The China Study by Thomas Campbell

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WID E -RAN GIN G EF FE CT S: BON E,K ION E Y I EYE I BRA I N 0 I SE A S E S 207

CHART 10.2: ASSOCIATION OF ANIMAL VERSUS PLANT PROTEIN

INTAKE AND BONE FRACTURE RATES FOR DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

200

175

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Vegetable-to-Animal Protein Intake Ratio (gig)
interpretation of data, they included a large number of individual research
reports, and the statistical significance of the association of animal protein
with bone fracture rates is truly exceptional. They cannot be dismissed as
just another couple of studies; the most recent study represents a sum-
mary of eighty-seven separate surveys!
The Study of Osteoporotic Fractures Research Group at the Univer-
sity of California at San Francisco published yet another study 13 of over
1,000 women aged Sixty-five and up. Like the multi-country study, re-
searchers characterized women's diets by the proportions of animal and
plant protein. After seven years of observations, the women with the
highest ratio of animal protein to plant protein had 3.7 times more bone
fractures than the women with the lowest ratio. Also during this time
the women with the high ratio lost bone almost four times as fast as the
women with the lowest ratio.
Experimentally, this study is high quality because it compared pro-
tein consumption, bone loss and broken bones for the same subjects.
This 3.7 -fold effect is substantial, and is very important because the