The China Study by Thomas Campbell

LESSONS FROM CHINA 85

implied that diet and lifestyle were the principle causes of these dis-
eases. It also suggested that genes are not necessarily that important.
As noted earlier, a very prominent report by Sir Richard Doll and Sir
Richard Peto of the University of Oxford (U.K.) submitted to the u.s.
Congress summarized many of these studies and concluded that only
2-3% of all cancers could be attributed to genes.^4
Do the data from these international and migrant studies mean
that we can lower our rate of breast cancer to almost zero if we make
perfect lifestyle choices? The information certainly suggests that this
could be the case. Concerning the evidence in Chart 4.7, the solution
seems obvious: if we eat less fat, then we'll lower our breast cancer risk.
Most scientists made this conclusion and some surmised that dietary
fat caused breast cancer. But that interpretation was too simple. Other
charts prepared by Professor Carroll were largely, almost totally, ignored
(Charts 4.8 and 4.9). They show that breast cancer was associated with
animal fat intake but not with plant fat.
In rural China, dietary fat intake (at the time of the survey in 1983)
was very different from the United States in two ways. First, fat was only
14.5% of calorie intake in China, compared with about 36% in the U.s.
Second, the amount of fat in the diets of rural China depended almost
entirely on the amount of animal-based food in the diet, just like the

25

o

CHART 4.8: ANIMAL FAT INTAKE AND BREAST CANCER

FEMALE

'ITALY

'PORTUGAL

HONG KONG

,NETHERLANDS

,UK ,DENMARK

SWITZERLAND, CANADA' 'NEW ZEALAND

BELGIUM" US ,IRELAND

GERMANY. ,SWEDEN 'AUSTRALIA

, ' ,NORWAY

AUSTRIA 'FRANCE

, CZECH ,

HUNGARY

,FINLAND

BULGARIA C~ILE ' POLAND

VENEZUELA\"'ROMANIA

PANAM!GREECE~p!NYUGOSLAVIA

PHILIPPINES. COLOMBIA , PUERTO RICO

JAPAN',' MEXICO

EYlON 'TAIWAN

• THAILAND
  , 'El SALVADOR
  o 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
  Animal Fat Intake (g/day)

180