A growing body of research for over a hundred years has repeatedly concluded that an animal-based diet is the leading cause of chronic, also known as degenerative, diseases. Did you know that a hundred years ago heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, Lupus, Crohn's, multiple sclerosis, and hundreds of other auto-immune diseases were so rare, most people had never even heard of them?
People who had these diseases were the wealthy.. They were known as "Diseases of Affluence", and they were very common among the nobility. Only the upper class was able to afford meat and dairy on a daily basis. It's not surprising, then, that as the cost of meat and dairy products has declined steadily over the last 100 years and Americans changed to a heavily meat-based diet, that these diseases of affluence, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity, have re-emerged, and have become epidemic.
In the 1980s, an international team of nutrition researchers led by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, the head of Cornell University's school of nutrition, conducted a massive health and nutrition study in 65 counties, in over 170 regions all over China. The Study was massive and took years of fieldwork, followed by years of tabulating the results.
It has long been heralded as the most comprehensive and significant nutritional research study ever conducted, and in 2006, Dr. Campbell and his son, Thomas Campbell, published The China Study, the complete project report in book form.
The hypothesis when the study began was that most chronic diseases were caused because people didn't eat enough animal protein. When the work was finalized, and the findings were published, the research team was shocked. The evidence was overwhelming, but it revealed exactly the opposite of what they had predicted.
And in every one of the 170 areas studied, the results were identical. The people groups that were vegetarians, that ate a plant-based diet had no diseases of any kind at all. The residents lived happy, healthy, disease-free lives up into their 90s and 100s. But, for the people in the areas that ate an animal-based diet, it was a totally different outcome. They had prolific diseases, both in variety and frequency, of every type of disease. The team couldn't have imagined more black and white, conclusive, convincing results.
The evidence was overwhelming. It definitively confirmed, once and for all, what all the earlier studies stated, that Eating primarily a vegetarian diet, of fruits, vegetables, and grains builds a healthy body, strong immune system, and protects against all types of degenerative diseases.
And, the opposite as well: frequently eating meat, eggs, and dairy products, an animal-based diet, undermines people's health, destroys their immunity to disease, and leads to severe and continuing chronic diseases and a much shorter life of ill health, pain, and suffering.
At the same time The China Study was being conducted, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, of the Cleveland Heart Clinic, began his own research. He could see among his patients that an animal-based diet was the cause of heart disease, and he began treating his patients with a plant-based diet. Half of those who took part in his research began eating a 100% plant-based diet, and he discovered that no matter how severe their level of heart disease was, those patients who continued on a plant-based eating program were able to reverse their heart disease 100%. Their blood tests for saturated fats, cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood pressure numbers all dropped dramatically the longer they were on the plant-based diet. Their heart disease was completely reversed over 6 months to a year.
Dr. Campbell and Dr. Esselstyn discovered they were conducting parallel research and were both coming up with the same overwhelming results. The stated working together, and have collaborated ever since. They recently cooperated on a video with another plant-based diet pioneer, Dr. John McDougall, which has recently been released. It's a powerful DVD detailing their separate research, all coming to the same exact results. In the video a host of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes patients are interviewed and followed for a period of months.
All of the patients had very advanced, extreme disease conditions and over time they had complete reversals and healing of their diseases as they continued on a plant-based diet. The video is called Forks Over Knives, and is widely available.
I encourage you to begin your own research. Begin reading and researching. For the sake of you and your loved ones, you owe it to them to be a leader in this area, and set an example of how healthy you can be by gradually changing your eating habits. There are many ways to begin, and many written and video resources to help you get started. If you are like me, you have already lost too many loved ones to these diseases. And while you're at it, why not celebrate? We now not only have convincing evidence of the exact cause of these diseases, but we can now prevent and reverse them by simply changing our eating habits.
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