The link between animal protein and cancer became global news with the publication of an international lab study a decade ago. The facts were a diet rich in animal and dairy products was shown to stimulate cancer cell growth. But the conventional medical institutions apparently overlooked the obvious. Counteracting the disease by promoting an animal-protein-free diet could be a revolutionary step in cancer recovery. One visionary Dublin doctor chose to investigate the realities of the alternative approach to cancer treatment in a trial conducted with his own patients. What he learned may change our view of cancer forever.
I found out about this book after Chris Wark interviewed the author (can hear it here .)
You have to read The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell to get the most from this book. This doctor had his cancer patients follow the dietary recommendations in The China Study, which are mostly whole foods plant-based. The author set up his own case studies to see if the China Study diet worked on his patients. Most of them were cured just by giving up animal protein (these patients were following conventional cancer treatments as well).
The author included his own case studies, showing how well the animal protein-free diet worked on his patients. The book is from 2014... I'd love to see an update and see how those same patients are doing today. The case studies were fairly short term, mainly people whose cancer had metastasized already, but the diet reversed things as long as they stayed on the diet. Some of the patients couldn't handle the diet long-term and gave up, and their cancer returned.
The only patients that seemed not to respond were the pancreatic cancer patients, and the author had an interesting theory for why that was so. He deduced from research that the reason for this was found in the structure and function of the pancreas itself. If animal protein could turn on cancer growth like a light switch (as the China Study proved), the cells (including the cancerous cells) in the pancreas have the ability to produce their own "animal" protein, already fully metabolized. The pancreas is supposed to produce the enzymes that metabolize the foods we eat. The trypsin enzyme is the one involved in metabolizing proteins and is stored in the pancreas in an inactive form (as trypsinogen) until it is needed. It becomes active when animal protein reaches the small intestine. If there are malignant changes within the pancreas, it's possible the trypsin produced in these cells could trigger auto-digestion of the protein structure within the cell, thereby providing an endless source of "animal" protein that would nourish rapidly metastasizing cancer cells. He believes cancer of the stomach behaves similarly, except there the problem is with pepsin. Sadly, this may be why these particular cancers are next to impossible to treat.
I stopped feeding my cancer and I changed how I look and what I think about our responsibility to care for our planet and her inhabitants. Thanks to the podcast Chris Beat Cancer for introducing me to Dr Kelly who then introduced me to the Campbell's.
Fascinating summary of Dr. Kelly's observations with his own patients with cancer as he set out to test T. Colin Campbell's extensive research on the effects of consumption of animal protein on the growth of cancer. This renewed my confidence in the path my husband and I have taken since both receiving cancer diagnoses within the past few years. We started out on the Hallelujah Diet, detailed in Unravel the Mystery by Ann Malkmus, and as for my own Stage 4 non-Hodgkins lymphoma, the nodule on my neck that precipitated my diagnosis went away completely within one year after starting the diet, without receiving any interventions. My husband with aggressive prostate cancer continues to do well also, exceeding the expectations of his oncologist. We haven't followed the vegan diet perfectly, but Dr. Kelly's book has renewed our passion to stick with it and be consistent.
The observations of this doctor over the past 10 years supports what T. Colin Campbell has been saying for a long time. With the exception of cancer of the pancreas (for interesting reasons explained in the book), cancer growth was halted when the patient stopped eating animal proteins!!!
Sách truyền tải thông điệp rõ ràng từ một người có chuyên môn và đạo đức, cùng với việc thực nghiệm đáng tin cậy về những bệnh nhân thực tế đã áp dụng phương pháp ăn uống không protein động vật và hành trình chống ung thư của họ.
Kèm đó là những mẫu chuyện nhỏ đáng suy nghĩ về đạo đức ngành y, các doanh nghiệp lớn ảnh hưởng như thế nào, những sự tình cờ ngẫu nhiên trong cuộc sống.
Cuối sách là câu chuyện về ung thư tuyến tụy. Một ngoại lệ của chế độ ăn uống chay chữa ung thư. Tuy nhiên tác giả cũng đưa ra những đề xuất giá trị mà hy vọng sẽ được nghiên cứu thêm và áp dụng trong tương lai.
Cuốn sách và tác giả như một người truyền lửa cho thông điệp ăn uống và ung thư. Hy vọng thông điệp sẽ được nhiều người biết đến và áp dụng hơn.
While I appreciate the enthusiasm the author has for The China Study, I felt like my time would have been better vested in reading that book versus this book. The author shared a few examples of what he has observed in his clinic, but there are countless other books that state similar things about what practitioners have observed with what to feed and not feed cancer.
Dr John Kelly's focus is on the link between health and nutrition as a means of improving cancer treatment, particularly through adopting a plant-based diet. His interest in plant-based diets is influenced strongly by Dr Colin Campbell's work in The China Study, which showed a correlation between increasing animal protein consumption and rates of all types of cancer. Dr Kelly believes there should be broader investigation and adoption of plant-based diets in clinical research and oncology treatment, but vested interests among the medical profession and pharmaceutical companies create obstacles to acceptance.
Interesting theory, something that needs more research, but obscured by life stories.
I'm beginning to think that there is an ideal diet for different people and that everyone is subtly different. A high carbohydrate diet leaves me feeling off, while for another person they would thrive. Low protein makes me eat more. I think we need to stop messing around with people and start actually making diets that are healthful and joyful.
Something to consider if you have or have had cancer, it might work for you, this is just the China Study simplified. Food for thought, pun completely intended.
My wife and I started this way of life one month ago after a health scare and being told to watch Forks over Knives. My wife has lost 12 pounds without trying. Myself also. It is a shock this information is being kept from us. This book tells the story of a Doctor who is brave enough to put his patients first. He has saved and changed lives. This book you can't put it down. Read this please.
Broadly supportive, but somewhat sceptical. As a number of reviews have pointed out, it is not based on a fully scientific study, mainly selected anecdotes. For myself, I've given up beef, and gone very light on Pork and lamb. I'm eating fish and white meat, and avoiding processed foods as far as possible. I'm juicing fruit an vegetables a lot using a Nutri-bullet..........
Long winded at times and does rant. I don’t need convincing that the for-profit medical establishment is bad news. Regardless, the message and his experiments are groundbreaking and deserve further study.
It's ok. I read The China Study before reading this so I was already aware of the message in this book. It just didn't seem to have enough depth though. Maybe if I'd read this before The China Study I'd have been happier with it.
I totally agree with John Kelly's message and applaud him for trying to spread the word about the health benefits of veganism, but I feel he is a less than ideal messenger.