LESSONS FROM CHINA 75crucial, as we primarily were concerned with comparing each county in
China with every other county.
Ours was the first large study that investigated this particular range
of dietary experience and its health consequences. In effect, we are
comparing, within the Chinese range, diets rich in plant-based foods
to diets very rich in plant-based foods. In almost all other studies, all
of which are Western, scientists are comparing diets rich in animal-
based foods to diets very rich in animal-based foods. The difference
between rural Chinese diets and Western diets, and the ensuing dis-
ease patterns, is enormous. It was this distinction, as much as any
other, that made this study so important.
The media called the China Study a "landmark study." An article in
the Saturday Evening Post said the project "should shake up medical and
nutrition researchers everywhere."8 Some in the medical establishment
said another study like this could never be done. What I knew was that
our study offered an opportunity to investigate many of the most con-
tentious ideas that I was forming about food and health.
Now, I want to show you what we learned from this study and how
twenty more years of research, thought and experience have changed
not only the way I think about the connection between nutrition and
health, but the way my family and I eat as well.DISEASES OF POVERTY AND AFFLUENCE
It doesn't take a scientist to figure out that the possibility of death has
been holding pretty steady at lOO% for quite some time. There's only
one thing that we have to do in life, and that is to die. I have often met
people who use this fact to justify their ambivalence toward health in-
formation. But I take a different view. I have never pursued health hop-
ing for immortality. Good health is about being able to fully enjoy the
time we do have. It is about being as functional as possible throughout
our entire lives and avoiding crippling, painful and lengthy battles with
disease. There are many better ways to die, and to live.
Because the China Cancer Atlas had mortality rates for more than
four dozen different kinds of disease, we had a rare opportunity to study
the many ways that people die. We wondered: do certain diseases tend
to group together in certain areas of the country? For example, did
colon cancer occur in the same regions as diabetes? If this proved to
be the case, we could assume that diabetes and colon cancer (or other
diseases that grouped together) shared common causes. These causes