The China Study by Thomas Campbell

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TURNING OFF CANCER

CHART 3.7: AFLATOXIN DOSE-FOCI RESPONSE

200 235 275 300 350

Aflatoxin Dose (mcglkg body weight/day)

_ 20% Protein

_ 5% Protein

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relationship was strong and clear. However, in the animals fed 5% protein,

the dose-response curve completely disappeared. There was no foci response,

even when animals were given the maximum tolerated aflatoxin dose. This

was yet another result demonstrating that a low-protein diet could over-

ride the cancer-causing effect of a very powerful carcinogen, aflatoxin.

Is it possible that chemical carcinogens, in general, do not cause

cancer unless the nutritional conditions are "right"? Is it possible that,

for much of our lives, we are being exposed to small amounts of cancer-

causing chemicals, but cancer does not occur unless we consume foods

that promote and nurture tumor development? Can we control cancer

through nutrition?

NOT ALL PROTEINS ARE ALIKE

If you have followed the story so far, you have seen how provocative
these findings are. Controlling cancer through nutrition was, and still
is, a radical idea. But as if this weren't enough, one more issue would
yield explOSive information: did it make any difference what type of
protein was used in these experiments? For all of these experiments,
we were using casein, which makes up 87% of cow's milk protein. So
the next logical question was whether plant protein, tested in the same
way, has the same effect on cancer promotion as casein. The answer is
an astonishing "NO." In these experiments, plant protein did not promote
cancer growth, even at the higher levels of intake. An undergraduate pre-
medical student doing an honors degree with me, David Schulsinger,
did the study (Chart 3.8^42 ). Gluten, the protein of wheat, did not produce
the same result as casein, even when fed at the same 20% level.