Switch from Plant-Based to Animal-Based Diet Is Detrimental to Asians

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Switch from Plant-Based to Animal-Based Diet Is Detrimental to Asians

NewsRx.com

August 03, 2001

The long-term health benefits to Chinese and other Asian people who have

traditionally existed on a primarily

plant-based diet might be lost as more people in Asia switch to a Western-style

diet that is rich in animal-based foods.

That conclusion is being drawn by some scientists after reviewing results from

the latest survey of diets, lifestyles,

and disease mortality among Chinese populations - this one comparing current

dietary habits in Taiwan and mainland

China - and measuring them against a time when fewer meat and dairy products

were available in rural China.

Preliminary results of " China Study II, " the follow-up to the

China-Oxford-Cornell Study on Dietary, Lifestyle and

Disease Mortality Characteristics in 65 Rural Chinese Counties, or " China Study

I, " were discussed at the Congress of

Epidemiology 2001 in Toronto, Canada, by T. Colin of Cornell

University, Sir Peto of the University of

Oxford, Dr. Junshi Chen of the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, and Dr.

Wen-Harn Pan of Academia Sinica in

Taiwan. The Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry,

also discussed China Study II

at a press briefing on the Cornell campus.

" With the new data from mainland China, along with the fascinating new data from

Taiwan now in hand, we will have the

opportunity to explore dietary and disease mortality trends, " says. " We

will see how fast dietary changes in

rural China - preceded by earlier changes in Taiwan - result in the development

of Western diseases. "

Some analyses of data from China Study I, which was conducted among thousands of

rural families in mainland China,

linked that population's low incidence of such Western health problems as

cardiovascular disease, some cancers, obesity,

and diabetes to plant-based diets that were low in animal products. China Study

I is now regarded as the most

comprehensive study of diet, lifestyle, and disease ever completed. Data from

the study were first published in an

896-page monograph in 1990 and resulted in more than 50 scientific publications.

Planned since 1987, China Study II was designed to re-survey the same mainland

Chinese population as China Study I, in

addition to a few new sites in mainland China and a new population of 16

counties in Taiwan. China Study II was directed

by the three collaborators in the first study and by Dr. Win-harn Pan. When it

started in 1987-88, it was the first

collaborative research study between mainland China and Taiwan.

Data from China Study II are now freely available at an Oxford University

website:

www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/projects/cecology1989/.

Both surveys afford an opportunity to investigate the effect of dietary change

from the typical plant-based diet of

rural China to a Western-style diet that includes more animal-based foods, as

consumed in urban China and in Taiwan.

" Even small increases in the consumption of animal-based foods was associated

with increased disease risk, "

told a symposium at the epidemiology congress, pointing to several statistically

significant correlations from the China

studies: * Plasma cholesterol in the 90-170 milligrams per deciliter range is

positively associated with most cancer

mortality rates. Plasma cholesterol is positively associated with animal protein

intake and inversely associated with

plant protein intake. * Breast cancer is associated with dietary fat (which is

associated with animal protein intake)

and inversely with age at menarche (women who reach puberty at younger ages have

a greater risk of breast cancer). * For

those at risk for liver cancer (for example, because of chronic infection with

hepatitis B virus) increasing intakes of

animal-based foods and/or increasing concentrations of plasma cholesterol are

associated with a higher disease risk. *

Cardiovascular diseases are associated with lower intakes of green vegetables

and higher concentrations of apo-B (a form

of low-density lipoprotein blood cholesterol), which is associated with

increasing intakes of animal protein and

decreasing intakes of plant protein. * Colorectal cancers are consistently

inversely associated with intakes of 14

different dietary fiber fractions (although only one is statistically

significant). Stomach cancer is inversely

associated with green vegetable intake and plasma concentrations of

beta-carotene and vitamin C obtained only from

plant-based foods. * Western-type diseases, in the aggregate, are highly

significantly correlated with increasing

concentrations of plasma cholesterol, which are associated in turn with

increasing intakes of animal-based foods.

Analyses of data from the China studies by his collaborators and others,

told the epidemiology symposium, is

leading to policy recommendations. He mentioned three: * The greater the variety

of plant-based foods in the diet, the

greater the benefit. Variety insures broader coverage of known and unknown

nutrient needs. * Provided there is plant

food variety, quality, and quantity, a healthful and nutritionally complete diet

can be attained without animal-based

food. * The closer the food is to its native state - with minimal heating,

salting, and processing - the greater will be

the benefit.

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Good Health & Long Life,

Greg ,

http://www.ozemail.com.au/~gowatson

gowatson@...