earth the WHOLE TIME!
But was the call coming from inside the house?0 -
See! You're still doing it!
Ok, but what's a this?
Why, I forgot.
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Please, don't you start this too!
Don't play dumb with me. You know exactly what you're doing. *Everyone* knows exactly what you're doing.
Continued behavior like this will lead to further admonishments from me. You've been warned.
Jof thread admonishments work on a three(ish) strike system. You now have one strike.
That's three strikes. As a result of your three strikes, you have now earned one admonishment. Three admonishments will result in a rebuke. Three rebukes will result in a firm talking to. Three talking tos will result in a demerit. Three demerits will result in a chastisement. And you don't even want to know what happens when you get three chastisements...oh, no sirree. It's bad.
I'm lost in the math.
And why is "peanut butter sexy times" meantioned in the middle of this text???0 -
See! You're still doing it!
Ok, but what's a this?
Why, I forgot.
What?I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new peanut butter sexy times movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3I was starting to have a little bit of respect for Dr Mercola until I read this.
Dr. Mercola Vs. Dr. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of the Titans
Dr. Mercola takes on Dr. Campbell and the China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts the basics of nutrition taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com and in my books, we get hundreds of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterday supposedly exposes the “DARK SIDE” of The China Study. I’m not going to link to it and therefore give it a higher page rank. It doesn’t deserve it.Before undertaking to explain what’s radically wrong with this article, let me say this, outside the topic at hand: I agree with Mercola on some macro issues:The whole concept of prevention and natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than drug/surgery medical interventions.Far too much of our data comes from research that drug companies and agribusiness paid for.Sugar and processed foods are killing us. (Mercola implies, with the “false dilemma” logical fallacy, in yesterday’s newsletter that either animal proteins are killing us, or processed foods are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thinking skills to expose fatal flaws in his comments about Dr. T. Colin Campbell and the China Study.(When you put yourself in the public domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposition of ideas creates a climate for the truth to emerge.)As I strongly disagree with Mercola here, I will invariably get some angry email. Most readers will appreciate that my only motive is to learn and then explain the truth (or as close as I can get to it) in this world of nutrition that has so many competing voices.My own 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a compendium of the best nutrition practices. It advocates for eating much more plant food (especially raw food) than the average American gets and is a practical HOW-TO guide, more than a philosophical debate or meta-review of research. It purposefully doesn’t advocate for vegetarianism or veganism, although I am supportive of others who choose to wear those labels. My own family, except for two vegetarian daughters, eats a bit of homemade kefir, and occasional animal products when we are away from home.Mercola attempts to discredit the joint effort of Oxford and Cornell Universities by calling theirs an “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior to having once had a medical practice.The Oxford/Cornell China study is a very sound, huge, comprehensive study spanning over 25 years. My own advanced degree, background in research, and understanding of research principles, lead me to say this:I am thankful, finally, for a vast piece of research in epidemiology that was not funded or influenced by the drug companies or agribusiness (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy products and processed and refined and GMO foods). I see no conflicts of interest in the Oxford/Cornell research. I see one of the purest voices in nutrition in Campbell and his team.I interviewed him by phone as I wrote this, and he said, “I feel personally responsible to Americans to tell them what we did with their money,” because taxpayers funded the China study, not profit-motivated industries.The research was the next natural step from methodical and rigorous animal studies. It’s a remarkable piece of research examining 6,500 adults in 130 villages of rural China where some populations eat lots of animal protein, and others eat very little. The book The China Study represents the totality of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his many years of work in the Philippines studying malnourished children, to his experimental lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, to the human studies project in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers to Campbell “forcing” everyone into vegetarianism. This makes no sense on two levels beyond the unilateral emotionalism of the word.First, the two diets Campbell studied were 20% animal protein (which correlates to the Standard American Diet) and 5% animal protein. Neither groups studied were vegetarian. The 5% group correlates to a low-animal-protein diet, similar to Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as the scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes the tone of scientist. He reports and interprets the data. He doesn’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet. He allows the reader to infer from the data whatever diet they choose to follow. He isn’t an internet maven selling a philosophy; he’s a researcher who found the opposite of what he expected to. He grew up on a dairy cattle farm and thought, well into adulthood, that a high-protein diet was ideal. Like John Robbins, son of the Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced him otherwise. I personally am thankful for honest and pure truth seekers, willing to turn another way, when data challenges popular culture and custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts to downgrade the massive China project as “an observational study,” which he says does not “prove causation.” This is puzzling to me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell is a scientist and would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. I’m not a scientist but know enough about it to be aware you never achieve or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how the scientific process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. Which is precisely what Campbell and the research team did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clusters in the Philippines caused him to form a hypothesis. And then he did a controlled trial, which is what the animal studies were, repeated by other researchers around the world with consistent results. The methods were highly controlled, and the results showed that a 20% animal protein diet (in combination with a carcinogen, aflatoxin), led to faster body growth rates and high rates of cancer and early death. And a 5% animal protein diet led to ideal weights, no cancer (even though the animals were exposed to the same carcinogen), and much greater longevity.Then Campbell undertook what the New York Times called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” It was a study of 6,500 adults living in 130 villages in rural China where the unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell and colleagues to investigate whether the lab findings were or weren’t consistent with the China data.Second, Mercola complains that the biggest nutrition study in history is “observational,” but then complains that his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, and unpublished—undocumented, in fact—“observations” are more worthwhile? And to add weight to that slim claim without any “meat” to it (forgive the pun), he’s found another “nutritional physician” who he’s never talked to, who agrees with him. (What’s a “nutritional physician,” by the way? Mercola is an osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been running a huge product-based company for many years, rather than practicing medicine, disagree with thousands of statistically significant findings generated from the published study by two of the most prestigious universities in the world?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chief of surgery, and researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support the Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President and peer-reviewed researcher and book author Neal Barnard, M.D., who also came from a cattle ranching family like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for the same cause. Or how about John McDougall, M.D., a board-certified internist and prolific author. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document the profound preventative effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and many other modern maladies.My point: if it’s a credibility war with accomplishments at the core, those advocating the plant-based diet will win every time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how many patients he saw when he was practicing, he doesn’t give any data about those patients’ diets. He just mentions that he saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (Wow, that would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a day, only an average of 4 times each, five days a week.) And he cites only his own bad experience with eating fruit in 1985 after reading Fit for Life by Marilynn and Harvey Diamond.Mercola says he undertook a short experiment with a plant-based diet 25 years ago, and his triglyceride level skyrocketed. He mentions eating vegetables and fruits. Nothing is said about legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant foods.I would like to hear of anyone else who this happened to. Then we’d have two people to compare to 6,500 folks in the China study.He says, “Clearly, this diet was killing me.”The problem with one person’s 25-year old “case study” (consisting of himself, taking one triglyceride test after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast) is that a variety of factors could have been at work here. His anecdote tells me nothing about what caused his problem.Once someone I know said to me,“I tried vegetables once. They don’t work for me. I got diarrhea.”I don’t want to spend paragraphs explaining how cleansing reactions in various body systems can cause problems in the short-term. That is another topic and will insult the intelligence of many who read this. (Is it possible that you could eat something good for you, but you don’t feel good immediately, because your body must adjust to changes? Is it possible that there are other reasons for not feeling well after eating a vegetable, besides, “It must not be good for me”?)I was amazed to read Mercola using a similar line. Basically he says this:“I ate fruit and my triglycerides went up 25 years ago. So lots of fruits and veggies don’t work for me personally, and people should beware eating “too many vegetables.” And Colin Campbell said I have a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m going to trash his life’s work with 1.3 million people on my mailing list.”(How would eating more fruits and vegetables cause your triglycerides to increase? This makes no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola complains that the huge China project was “observational.” Then he cites his own negative experience with eating fruit for breakfast for a few weeks. And he cites one other M.D. he says he has never met, to complete the sum total of the data he offers to contradict the Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, he says this about his own data and the guy whose comments against the China Project he references, while admitting he’s never met the guy. (When I say “data” I use the term loosely, since except for the 25-year old triglycerides test, he never offers any):“We were both busy clinicians and never had the luxury to take months out of our lives to publish our observations in the medical literature. Nevertheless the lack of publications does not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations? He never says.None of this is compelling.My friends, you and I must make distinctions between one former physician-cum-business tycoon’s claims, and a huge study with outstanding if not impeccable scientific methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises in Mercola’s article. He’s made an impressive living tackling the Western medical profession and telling people to take responsibility for their own health. He attacks the theories, methods, and financial underpinnings of the motives of the medical establishment / monopoly in North America.(Excellent! Me, too!)But then he suggests in his article that he is more trustworthy than Colin Campbell, because Campbell is a PhD, whereas Mercola is a D.O.First of all, Campbell is a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry with an endowed professorship. Mercola used to practice as an osteopath. Campbell stayed in nutrition education and research his entire career, while Mercola has been building a sales-oriented internet company for many years. Nothing wrong with either one, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials in the credibility gauntlet he’s thrown down in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medical education is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Should we think for ourselves, using critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a doctor says, just because M.D. is after his name (or in Mercola’s case, D.O.)? You can’t teach people to question medical doctors, and then say, listen to me instead of the Oxford/Cornell research, simply because I got a medical degree decades ago.Third, the half-life of a medical degree these days is a few years, since practices are now codified to a discrete list of acceptable technologies, drugs, and surgeries insurance companies will pay for. Your ongoing training as a physician comes primarily from drug reps and medical equipment-company reps, and reading the journals. What one learned in medical school 25 years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated and all but irrelevant in modern practice.So let’s go sideways for a minute to that “conflict of interest” Mercola says Dr. Campbell called him out on in private communication. Dr. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat and dairy on his site and in his books, and sells whey protein made from milk. He also sells plenty of synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) in huge meta studies since 2002 discussed in Campbell’s book. If the data from the Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is selling harmful products.He also has a metabolic typing system lacking any grounding in science. Originally I saw it released as an e-book, and then it quickly and mysteriously disappeared, and now only the recipe books for each nutritional type are sold, along with really expensive phone calls with employees at the Mercola company.In his Nutritional Typing plan, some people are supposed to eat lots of meat, some people are supposed to eat lots of carbs, and some people are mixed. Very complicated. It’s as lacking in scientific underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritional typing based on blood type. Every person in the world has to heavily favor one or two macronutrients, to the exclusion of the third? And we make these massive nutritional changes based on two minutes of filling out an online form?When will we stop trying to manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrition principles, and make money confusing people?A complicated, exclusionary program is fantastic way to make gobs of money, as people scramble to make very specific inclusions and eliminations from their diet based on dubious doctrine. It makes no sense that God put all these simple, pure foods on the planet and then let people needlessly flounder, nutritionally, for thousands of years until a guy improved on God’s plan and made a complicated, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all eat differently anyway, based on a number of practical factors? What’s grown locally. What’s in season. What we like and don’t like. What’s in the fridge. What we can afford. What a lifetime of personal experience tells us about how we respond to individual foods. And for a growing number of people–probably thanks to three generations who have now eaten genetically modified foods and processed foods–food sensitivities and allergies?The Nutritional Typing system, when the emperor’s new clothes are exposed, just tells you to eat mostly what you want to eat anyway.The program reminds me of the work of Dr. Robert Atkins, who rubber-stamped America’s love of fatty, meat-based diets. You’ll be popular and wealthy, if you simply tell the people they’ll be healthy if they eat what they want to eat anyway.That popularity made the Atkins family wealthy but didn’t save Atkins himself, or millions of people following his program, from heart disease, obesity, and preventable death.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a couple of minutes and didn’t ask me anything about my heredity or my ancestral eating patterns, even though I was promised that my “type” is based on that. Some questions didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, about what I eat.One question asked me which of four types of foods make me gain weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain? Also, doesn’t that depend on how the food is prepared—fried chicken compared to grilled skinless chicken breast, for instance?)One question required me to choose which meat I want to eat, with no way to choose “none.” At the end of the test, I was called a Veggie Type, and I got an email selling the recipe book for that type.It makes sense that I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question after another that I usually don’t eat animal food.But wait—shouldn’t my “type” be based on what I SHOULD eat, according to a number of very complicated variables? Not what I’ve been eating? I’m confused.A couple of even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I am told to eat chicken and turkey. Second, it tells me to eliminate “fruit, grains, potatoes, and rice!”I feel wonderful eating fruit and whole grains and have done so my entire life. What a tragedy, and what a time-drain and joy-kill it would be, if I were to implement this advice to permanently eliminate two entire classes of high-nutrition, high-fiber foods!Maybe that result was because of the question that asked me how I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant the glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made in my Champion Juicer today. Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from the grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not sure how I’d feel.)To clear the fog settling over me, I can call and get a 30-minute phone call with somebody who works at Mercola for only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations, but will only “review the Nutritional Typing plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain the science behind the two-minute questionnaire that diagnosed my “type?” Because it’s nowhere to be found on the site or in the materials.)It’s brilliant product development that makes meal planning highly individualistic and complicated—read: frustrating, expensive, and pointless.
The Mountain Of Evidence
Since The China Study came out in 2005, I have met and questioned Dr. Campbell myself, after his lecture I attended, and found him to be dedicated to science, open minded, and very truthful about his findings. I have also corresponded with him via email.I spoke to him on the phone at length yesterday (9/7/10) with my questions, and he promised that he would give me the reply he is writing to the Mercola newsletter. Stay tuned on my blog for that. I will also soon do an interview for my blog with Dr. Campbell about the new movie coming out about him and his research, along with Dr. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what the “Dark Side” is of The China Study, that Mercola’s article title touts. It’s emotionally charged hyperbole.I am sorry that Dr. Mercola had a bad experience in 1985 eating fruits and vegetables for a few weeks. But I am deeply concerned about the undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated words on the reputation and validity of decades of Campbell’s renowned research.Until something compelling comes along to convince me otherwise, I stand behind that massive mountain of evidence, that plant foods heal and protect us against disease.3
I'd be happy to answer but I'm not sure what the question is. Can you clarify?
Seriously, would you please knock it off.
I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again
Please, don't you start this too!
Don't play dumb with me. You know exactly what you're doing. *Everyone* knows exactly what you're doing.
Continued behavior like this will lead to further admonishments from me. You've been warned.
Jof thread admonishments work on a three(ish) strike system. You now have one strike.
That's three strikes. As a result of your three strikes, you have now earned one admonishment. Three admonishments will result in a rebuke. Three rebukes will result in a firm talking to. Three talking tos will result in a demerit. Three demerits will result in a chastisement. And you don't even want to know what happens when you get three chastisements...oh, no sirree. It's bad.
I'm lost in the math.
And why is "peanut butter sexy times" meantioned in the middle of this text???
It is? Are you sure?0 -
jesus all this nested quoting is insane0
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So glad I found this thread. What a little gem this is
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All this re-quoting over and over with sarcastic comments is ridiculous. Grow up.0
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Wait, are you saying that you're not a fan of overly long posts?0
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I was startin ta git a lil bit of respect fo' Dr Mercola until I read all dis bull****.
Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Mercola Vs. Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of tha Titans
Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Mercola takes on Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell n' tha China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts tha basics of nutrizzle taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com n' up in mah books, we git hundredz of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterdizzle supposedly exposes tha “DARK SIDE” of Da China Study. I’m not goin ta link ta it n' therefore give it a higher page rank. Well shiiiit, it don’t deserve dat ****.Before undertakin ta explain what’s radically wack wit dis article, let me say this, outside tha topic at hand: I smoke wit Mercola on some macro issues:Da whole concept of prevention n' natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than sticky-icky-icky/surgery medicinal interventions.Far too much of our data be reppin research dat sticky-icky-icky g-units n' agribusinizz paid for.Sugar n' processed chickens is cappin' us. (Mercola implies, wit tha “false dilemma” logical fallacy, up in yesterday’s newsletter dat either animal proteins is cappin' us, or processed chickens are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
Da China Study by Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thankin game ta expose fatal flaws up in his comments bout Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. T. Colin Campbell n' tha China Study.(When you put yo *kitten* up in tha hood domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposizzle of scams creates a cold-*kitten* lil climate fo' tha real deal ta emerge.)As I straight ****in disagree wit Mercola here, I'ma invariably git some mad salty email. Most readaz will appreciate dat mah only motizzle is ta learn n' then explain tha real deal (or as close as I can git ta it) up in dis ghetto of nutrizzle dat has all kindsa mutha****in competin voices.My ****in own 12 Steps ta Whole Foods is a cold-*kitten* lil compendium of tha dopest nutrizzle practices. Well shiiiit, it advocates fo' smokin much mo' plant chicken (especially raw chicken) than tha average Gangsta gets n' be a practical HOW-TO guide, mo' than a philosophical rap battle or meta-review of research. Well shiiiit, it purposefully don’t advocate fo' vegetarianizzle or veganism, although I be supportizzle of others whoz *kitten* chizzle ta wear dem labels. My ****in own crew, except fo' two vegetarian daughters, smokes a lil' bit of homemade kefir, n' occasionizzle animal shizzle when we is away from home.Mercola attempts ta discredit tha joint effort of Oxford n' Cornell Universitizzles by callin theirs a “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior ta havin once had a medicinal practice.Da Oxford/Cornell China study be a straight-up sound, huge, comprehensive study spannin over 25 years. My ****in own advanced degree, background up in research, n' understandin of research principles, lead mah crazy *kitten* ta say this:I be thankful, finally, fo' a vast piece of research up in epidemiologizzle dat was not funded or hyped up by tha sticky-icky-icky g-units or agribusinizz (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy shizzle n' processed n' refined n' GMO chickens). I peep no conflictz of interest up in tha Oxford/Cornell research. I peep one of tha purest voices up in nutrizzle up in Campbell n' his cold-*kitten* crew.I rap battleed his *kitten* by beeper as I freestyled this, n' da perved-out mutha****a holla'd, “I feel personally responsible ta Gangstas ta tell dem what tha **** our phat *kitten* did wit they scrilla,” cuz taxpayers funded tha China study, not profit-motivated industries.Da research was tha next natural step from methodical n' rigorous animal studies. Put ya mutha****in choppers up if ya feel dis! It’s a remarkable piece of research examinin 6,500 adults up in 130 villagez of rural China where some populations smoke ****in ****loadz of animal protein, n' others smoke straight-up lil. Da book Da China Study represents tha totalitizzle of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his crazy-*kitten* nuff mutha****in yearz of work up in tha Philippines studyin malnourished children, ta his wild lil' ****in experimenstrual lab research funded by tha Nationizzle Institutez of Health, ta tha human studies project up in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers ta Campbell “forcing” mah playas tha **** into vegetarianism. This make no sense on two levels beyond tha unilateral wackizzle of tha word.First, tha two diets Campbell studied was 20% animal protein (which correlates ta tha Standard Gangsta Diet) n' 5% animal protein. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy *kitten*. Neither crews studied was vegetarian. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy *kitten*. Da 5% crew correlates ta a low-animal-protein diet, similar ta Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as tha scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel ta smoke meat “sparingly, only up in timez of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes tha tone of scientist yo. Dude reports n' interprets tha data yo. Dude don’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet yo. Dude allows tha reader ta infer from tha data whatever diet they chizzle ta follow yo. Dude isn’t a internizzle maven pushin a philosophy; he’s a researcher whoz *kitten* found tha opposite of what tha **** he sposed ta ****in yo. Dude grew up on a thugged-out dairy cattle farm n' thought, well tha **** into adulthood, dat a high-protein diet was ideal. It aint nuthin but tha nick nack patty wack, I still gots tha bigger sack. Like Jizzy Robbins, lil hustla of tha Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced his *kitten* otherwise. I personally be thankful fo' real n' pure truth seekers, willin ta turn another way, when data challenges ghettofab culture n' custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts ta downgrade tha massive China project as “an observationizzle study,” which da perved-out mutha****a say do not “prove causation.” This is puzzlin ta me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell be a scientist n' would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. Y'all KNOW dat ****, mutha****a! I’m not a scientist but know enough bout it ta be aware you never big up or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how tha **** tha scientistical process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. It aint nuthin but tha nick nack patty wack, I still gots tha bigger sack. Which is precisely what tha **** Campbell n' tha research crew did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clustas up in tha Philippines caused his *kitten* ta form a hypothesis fo' realz. And then da ruffneck did a cold-*kitten* lil controlled trial, which is what tha **** tha animal studies were, repeated by other researchers round tha ghetto wit consistent thangs up in dis *kitten*. Da methodz was highly controlled, n' tha thangs up in dis *kitten* flossed dat a 20% animal protein diet (in combination wit a cold-*kitten* lil carcinogen, aflatoxin), hustled ta fasta body growth rates n' high ratez of cancer n' early dirtnap fo' realz. And a 5% animal protein diet hustled ta ideal weights, no cancer (even though tha mutha****as was exposed ta tha same carcinogen), n' much pimped outer longevity.Then Campbell undertook what tha **** tha New York Times called tha “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” Dat shiznit was a study of 6,500 adults livin up in 130 villages up in rural China where tha unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell n' colleagues ta rewind whether tha lab findings was or weren’t consistent wit tha China data.Second, Mercola *****es dat tha freshest nutrizzle study up in history is “observational,” but then *****es dat his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, n' unpublished��"undocumented, up in fact��"“observations” is mo' worthwhile, *kitten*? And ta add weight ta dat slim claim without any “meat” ta it (forgive tha pun), he’s found another “nutritionizzle physician” whoz *kitten* he’s never talked to, whoz *kitten* agrees wit his mutha****in *kitten*. (What’s a “nutritionizzle physician,” by tha way, *kitten*? Mercola be a osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been hustlin a big-*kitten* product-based company fo' nuff years, rather than practicin medicine, disagree wit thousandz of statistically dope findings generated from tha published study by two of da most thugged-out prestigious universitizzles up in tha ghetto?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chizzle of surgery, n' researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support tha Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite forma Physicians Committee fo' Responsible Medicine Prezzy n' peer-reviewed researcher n' book author Neal Barnard, M.D., whoz *kitten* also came from a cold-*kitten* lil cattle ranchin crew like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for tha same cause. Or how tha **** about Jizzy McDougall, M.D., a funky-*kitten* board-certified internist n' prolific lyricist. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document tha profound preventatizzle effectz of a plant-based diet on *kitten* disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, n' nuff other modern maladies.My ****in point: if it’s a cold-*kitten* lil credibilitizzle war wit accomplishments all up in tha core, dem advocatin tha plant-based diet will win every last mutha****in time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how tha **** nuff patients da perved-out mutha****a saw when da thug was practicing, da ruffneck don’t give any data bout dem patients’ diets yo. Dude just mentions dat da perved-out mutha****a saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (**** dat ****, dat would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a thugged-out day, only a average of 4 times each, five minutes a week.) And his schmoooove *kitten* cites only his own wack experience wit smokin fruit up in 1985 afta reading Fit fo' Life by Marilynn n' Harvey Diamond.Mercola say he undertook a short experiment wit a plant-based diet 25 mutha****in years ago, n' his cold-*kitten* triglyceride level skyrocketed. Y'all KNOW dat ****, mutha****a! This type'a shiznit happens all tha time yo. Dude mentions smokin vegetablez n' fruits, n' you can put dat on yo' toast. Nothang is holla'd bout legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant chickens.I wanna hear of any suckas whoz *kitten* dis happened to. Then we’d have two people ta compare ta 6,500 folks up in tha China study.Dude says, “Clearly, dis diet was cappin' mah dirty *kitten*.”Da problem wit one person’s 25-year oldschool “case study” (consistin of his dirty *kitten*, takin one triglyceride test afta all dem weekz of smokin fruit fo' breakfast) is dat a variety of factors could done been at work here, so peek-a-boo, clear tha way, I be comin' thru fo'sho yo. His anecdote drops some lyrics ta me not a god damn thang bout what tha **** caused his thugged-out lil' problem.Once one of mah thugs I know holla'd ta me,“I tried vegetablez once. They don’t work fo' mah dirty *kitten*. I gots diarrhea.”I don’t wanna spend paragraphs explainin how tha **** cleansin erections up in various body systems can cause problems up in tha short-term. That be another topic n' will insult tha intelligence of nuff whoz *kitten* read all dis bull****. (Is it possible dat you could smoke suttin' phat fo' you yo, but you don’t feel phat immediately, cuz yo' body must adjust ta chizzles, *kitten*? Is it possible dat there be other reasons fo' not feelin well afta smokin a vegetable, besides, “It must not be phat fo' me”?)I was amazed ta read Mercola rockin a similar line. Basically da perved-out mutha****a say this:“I ate fruit n' mah triglycerides went up 25 mutha****in years ago. Right back up in yo mutha****in *kitten*. So ****in ****loadz of fruits n' veggies don’t work fo' me personally, n' playas should beware smokin “too nuff vegetables.” And Colin Campbell holla'd I gots a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m goin ta trash his wild lil' freakadelic game’s work wit 1.3 mazillion playas on mah mailin list.”(How tha **** would smokin mo' fruits n' vegetablez cause yo' triglycerides ta increase, *kitten*? This make no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola *****es dat tha big-*kitten* China project was “observational.” Then his schmoooove *kitten* cites his own wack experience wit smokin fruit fo' breakfast fo' all dem weeks fo' realz. And his schmoooove *kitten* cites one other M.D. da perved-out mutha****a say dat schmoooove mutha****a has never met, ta complete tha sum total of tha data he offers ta contradict tha Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, da perved-out mutha****a say dis bout his own data n' tha mutha****a whose comments against tha China Project he references, while admittin he’s never kicked it wit tha mutha****a. (When I say “data” I use tha term loosely, since except fo' tha 25-year oldschool triglycerides test, he never offers any):“Us thugs was both busy clinicians n' never had tha luxury ta take months outta our lives ta publish our observations up in tha medicinal literature. Nevertheless tha lack of publications do not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations, *kitten*? Dude never say.None of dis is compelling.My ****in playas, you n' I must make distinctions between one forma physician-cum-businizz tycoon’s fronts, n' a big-*kitten* study wit outstandin if not impeccable scientistical methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises up in Mercola’s article yo. He’s made a impressive livin tacklin tha Westside medicinal profession n' spittin some lyrics ta playas ta take responsibilitizzle fo' they own game yo. Dude attacks tha theories, methods, n' financial underpinningz of tha motivez of tha medicinal establishment / monopoly up in Uptown America.(Excellent son! Me, too!)But then da perved-out mutha****a suggests up in his thugged-out article dat he is mo' trustworthy than Colin Campbell, cuz Campbell be a STD, whereas Mercola be a D.O.First of all, Campbell be a STD up in Nutritionizzle Biochemistry wit a endowed pimpship. Mercola used ta practice as a osteopath. Campbell stayed up in nutrizzle ejaculation n' research his wild lil' ****in entire game, while Mercola has been buildin a sales-oriented internizzle company fo' nuff years. Nothang wack wit either one yo, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials up in tha credibilitizzle gauntlet he’s thrown down up in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medicinal ejaculation is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Right back up in yo mutha****in *kitten*. Should we be thinkin fo' ourselves, rockin critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a thugged-out doctor says, just cuz M.D. be afta his name (or up in Mercola’s case, D.O.), *kitten*? Yo *kitten* can’t teach playas ta question medicinal doctors, n' then say, dig me instead of tha Oxford/Cornell research, simply cuz I gots a medicinal degree decades ago.Third, tha half-life of a medicinal degree these minutes be all dem years, since practices is now codified ta a gangbangin' finger-lickin' discrete list of acceptable technologies, sticky-icky-ickys, n' surgeries insurizzle g-units will pay for. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Yo crazy-*kitten* ongoin hustlin as a physician comes primarily from sticky-icky-icky reps n' medicinal ****-company reps, n' readin tha journals. What one hustled up in medicinal school 25 mutha****in years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated n' all but irrelevant up in modern practice.So let’s go sideways fo' a minute ta dat “conflict of interest” Mercola say Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell called his *kitten* up on up in private communication. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy *kitten*. Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat n' dairy on his joint n' up in his books, n' sells whey protein made from milk yo. Dude also sells nuff synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) up in big-*kitten* meta studies since 2002 discussed up in Campbell’s book. If tha data from tha Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is pushin harmful shizzle.Dude also has a metabolic typin system lackin any groundin up in science. Originally I saw it busted out as a e-book, n' then it quickly n' mysteriously disappeared, n' now only tha recipe books fo' each nutritionizzle type is sold, along wit straight-up high-rollin' beeper calls wit hommies all up in tha Mercola company.In his Nutritionizzle Typin plan, some playas is supposed ta smoke ****in ****loadz of meat, some playas is supposed ta smoke ****in ****loadz of carbs, n' some playas is mixed. Y'all KNOW dat ****, mutha****a! Straight-up ****ed up. Y'all KNOW dat ****, mutha****a! This type'a shiznit happens all tha time. It’s as lackin up in scientistical underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritionizzle typin based on blood type. Every thug up in tha ghetto has ta heavily favor one or two macronutrients, ta tha exclusion of tha third, *kitten*? And we make these massive nutritionizzle chizzlez based on two minutez of fillin up a online form?When will we stop tryin ta manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrizzle principles, n' make scrilla confusin people?A ****ed up, exclusionary program is dunkadelic way ta make gobz of scrilla, as playas scramble ta make straight-up specific inclusions n' eliminations from they diet based on dubious doctrine. Well shiiiit, it make no sense dat Dogg put all these simple, pure chickens on tha hood n' then let playas needlessly flounder, nutritionally, fo' thousandz of mutha****in years until a mutha****a improved on God’s plan n' done cooked up a cold-*kitten* lil ****ed up, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all smoke differently anyway, based on a ****in ****load of practical factors, *kitten*? What’s grown locally. What’s up in season. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy *kitten*. What our slick *kitten* like n' don’t like. What’s up in tha fridge. What we can afford. Y'all KNOW dat ****, mutha****a! What a gametime of underground experience drops some lyrics ta our *kitten* bout how tha **** we respond ta individual chickens fo' realz. And fo' a growin number of people��"probably props ta three generations whoz *kitten* have now smoked genetically modified chickens n' processed chickens��"food sensitivitizzles n' allergies?Da Nutritionizzle Typin system, when tha emperor’s freshly smoked up threadz is exposed, just drops some lyrics ta you ta smoke mostly what tha **** you wanna smoke anyway.Da program remindz me of tha work of Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Robert Atkins, whoz *kitten* rubber-stamped America’s ludd of fatty, meat-based diets, n' you can put dat on yo' toast. You’ll be ghettofab n' wealthy, if you simply tell tha playas they’ll be healthy if they smoke what tha **** they wanna smoke anyway.That popularitizzle made tha Atkins crew wealthy but didn’t save Atkins his dirty *kitten*, or millionz of playas followin his thugged-out lil' program, from *kitten* disease, obesity, n' preventable dirtnap.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a cold-*kitten* lil couple minutes n' didn’t ask me anythang bout mah hereditizzle or mah ancestral smokin patterns, even though I was promised dat mah “type” is based on dis ****. Right back up in yo mutha****in *kitten*. Some thangs didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, bout what tha **** I eat.One question axed mah crazy *kitten* which of four typez of chickens make me bust weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain, *kitten*? Also, don’t dat depend on how tha **** tha chicken is prepared��"fried chicken compared ta grilled skinless chicken breast, fo' instance?)One question required mah crazy *kitten* ta chizzle which meat I wanna eat, wit no way ta chizzle “none.” At tha end of tha test, I was called a Veggie Type, n' I gots a email pushin tha recipe book fo' dat type.It make sense dat I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question afta another dat I probably don’t smoke animal chicken n' you know I be eatin up dat shizzle all mutha****in day, *kitten*.But wait��"shouldn’t mah “type” be based on what tha **** I SHOULD eat, accordin ta a ****in ****load of straight-up ****ed up variables, *kitten*? Not what tha **** I’ve been smokin, *kitten*? I’m confused.A couple even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I be holla'd at ta smoke chicken n' turkey. Right back up in yo mutha****in *kitten*. Second, it drops some lyrics ta me ta eliminizzle “fruit, grains, potatoes, n' rice!”I feel straight-up dope smokin fruit n' whole grains n' have done so mah entire game. What a gangbangin' **** up, n' what tha **** a time-drain n' joy-kill it would be, if I was ta implement dis lyrics ta permanently eliminizzle two entire classez of high-nutrition, high-fiber chickens!Maybe dat result was cuz of tha question dat axed mah crazy *kitten* how tha **** I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant tha glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made up in mah Champion Juicer todizzle. It make me wanna hollar playa! Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from tha grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not shizzle how tha **** I’d feel.)To clear tha fog settlin over me, I can call n' git a 30-minute beeper call wit some mutha****a whoz *kitten* works at Mercola fo' only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations yo, but will only “review tha Nutritionizzle Typin plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain tha science behind tha two-minute questionnaire dat diagnosed mah “type?” Because it’s nowhere ta be found on tha joint or up in tha ****.)It’s solid thang pimpment dat make meal plannin highly individualistic n' ****ed up��"read: frustrating, expensive, n' pointless.
Da Mountain Of Evidence
Since Da China Study came up in 2005, I have kicked it wit n' dissed Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell mah dirty *kitten*, afta his ****in lecture I attended, n' found his *kitten* ta be all bout science, open minded, n' straight-up truthful bout his wild lil' findings. I have also corresponded wit his *kitten* via email.I was rappin ta his *kitten* on tha beeper at length yesterdizzle (9/7/10) wit mah thangs, n' he promised dat da thug would break off tha reply he is freestylin ta tha Mercola newsletter n' ****. Right back up in yo mutha****in *kitten*. Stay tuned on mah Snoop Bloggy-Blogg fo' dis ****. I'ma also soon do a rap battle fo' mah Snoop Bloggy-Blogg wit Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell bout tha freshly smoked up porno comin up bout his *kitten* n' his bangin research, along wit Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what tha **** tha “Dark Side” is of Da China Study, dat Mercola’s article title touts, n' you can put dat on yo' toast. It’s wackly charged hyperbole.I be sorry dat Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Mercola had a wack experience up in 1985 smokin fruits n' vegetablez fo' all dem weeks. But I be deeply concerned bout tha undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated lyrics on tha hype n' validitizzle of decadez of Campbell’s renowned research.Until suttin' compellin comes along ta convince me otherwise, I stand behind dat massive mountain of evidence, dat plant chickens heal n' protect our *kitten* against disease.30 -
I was startin ta git a lil bit of respect fo' Dr Mercola until I read all dis bull****.
Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Mercola Vs. Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell
9/8/10
Clash of tha Titans
Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Mercola takes on Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell n' tha China Study
When Joe Mercola contradicts tha basics of nutrizzle taught on GreenSmoothieGirl.com n' up in mah books, we git hundredz of emails.Mercola’s newsletter yesterdizzle supposedly exposes tha “DARK SIDE” of Da China Study. I’m not goin ta link ta it n' therefore give it a higher page rank. Well shiiiit, it don’t deserve dat ****.Before undertakin ta explain what’s radically wack wit dis article, let me say this, outside tha topic at hand: I smoke wit Mercola on some macro issues:Da whole concept of prevention n' natural remedies should be first-line treatments, rather than sticky-icky-icky/surgery medicinal interventions.Far too much of our data be reppin research dat sticky-icky-icky g-units n' agribusinizz paid for.Sugar n' processed chickens is cappin' us. (Mercola implies, wit tha “false dilemma” logical fallacy, up in yesterday’s newsletter dat either animal proteins is cappin' us, or processed chickens are, as if both can’t be contributors.)
Da China Study by Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Colin Campbell
But we must use critical thankin game ta expose fatal flaws up in his comments bout Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. T. Colin Campbell n' tha China Study.(When you put yo *kitten* up in tha hood domain, you invite dissent. Juxtaposizzle of scams creates a cold-*kitten* lil climate fo' tha real deal ta emerge.)As I straight ****in disagree wit Mercola here, I'ma invariably git some mad salty email. Most readaz will appreciate dat mah only motizzle is ta learn n' then explain tha real deal (or as close as I can git ta it) up in dis ghetto of nutrizzle dat has all kindsa mutha****in competin voices.My ****in own 12 Steps ta Whole Foods is a cold-*kitten* lil compendium of tha dopest nutrizzle practices. Well shiiiit, it advocates fo' smokin much mo' plant chicken (especially raw chicken) than tha average Gangsta gets n' be a practical HOW-TO guide, mo' than a philosophical rap battle or meta-review of research. Well shiiiit, it purposefully don’t advocate fo' vegetarianizzle or veganism, although I be supportizzle of others whoz *kitten* chizzle ta wear dem labels. My ****in own crew, except fo' two vegetarian daughters, smokes a lil' bit of homemade kefir, n' occasionizzle animal shizzle when we is away from home.Mercola attempts ta discredit tha joint effort of Oxford n' Cornell Universitizzles by callin theirs a “observational” study, which he infers is somehow inferior ta havin once had a medicinal practice.Da Oxford/Cornell China study be a straight-up sound, huge, comprehensive study spannin over 25 years. My ****in own advanced degree, background up in research, n' understandin of research principles, lead mah crazy *kitten* ta say this:I be thankful, finally, fo' a vast piece of research up in epidemiologizzle dat was not funded or hyped up by tha sticky-icky-icky g-units or agribusinizz (which primarily hawks refined corn/wheat/soy shizzle n' processed n' refined n' GMO chickens). I peep no conflictz of interest up in tha Oxford/Cornell research. I peep one of tha purest voices up in nutrizzle up in Campbell n' his cold-*kitten* crew.I rap battleed his *kitten* by beeper as I freestyled this, n' da perved-out mutha****a holla'd, “I feel personally responsible ta Gangstas ta tell dem what tha **** our phat *kitten* did wit they scrilla,” cuz taxpayers funded tha China study, not profit-motivated industries.Da research was tha next natural step from methodical n' rigorous animal studies. Put ya mutha****in choppers up if ya feel dis! It’s a remarkable piece of research examinin 6,500 adults up in 130 villagez of rural China where some populations smoke ****in ****loadz of animal protein, n' others smoke straight-up lil. Da book Da China Study represents tha totalitizzle of Campbell’s experiences. Those include his crazy-*kitten* nuff mutha****in yearz of work up in tha Philippines studyin malnourished children, ta his wild lil' ****in experimenstrual lab research funded by tha Nationizzle Institutez of Health, ta tha human studies project up in China.
“Forcing” Vegetarianism?
Mercola refers ta Campbell “forcing” mah playas tha **** into vegetarianism. This make no sense on two levels beyond tha unilateral wackizzle of tha word.First, tha two diets Campbell studied was 20% animal protein (which correlates ta tha Standard Gangsta Diet) n' 5% animal protein. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy *kitten*. Neither crews studied was vegetarian. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy *kitten*. Da 5% crew correlates ta a low-animal-protein diet, similar ta Daniel’s Biblical diet, as well as tha scriptural “Word of Wisdom” counsel ta smoke meat “sparingly, only up in timez of winter/famine/cold.”Second, Campbell takes tha tone of scientist yo. Dude reports n' interprets tha data yo. Dude don’t “force” or even recommend any specific diet yo. Dude allows tha reader ta infer from tha data whatever diet they chizzle ta follow yo. Dude isn’t a internizzle maven pushin a philosophy; he’s a researcher whoz *kitten* found tha opposite of what tha **** he sposed ta ****in yo. Dude grew up on a thugged-out dairy cattle farm n' thought, well tha **** into adulthood, dat a high-protein diet was ideal. It aint nuthin but tha nick nack patty wack, I still gots tha bigger sack. Like Jizzy Robbins, lil hustla of tha Baskin Robbins founder, only data convinced his *kitten* otherwise. I personally be thankful fo' real n' pure truth seekers, willin ta turn another way, when data challenges ghettofab culture n' custom.
“Observational” Study?
Mercola attempts ta downgrade tha massive China project as “an observationizzle study,” which da perved-out mutha****a say do not “prove causation.” This is puzzlin ta me based on three logic flaws.First, Campbell be a scientist n' would never say his study “proves causation.” No scientist would. Y'all KNOW dat ****, mutha****a! I’m not a scientist but know enough bout it ta be aware you never big up or claim “proof of causation.” Mercola gives a two-sentence primer on how tha **** tha scientistical process works: initial study, hypothesis, controlled trial. It aint nuthin but tha nick nack patty wack, I still gots tha bigger sack. Which is precisely what tha **** Campbell n' tha research crew did:Campbell’s early research on cancer clustas up in tha Philippines caused his *kitten* ta form a hypothesis fo' realz. And then da ruffneck did a cold-*kitten* lil controlled trial, which is what tha **** tha animal studies were, repeated by other researchers round tha ghetto wit consistent thangs up in dis *kitten*. Da methodz was highly controlled, n' tha thangs up in dis *kitten* flossed dat a 20% animal protein diet (in combination wit a cold-*kitten* lil carcinogen, aflatoxin), hustled ta fasta body growth rates n' high ratez of cancer n' early dirtnap fo' realz. And a 5% animal protein diet hustled ta ideal weights, no cancer (even though tha mutha****as was exposed ta tha same carcinogen), n' much pimped outer longevity.Then Campbell undertook what tha **** tha New York Times called tha “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” Dat shiznit was a study of 6,500 adults livin up in 130 villages up in rural China where tha unique range of dietary experience permitted Campbell n' colleagues ta rewind whether tha lab findings was or weren’t consistent wit tha China data.Second, Mercola *****es dat tha freshest nutrizzle study up in history is “observational,” but then *****es dat his own unscientific, non-peer reviewed, n' unpublished��"undocumented, up in fact��"“observations” is mo' worthwhile, *kitten*? And ta add weight ta dat slim claim without any “meat” ta it (forgive tha pun), he’s found another “nutritionizzle physician” whoz *kitten* he’s never talked to, whoz *kitten* agrees wit his mutha****in *kitten*. (What’s a “nutritionizzle physician,” by tha way, *kitten*? Mercola be a osteopath.)So two men, one of whom has been hustlin a big-*kitten* product-based company fo' nuff years, rather than practicin medicine, disagree wit thousandz of statistically dope findings generated from tha published study by two of da most thugged-out prestigious universitizzles up in tha ghetto?I might cite internationally renowned surgeon, chizzle of surgery, n' researcher Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., whose own clinical findings support tha Oxford/Cornell research. I might cite forma Physicians Committee fo' Responsible Medicine Prezzy n' peer-reviewed researcher n' book author Neal Barnard, M.D., whoz *kitten* also came from a cold-*kitten* lil cattle ranchin crew like Campbell. I might cite board-certified author Joel Fuhrman, M.D. for tha same cause. Or how tha **** about Jizzy McDougall, M.D., a funky-*kitten* board-certified internist n' prolific lyricist. These highly credentialed four doctor-researcher-authors extensively document tha profound preventatizzle effectz of a plant-based diet on *kitten* disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, n' nuff other modern maladies.My ****in point: if it’s a cold-*kitten* lil credibilitizzle war wit accomplishments all up in tha core, dem advocatin tha plant-based diet will win every last mutha****in time.
A Plant-Based Diet Was “Killing” Mercola?!
Third, while Mercola touts how tha **** nuff patients da perved-out mutha****a saw when da thug was practicing, da ruffneck don’t give any data bout dem patients’ diets yo. Dude just mentions dat da perved-out mutha****a saw 25,000 patients as a D.O. (**** dat ****, dat would take 40 years, if you saw 10 patients a thugged-out day, only a average of 4 times each, five minutes a week.) And his schmoooove *kitten* cites only his own wack experience wit smokin fruit up in 1985 afta reading Fit fo' Life by Marilynn n' Harvey Diamond.Mercola say he undertook a short experiment wit a plant-based diet 25 mutha****in years ago, n' his cold-*kitten* triglyceride level skyrocketed. Y'all KNOW dat ****, mutha****a! This type'a shiznit happens all tha time yo. Dude mentions smokin vegetablez n' fruits, n' you can put dat on yo' toast. Nothang is holla'd bout legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or other whole, plant chickens.I wanna hear of any suckas whoz *kitten* dis happened to. Then we’d have two people ta compare ta 6,500 folks up in tha China study.Dude says, “Clearly, dis diet was cappin' mah dirty *kitten*.”Da problem wit one person’s 25-year oldschool “case study” (consistin of his dirty *kitten*, takin one triglyceride test afta all dem weekz of smokin fruit fo' breakfast) is dat a variety of factors could done been at work here, so peek-a-boo, clear tha way, I be comin' thru fo'sho yo. His anecdote drops some lyrics ta me not a god damn thang bout what tha **** caused his thugged-out lil' problem.Once one of mah thugs I know holla'd ta me,“I tried vegetablez once. They don’t work fo' mah dirty *kitten*. I gots diarrhea.”I don’t wanna spend paragraphs explainin how tha **** cleansin erections up in various body systems can cause problems up in tha short-term. That be another topic n' will insult tha intelligence of nuff whoz *kitten* read all dis bull****. (Is it possible dat you could smoke suttin' phat fo' you yo, but you don’t feel phat immediately, cuz yo' body must adjust ta chizzles, *kitten*? Is it possible dat there be other reasons fo' not feelin well afta smokin a vegetable, besides, “It must not be phat fo' me”?)I was amazed ta read Mercola rockin a similar line. Basically da perved-out mutha****a say this:“I ate fruit n' mah triglycerides went up 25 mutha****in years ago. Right back up in yo mutha****in *kitten*. So ****in ****loadz of fruits n' veggies don’t work fo' me personally, n' playas should beware smokin “too nuff vegetables.” And Colin Campbell holla'd I gots a ‘conflict of interest,’ so I’m goin ta trash his wild lil' freakadelic game’s work wit 1.3 mazillion playas on mah mailin list.”(How tha **** would smokin mo' fruits n' vegetablez cause yo' triglycerides ta increase, *kitten*? This make no sense.)
Mercola’s Conflict Of Interest
Mercola *****es dat tha big-*kitten* China project was “observational.” Then his schmoooove *kitten* cites his own wack experience wit smokin fruit fo' breakfast fo' all dem weeks fo' realz. And his schmoooove *kitten* cites one other M.D. da perved-out mutha****a say dat schmoooove mutha****a has never met, ta complete tha sum total of tha data he offers ta contradict tha Oxford/Cornell project.Inexplicably, da perved-out mutha****a say dis bout his own data n' tha mutha****a whose comments against tha China Project he references, while admittin he’s never kicked it wit tha mutha****a. (When I say “data” I use tha term loosely, since except fo' tha 25-year oldschool triglycerides test, he never offers any):“Us thugs was both busy clinicians n' never had tha luxury ta take months outta our lives ta publish our observations up in tha medicinal literature. Nevertheless tha lack of publications do not make the observations any less valid.” [italics mine]What observations, *kitten*? Dude never say.None of dis is compelling.My ****in playas, you n' I must make distinctions between one forma physician-cum-businizz tycoon’s fronts, n' a big-*kitten* study wit outstandin if not impeccable scientistical methods.Another chasing-your-tail logical fallacy arises up in Mercola’s article yo. He’s made a impressive livin tacklin tha Westside medicinal profession n' spittin some lyrics ta playas ta take responsibilitizzle fo' they own game yo. Dude attacks tha theories, methods, n' financial underpinningz of tha motivez of tha medicinal establishment / monopoly up in Uptown America.(Excellent son! Me, too!)But then da perved-out mutha****a suggests up in his thugged-out article dat he is mo' trustworthy than Colin Campbell, cuz Campbell be a STD, whereas Mercola be a D.O.First of all, Campbell be a STD up in Nutritionizzle Biochemistry wit a endowed pimpship. Mercola used ta practice as a osteopath. Campbell stayed up in nutrizzle ejaculation n' research his wild lil' ****in entire game, while Mercola has been buildin a sales-oriented internizzle company fo' nuff years. Nothang wack wit either one yo, but I’m stumped by why Mercola would use credentials up in tha credibilitizzle gauntlet he’s thrown down up in his newsletter.Second, you can’t have it both ways. Either medicinal ejaculation is deeply flawed, or it’s not. Right back up in yo mutha****in *kitten*. Should we be thinkin fo' ourselves, rockin critical judgment, or blindly do whatever a thugged-out doctor says, just cuz M.D. be afta his name (or up in Mercola’s case, D.O.), *kitten*? Yo *kitten* can’t teach playas ta question medicinal doctors, n' then say, dig me instead of tha Oxford/Cornell research, simply cuz I gots a medicinal degree decades ago.Third, tha half-life of a medicinal degree these minutes be all dem years, since practices is now codified ta a gangbangin' finger-lickin' discrete list of acceptable technologies, sticky-icky-ickys, n' surgeries insurizzle g-units will pay for. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Yo crazy-*kitten* ongoin hustlin as a physician comes primarily from sticky-icky-icky reps n' medicinal ****-company reps, n' readin tha journals. What one hustled up in medicinal school 25 mutha****in years ago, beyond basic human anatomy classes, is outdated n' all but irrelevant up in modern practice.So let’s go sideways fo' a minute ta dat “conflict of interest” Mercola say Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell called his *kitten* up on up in private communication. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy *kitten*. Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell has a valid point.
Mercola’s Idea Of A Healthy Diet…
Mercola heavily promotes meat n' dairy on his joint n' up in his books, n' sells whey protein made from milk yo. Dude also sells nuff synthetic, isolated supplements, debunked as useless (or worse, harmful) up in big-*kitten* meta studies since 2002 discussed up in Campbell’s book. If tha data from tha Oxford/Cornell project is valid, Mercola is pushin harmful shizzle.Dude also has a metabolic typin system lackin any groundin up in science. Originally I saw it busted out as a e-book, n' then it quickly n' mysteriously disappeared, n' now only tha recipe books fo' each nutritionizzle type is sold, along wit straight-up high-rollin' beeper calls wit hommies all up in tha Mercola company.In his Nutritionizzle Typin plan, some playas is supposed ta smoke ****in ****loadz of meat, some playas is supposed ta smoke ****in ****loadz of carbs, n' some playas is mixed. Y'all KNOW dat ****, mutha****a! Straight-up ****ed up. Y'all KNOW dat ****, mutha****a! This type'a shiznit happens all tha time. It’s as lackin up in scientistical underpinnings as Peter D’Adamo’s nutritionizzle typin based on blood type. Every thug up in tha ghetto has ta heavily favor one or two macronutrients, ta tha exclusion of tha third, *kitten*? And we make these massive nutritionizzle chizzlez based on two minutez of fillin up a online form?When will we stop tryin ta manipulate metabolism, make rocket science of simple nutrizzle principles, n' make scrilla confusin people?A ****ed up, exclusionary program is dunkadelic way ta make gobz of scrilla, as playas scramble ta make straight-up specific inclusions n' eliminations from they diet based on dubious doctrine. Well shiiiit, it make no sense dat Dogg put all these simple, pure chickens on tha hood n' then let playas needlessly flounder, nutritionally, fo' thousandz of mutha****in years until a mutha****a improved on God’s plan n' done cooked up a cold-*kitten* lil ****ed up, proprietary “program.”Don’t we all smoke differently anyway, based on a ****in ****load of practical factors, *kitten*? What’s grown locally. What’s up in season. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy *kitten*. What our slick *kitten* like n' don’t like. What’s up in tha fridge. What we can afford. Y'all KNOW dat ****, mutha****a! What a gametime of underground experience drops some lyrics ta our *kitten* bout how tha **** we respond ta individual chickens fo' realz. And fo' a growin number of people��"probably props ta three generations whoz *kitten* have now smoked genetically modified chickens n' processed chickens��"food sensitivitizzles n' allergies?Da Nutritionizzle Typin system, when tha emperor’s freshly smoked up threadz is exposed, just drops some lyrics ta you ta smoke mostly what tha **** you wanna smoke anyway.Da program remindz me of tha work of Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Robert Atkins, whoz *kitten* rubber-stamped America’s ludd of fatty, meat-based diets, n' you can put dat on yo' toast. You’ll be ghettofab n' wealthy, if you simply tell tha playas they’ll be healthy if they smoke what tha **** they wanna smoke anyway.That popularitizzle made tha Atkins crew wealthy but didn’t save Atkins his dirty *kitten*, or millionz of playas followin his thugged-out lil' program, from *kitten* disease, obesity, n' preventable dirtnap.I took Mercola’s test, which took only a cold-*kitten* lil couple minutes n' didn’t ask me anythang bout mah hereditizzle or mah ancestral smokin patterns, even though I was promised dat mah “type” is based on dis ****. Right back up in yo mutha****in *kitten*. Some thangs didn’t have any answer I could say “yes” to, truthfully, bout what tha **** I eat.One question axed mah crazy *kitten* which of four typez of chickens make me bust weight. (Wouldn’t any of them, if overeaten, cause weight gain, *kitten*? Also, don’t dat depend on how tha **** tha chicken is prepared��"fried chicken compared ta grilled skinless chicken breast, fo' instance?)One question required mah crazy *kitten* ta chizzle which meat I wanna eat, wit no way ta chizzle “none.” At tha end of tha test, I was called a Veggie Type, n' I gots a email pushin tha recipe book fo' dat type.It make sense dat I’m a “Veggie Type,” since I answered one question afta another dat I probably don’t smoke animal chicken n' you know I be eatin up dat shizzle all mutha****in day, *kitten*.But wait��"shouldn’t mah “type” be based on what tha **** I SHOULD eat, accordin ta a ****in ****load of straight-up ****ed up variables, *kitten*? Not what tha **** I’ve been smokin, *kitten*? I’m confused.A couple even bigger head scratchers: first, as a Veggie Type, I be holla'd at ta smoke chicken n' turkey. Right back up in yo mutha****in *kitten*. Second, it drops some lyrics ta me ta eliminizzle “fruit, grains, potatoes, n' rice!”I feel straight-up dope smokin fruit n' whole grains n' have done so mah entire game. What a gangbangin' **** up, n' what tha **** a time-drain n' joy-kill it would be, if I was ta implement dis lyrics ta permanently eliminizzle two entire classez of high-nutrition, high-fiber chickens!Maybe dat result was cuz of tha question dat axed mah crazy *kitten* how tha **** I would feel if I drank a glass of juice. I didn’t know whether he meant tha glass of zucchini-and-apple juice I made up in mah Champion Juicer todizzle. It make me wanna hollar playa! Or a glass of Minute Maid orange juice from tha grocery store. (Which I never do, so I’m not shizzle how tha **** I’d feel.)To clear tha fog settlin over me, I can call n' git a 30-minute beeper call wit some mutha****a whoz *kitten* works at Mercola fo' only $80. They won’t make specific recommendations yo, but will only “review tha Nutritionizzle Typin plan.” (I wonder, if I pay $80, will they explain tha science behind tha two-minute questionnaire dat diagnosed mah “type?” Because it’s nowhere ta be found on tha joint or up in tha ****.)It’s solid thang pimpment dat make meal plannin highly individualistic n' ****ed up��"read: frustrating, expensive, n' pointless.
Da Mountain Of Evidence
Since Da China Study came up in 2005, I have kicked it wit n' dissed Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell mah dirty *kitten*, afta his ****in lecture I attended, n' found his *kitten* ta be all bout science, open minded, n' straight-up truthful bout his wild lil' findings. I have also corresponded wit his *kitten* via email.I was rappin ta his *kitten* on tha beeper at length yesterdizzle (9/7/10) wit mah thangs, n' he promised dat da thug would break off tha reply he is freestylin ta tha Mercola newsletter n' ****. Right back up in yo mutha****in *kitten*. Stay tuned on mah Snoop Bloggy-Blogg fo' dis ****. I'ma also soon do a rap battle fo' mah Snoop Bloggy-Blogg wit Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Campbell bout tha freshly smoked up porno comin up bout his *kitten* n' his bangin research, along wit Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Esselstyn’s, called Forks Over Knives.I still don’t know what tha **** tha “Dark Side” is of Da China Study, dat Mercola’s article title touts, n' you can put dat on yo' toast. It’s wackly charged hyperbole.I be sorry dat Dr. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Mercola had a wack experience up in 1985 smokin fruits n' vegetablez fo' all dem weeks. But I be deeply concerned bout tha undeserved effect of Mercola’s unsubstantiated lyrics on tha hype n' validitizzle of decadez of Campbell’s renowned research.Until suttin' compellin comes along ta convince me otherwise, I stand behind dat massive mountain of evidence, dat plant chickens heal n' protect our *kitten* against disease.3
^this0
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