Scientist Colin Campbell has been researching the effects of food on human health for most of his life. He argues that the more plant foods in the diet of the inhabitants of our planet, the healthier they will be. His research is criticized, but Professor Campbell is confident in the correctness of his theory.
He draws on the assertion of Hippocrates, who said that food should be medicine. And he does not believe that dietary supplements can radically affect the quality of food.
Biography
Colin Campbell was born in 1934 in the countryside of Pennsylvania. His parents were farmers, and the family had a cult of meat and dairy food, which was considered healthy.
When his father died of a heart attack while his father was still young, Colin first thought about the causes of the disease and could not connect it with anything else but nutrition. Because the father was always in the fresh air and engaged in physical labor.
When an aunt died in cancer, who adored cottage cheese and milk, the guy had even more thoughts about the dangers and benefits of nutrition.
Colin wanted to build a career in agriculture: he wanted to become a veterinarian to treat animals. Therefore, he graduated from a veterinary school in Pennsylvania, then another in Georgia. Then he entered Cornell University, where at one time he defended his doctoral dissertation.
After marriage, he again had the opportunity to observe how a lover of meat food suffers from cancer - it was his mother-in-law. At that moment, he finally established that many diseases arise from malnutrition. However, he did not know about any research in this area, and therefore began to collect the necessary information.
Research
Campbell began his career as a scientist in 1965 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then worked at the Polytechnic University of Virginia. The subject of his research was to find the relationship between nutrition and human health.
The most memorable moment in his scientific life was a trip to Asia, where scientists tried to help the starving. And there it turned out that in rich families, children get sick even more often than in poor ones. In particular, many children had liver cancer, and the percentage of poor children among them was very low.
And statistics showed similar figures: in Japan, men suffered from prostate cancer 100 times less than in America, where there was a cult of fast food. Kenyan women who ate plant foods were 18 times less likely to suffer from breast cancer than women of the same America.
Campbell also found one historical fact: when the fascists occupied Norway in the early forties, they took all the livestock from the villagers. The Norwegians had to switch to plant foods. It was in those years in this country that the number of heart attacks fell markedly. And when the Nazis were expelled and switched to the usual food, the level of heart attacks rose.
When talking about Colin Campbell, they certainly mention two experiments: Indian and Chinese. The Indian experiment is often disputed because laboratory experiments were conducted on rats. But the Chinese study is difficult to challenge, because the study involved several hundred people.
In 1983, Campbell decided to analyze the results of this study. The work took seven years, and as a result, the scientist came to the conclusion that meat and dairy foods can contribute to the onset of diseases, including oncology.
Campbell described the results of his research in the books Chinese Research and Healthy Food. He has other works, however, these two are the most popular. Books have been published several times and sold in million copies. They were translated into Russian in 2013.
Briefly formulating the ideas presented in these books, we get the following:
1. In nutrition, the interaction of products with each other must be taken into account.
2. Nutritional supplements can cause unwanted reactions.
3. Plant foods are more healthy than animals.
4. Food quality may affect the awakening of genes that are responsible for illness or health.
5. Nutrition can reduce the effects of adverse environmental factors.
6. Food can both cause the disease and cure it.
7. With the help of nutrition, disease can be prevented.
8. Proper nutrition promotes recovery.
Campbell's research is often criticized. Opponents accuse him of unscientific experiments, and also say that in addition to food in human life, there are many factors that can affect human health. There is ecology, stress, and a sedentary lifestyle.
Despite criticism, Campbell continues his work and believes that his theory will sooner or later become familiar to people and will bring them many benefits.
In addition, supporters of Campbell's theory do not exclude that critics advocate interesting cattle-breeding and pharmaceutical companies who want to first feed people with junk food, and then get them to buy drugs.
