Whole (46 page)

Second is the reductionism paradigm that leads us to focus on parts of things separate from, and to the exclusion of, the whole. The body is a wholistic, interconnected system, but we are accustomed to thinking of it instead as a collection of individual parts and systems, in which solitary chemicals do solitary, unrelated things. Through the lens of reductionism, we see nutrition as a matter of individual nutrients rather than a comprehensive diet, and as an isolated field of study rather than the most influential determinant of our health as a whole. And although thinking this way about our bodies and our health has not yielded effective answers, we persist in believing that, if we stay on the same path, we will eventually find those answers—instead of admitting that there is something wrong with our approach. Trapped within this paradigm, it is difficult to grasp the idea of something that reductionism cannot measure in its entirety.

Third is the profit-oriented system that discourages us from behaving in non-reductionist ways. There’s much greater profit in reductionism, with its quick and easy fixes, each targeted to one of thousands of different potential problems, than in wholism. And so long as industry is
a driving force in determining what research questions get asked, what studies get funded, and what results are published and publicized and turned into official policy, breaking out of the reductionist paradigm will be an uphill battle.

Biology is incomprehensibly complex. The way our bodies create and maintain health is the result of millions of years of evolution—not just of individual cells, not just of organs, not just of functional systems, or even of the entire body, but of the body as a part of the food web and all of nature. Yet, either due to ignorance or motivated by avarice, some of us mere mortals want to tinker with the separate elements, taking the whole apart and using the pieces to create our own false reality. Disease, disability, and untimely death are the inevitable results.

So how do we put a stop to this?

I have tried for years to enact change from the top down, and it simply doesn’t work. Even when individual leaders believe in what my colleagues and I have found, their hands are often tied by responsibilities to those who help put them in office (including the corporations who fund their election campaigns). And even if that does not derail their good intentions, they are still at the mercy of the political system. There are many ways to steer good but inconvenient ideas through a bureaucratic maze that results in watered-down, virtually worthless programs and guidelines bearing little resemblance to the original ideas.

But government decision makers are also beholden to their elector-ates—and that gives us, as individuals, power. This idea, like a seed, will sprout only from the bottom up; only after it grows roots can it produce fruit.

I’ve given much thought to the next steps that individuals who are sufficiently convinced by what I’ve shared, both here and in
The China Study,
and who want to help create change, might take. The most important step is to change the way you eat. The diet is simple: eat whole, plant-based foods, with little or no added oil, salt, or refined carbohydrates like sugar or white flour. (Though it may take some research, there are cookbooks out there that will fit your needs—more of them now than ever before.) There is nothing more convincing than experiencing the change for oneself. That crucial shift in the way we think about our health will happen, one person at a time. Eventually, policy will begin
to change. Industry, deprived of the income produced by ill health and our ignorance, will follow.

It’s time for us to begin a real revolution—one that begins by challenging our individual beliefs and changing our diets, and ends with the transformation of our society as a whole.

T
here are so many people whose support has been incredibly meaningful to me in the writing of this book.

First and foremost, I could not have done this without the support of my wife, Karen. She read drafts, tolerated my being on the computer when we could have been enjoying things she might have preferred, and was a very serious listener and critic of my ideas. After fifty years of marriage, she knows my work well, and after hearing at least 400 of my lectures during the past decade, she has also gotten to know what the average reader and listener might like to hear. She keeps my feet on the ground.

Howard Jacobson (PhD in the health sciences) added literacy to my manuscript as my “with” author. Howard is a brilliant writer. (I especially liked his metaphors.) He, together with Leah Wilson, our editor at my publisher, BenBella, made this book more readable, rearranging some of my chapters and connecting them into a sensible story. I can hardly be more complimentary about their professionalism and their dedication to this project. I am privileged to have acquired the best editorial team possible, and their deep investment in the book’s message is especially gratifying. I want to acknowledge as well the considerable interest in my work shown by Glenn Yeffeth, publisher of this book and its forerunner,
The China Study.

There are many others who contributed to my career in experimental research and policy-making: undergraduate honors students, graduate students, technicians, visiting scholars, and support staff in the laboratory and in the office. In addition, I greatly benefited from hundreds of colleagues who coauthored research papers, served on expert committees
with me in the development of food and health policy, and critiqued our research findings for publication. Also among those who deserve my sincere thanks are the staff members of my foundation, headed by Micaela Cook and her predecessor, the late Meghan Murphy. I am most appreciative of their generous, sincere support. I could not have written this book without their contributions. Thanks are due also to my eldest son, Nelson, a true scholar of things social, entrepreneurial, and linguistic, for his careful reading of the final manuscript and putting me right on issues that could have gotten me in trouble.

Most importantly, I am grateful to the American taxpayer, who provided generous amounts of funding for my research (obtained competitively and mostly from the U.S. National Cancer Institute of NIH), thus providing for me an unusual opportunity to conduct experimental research free of any direct industry bias.

Finally, I am very grateful also to Cornell University, which recruited me to a full, tenured professorship at age forty. Director of the Division of Nutritional Sciences Mal Nesheim, Dean of the School of Nutrition Dick Barnes, Dean of Agriculture Keith Kennedy, and President Dale Corson each interviewed me and together granted me a position that provided an almost unparalleled opportunity to reach for the skies. Mere words cannot adequately express my gratitude for their expressions of support; the exemplary personal philosophies of these gentlemen gives meaning to the idea of academic freedom, a concept that needs all the support it can get in these challenging times.

F
or over fifty years,
T. Colin Campbell, PhD
, has been at the forefront of nutrition research, authoring more than 300 professional research papers. His legacy,
The China Study,
coauthored with his son, Thomas Campbell, II, MD, has been a continuous international bestseller since its publication in 2005. He holds the position of Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, has coauthored several expert food- and health-policy reports, and has lectured extensively worldwide on resolving the health-care crisis through the little-known but remarkable effects of nutrition. He has founded a unique and highly successful set of online courses on plant-based nutrition as a partnership between the T. Colin Campbell Foundation (tcolincampbell.org) and Cornell University’s online subsidiary, eCornell. Dr. T. Colin Campbell will be blogging at
www.wholevana.com
and participating with his sons in an effort to launch a grassroots health revolution. Together, they are launching a program intended to bring the empowering message of plant-based nutrition to individuals, worksites, and communities everywhere.

Howard Jacobson, PhD
, is an online marketing consultant, health educator, and ecological gardener from Durham, North Carolina. He earned a Masters of Public Health and a Doctor of Health Studies from Temple University, and a BA in History from Princeton. Howard runs an online marketing agency, and is the author of
Google AdWords For Dummies.
He speaks, coaches, and consults on individual health and planetary sustainability, and can be reached at
[email protected]
.

1.
Nanci Hellmich, “U.S. Obesity Rate Leveling Off, at about One-Third of Adults,”
USA Today
, January 13, 2010,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2010-01-13-obesity-rates_N.htm
.

2.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Crude and Age-Adjusted Percentage of Civilian, Noninstitutionalized Population with Diagnosed Diabetes, United States, 1980-2010,” last modified April 26, 2012,
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/prev/national/figage.htm
.

3.
United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Cardiovascular Disease Prevalence and Mortality,” last modified June 2011,
http://cfpub.epa.gov/eroe/index.cfm?fuseaction=detail.viewPDF&ch=49&lShowInd=0&subtop=381&lv=list.listByChapter&r=235292
.

4.
International Diabetes Federation, “Morbidity and Mortality,” August 3, 2009,
http://www.idf.org/diabetesatlas/diabetes-mortality
.

5.
B. Starfield, “Is US Health Really the Best in the World?,”
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284, no. 4 (2000): 483-85.

6.
Ibid.

7.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “10 Leading Causes of Death by Age Group, United States—2010,” accessed December 2, 2012,
http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10LCID_All_Deaths_By_Age_Group_2010-a.pdf
.

1.
R. A. Vogel, M. C. Corretti, and G. D. Plotnick, “Effect of a Single High-Fat Meal on Endothelial Function in Healthy Subjects,”
American Journal of Cardiology
79, no. 3 (February 1, 1997): 350-54.

2.
Miranda Hitti, “FDA Approves New Angina Drug: Ranexa Is for Patients Who Haven’t Responded to Other Chest Pain Drugs,” WebMD, February 7, 2006,
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20060207/fda-approves-new-angina-drug
.

3.
Kristin Johannsen, Ginseng Dreams: The
Secret World of America’s Most Valuable Plant
(Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2006); Kim Young-Sik, “The Ginseng ‘Trade War,’” accessed February 12, 2013,
http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/1438.html
.

4.
L. M. Morrison, “Arteriosclerosis: Recent Advances in the Dietary and Medicinal Treatment,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
145, no. 16 (1951): 12321236; L. M. Morrison, “Diet in Coronary Atherosclerosis,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
173, no. 8 (1960): 884-888.

5.
N. Pritikin and P. M. McGrady,
The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise
(New York: Bantam Books, 1984): 438.

6.
Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr.,
Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure
(New York: Avery Trade, 2008); C. B. Esselstyn Jr., S. G. Ellis, S. V. Medendorp, and T. D. Crowe, “A Strategy to Arrest and Reverse Coronary Artery Disease: A 5-Year Longitudinal Study of a Single Physician’s Practice,”
Journal of Family Practice
41, no. 6 (1995): 560-68.

7.
Dean Ornish,
Eat More, Weigh Less
(New York: HarperCollins, 1993); D. Ornish, S. E. Brown, L. W. Scherwitz, J. H. Billings, W. T. Armstrong, T. A. Ports, S. M. McLanahan, R. L. Kirkeeide, R. J. Brand, and K. L. Gould, “Can Lifestyle Changes Reverse Coronary Heart Disease?”,
Lancet
336, no. 8708 (1990): 129-33.