The China Study (28 page)

COMMON CANCERS: BREAST, PROSTATE, LARGE BOWEL                 181
• "Supercharged" D is responsible for creating a wide variety of
health benefits in the body. Persistently low levels of supercharged
D create an inviting environment for different cancers, autoim-
m u n e diseases, osteoporosis and other diseases.
The important story here is how the effects of food-both good and
bad-operate through a symphony of coordinated reactions to prevent
diseases like prostate cancer. In discovering the existence of these net-
works, we sometimes wonder which specific function comes first and
which comes next. We tend to think of these reactions within the net-
w o r k as independent. But this surely misses the point. What impresses
me is the multitude of reactions working together in so many ways to
produce the same effect: in this case, to prevent disease.
There is no Single "mechanism" that fully explains what causes dis-
eases such as cancer. Indeed, it would be foolish to even think along
these lines. But what I do know is this: the totality and breadth of the
evidence, operating through highly coordinated networks, supports the
conclusions that consuming dairy and meat are serious risk factors for
prostate cancer.
BRINGING IT TOGETHER
Roughly half a million Americans this year will go to the doctor's office
and be told that they have cancer of the breast, prostate or large bowel.
People who get one of these cancers represent 40% of all new cancer
patients. These three cancers devastate the lives of not only the victims
themselves, but also their family and friends.
When my mother-in-law died of colon cancer at the age of fifty-one,
none of us knew that much about nutrition or what it meant for health.
It wasn't that we didn't care about the health of our loved ones-of
course we did. We just didn't have the information. Yet, over thirty years
later, not much has changed. Of the people you know who have cancer,
or are at risk of haVing cancer, how many of them have considered the
possibility of adopting a whole foods, plant-based diet to improve their
chances? I'm guessing very few of them have done so. Probably they,
too, don't have the information.
Our institutions and infonnation providers are failing us. Even cancer
organizations, at both the national and local level, are reluctant to discuss
or even believe this evidence. Food as a key to health represents a power-
ful challenge to conventional medicine, which is fundamentally built on

THE CHINA STUDY
182
drugs and surgery (see Part IV). The widespread communities of nutri-
tion professionals, researchers and doctors are, as a whole, either unaware
of this evidence or reluctant to share it. Because of these failings, Ameri-
cans are being cheated out of information that could save their lives.
There is enough evidence now that doctors should be discussing
the option of pursuing dietary change as a potential path to cancer
prevention and treatment. There is enough evidence now that the U.S.
government should be discussing the idea that the toxicity of our diet
is the single biggest cause of cancer. There is enough evidence now
that local breast cancer alliances, and prostate and colon cancer institu-
tions, should be discussing the possibility of providing information to
Americans everywhere on how a whole foods, plant-based diet may be
an incredibly effective anti-cancer medicine.
If these discussions were to happen, it is possible that, next year,
fewer than 500,000 people would go to the doctor's office and be told
they have cancer of the breast, prostate or large bowel. The year after
that, even fewer friends, coworkers and family members would be given
the most dreaded of all diagnoses. And the following year, even fewer.
The possibility that this future could be our reality is real, and as long
as this future holds such promise for the health of people everywhere, it
is a future worth working for.

·............................................................. ._9.............._._............._ _____........
...........                     ............................. ._........
Autoimmune Diseases
No GROUP OF DISEASES is more insidious than autoimmune diseases. They
are difficult to treat, and progressive loss of physical and mental func-
tion is a common outcome. Unlike heart disease, cancer, obesity and
Type 2 diabetes, with autoimmune diseases the body systematically at·
tacks itself. The afflicted patient is almost guaranteed to lose.
A quarter million people in the u.s. are diagnosed with one of the
forty separate autoimmune diseases each year. I. 2 Women are 2.7 times
more likely to be afflicted than are men. About 3% of Americans (one in
every thirty-one people) have an autoimmune disease, a staggering total
of 8.5 million people; some people put the total at as many as 12-13
million people.3
The more common of these diseases are listed in Chart 9.1. 2 The first
nine comprise 97% of all autoimmune disease cases. 2 The most studied
are multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Type 1 diabetes
and rheumatic heart disease. 2 These are also the primary autoimmune
diseases that have been studied in reference to diet.
Others not listed in Chart 9.1 include inflammatory bowel disease,4
Crohn's disease,4 rheumatic heart disease3 and (possibly) Parkinson's
disease. s
Each disease name may sound very different, but as one recent re-
view points out,2 " .. . it is important to consider ... these disorders as
a group." They show similar clinical backgrounds,3.6. 7 they sometimes
occur in the same person and they are often found in the same popula-
tions .2 MS and Type 1 diabetes, for example, have "near(ly) identical
183

THE CHINA STUDY
184
CHART 9.1: COMMON AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES
(FROM 'MOST COMMON TO LEAST COMMON)
l. Graves' disease (Hyperthyroidism)   10.   Sjogren's disease
Rheumatoid arthritis
2.                                     1l.   Myasthenia gravis
Thyroiditis (Hypothyroidism)
3.                                     12.   Polymyositis/dermatomyositis
Vitiligo                                  Addison's disease
4.                                     13.
5. Pernicious anemia                   14.   Scleroderma
Glomerulonephritis
6.                                     15.   Primary biliary cirrhosis
Multiple sclerosis
7.                                     16.   Uveitis
8. Type 1 diabetes                     17.   Chronic active hepatitis
9. Systemic lupus erythematosus
ethnic and geographic distribution."8 Autoimmune diseases in general
become more common the greater the distance from the equator. This
phenomenon has been known since 1922.9 MS, for example, is over a
hundred times more prevalent in the far north than at the equator. 10
Because of some of these common features, it is not too far-fetched
to think of the autoimmune diseases as one grand disease living in dif-
ferent places in the body and taking on different names. We refer in this
way to cancer, which is specifically named depending on what part of
the body it resides in.
All autoimmune diseases are the result of one group of mechanisms
gone awry, much like cancer. In this case, the mechanism is the immune
system mistakenly attacking cells in its own body. Whether it is the pan-
creas as in Type 1 diabetes, the myelin sheath as in MS or joint tissues
as in arthritis, all autoimmune diseases involve an immune system that
has revolted. It is an internal mutiny of the worst kind, one in which our
body becomes its own worst enemy.
IMMUNITY FROM INVADERS
The immune system is astonishingly complex. I often hear people
speaking about this system as if it were an identifiable organ like a lung.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a system, not an organ.
In essence, our immune system is like a military network designed to de-
fend against foreign invaders. The "soldiers" of this network are the white
blood cells, which are comprised of many different sub-groups, each having
its own mission. These sub-groups are analogous to a navy, army, air force
and marines, with each group of specialists doing highly specialized work.

AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES                          185
The "recruitment center" for the system is in the marrow of our
bones. The marrow is responsible for generating specialized cells
called stem cells. Some of these cells are released into circulation for
use elsewhere in the body; these are called B-cells (for bone). Other
cells formed in the bone marrow remain immature, or unspecialized,
until they travel to the thymus (an organ in the chest cavity just above
the heart) where they become specialized; these are called T-cells (for
thymus). These "soldier" cells, along with other specialized cells, team
up to create intricate defense plans. They meet at major intersections
around the body, including the spleen (just inside the left lower rib
cage) and the lymph nodes. These meeting points are like command
and control centers, where the "soldier cells" rearrange themselves into
teams to attack foreign invaders.
These cells are remarkably adaptable when they form their teams.
They are able to respond to different circumstances and different for-
eign substances, even those they have never before seen. The immune
response to these strangers is an incredibly creative process. It is one of
the true wonders of nature.
The foreign invaders are protein molecules called antigens. These
foreign cells can be a bacterium or a virus looking to corrupt the body's
integrity So when our immune system notices these foreign cells, or
antigens, it destroys them. Each of these foreign antigens has a sepa-
rate identity, which is determined by the sequence of amino acids that
comprises its proteins. It is analogous to each and every person having
a different face. Because numerous amino acids are available for creating
proteins, there are infinite varieties of distinctive "faces. "
To counter these antigens, our immune system must customize its
defense to each attack. It does this by creating a "mirror image" pro-
tein for each attacker. The mirror image is able to fit perfectly onto the
antigen and destroy it. Essentially, the immune system creates a mold
for each face it encounters. Every time it sees that face after the initial
encounter, it uses the custom-made mold to "capture" the invader and
destroy it. The mold may be a B-cell antibody or a T-cell-based receptor
protein.
Remembering each defense against each invader is what immuniza-
t i o n is all about. An initial exposure to chicken pox, for example, is a
difficult battle, but the second time you encounter that virus you will
know exactly how to deal with it, and the war will be shorter, less pain-
ful and much more successful. You may not even get sick.

186                          THE CHINA STUDY
IMMUNITY FROM OURSELVES
Even though this system is a wonder of nature when it is defending the
body against foreign proteins, it is also capable of attacking the same
tissues that it is designed to protect. This self-destructive process is
common to all autoimmune diseases. It is as if the body were to commit
suicide.
One of the fundamental mechanisms for this self-destructive behav-
i o r is called molecular mimicry. It so happens that some of the foreign
invaders that our soldier cells seek out to destroy look the same as our
own cells. The immune system "molds" that fit these invaders also fit
our own cells. The immune system then destroys, under some circum-
stances, everything that fits the mold, including our own cells. This is
an extremely complex self-destructive process involving many different
strategies on the part of the immune system, all of which share the same
fatal flaw of not being able to distinguish "foreign" invader proteins
from the proteins of our own body.
What does all of this have to do with what we eat? It so happens that
the antigens that trick our bodies into attacking our own cells may be
in food. During the process of digestion, for example, some proteins
slip into our bloodstream from the intestine without being fully broken
down into their amino acid parts. The remnants of undigested proteins
are treated as foreign invaders by our immune system, which sets about
making molds to destroy them and sets into motion the self-destructive
autoimmune process.
One of the foods that supply many of the foreign proteins that mimic
our own body proteins is cow's milk. Most of the time, our immune
system is quite smart. Just like an army arranges for safeguards against
friendly fire, the immune system has safeguards to stop itself from at-
tacking the body it's supposed to protect. Even though an invading
antigen looks just like one of the cells in our own body, the system can
still distinguish our own cells from the invading antigen. In fact, the im-
m u n e system may use our own cells to practice making molds against
the invader antigen without actually destroying the friendly cell.
This is analogous to training camps in preparations for war. When our
immune system is working properly, we can use the cells in our body that
look like the antigens as a training exercise, without destroying them, to
prepare our soldier cells to repulse the invading antigens. It is one more
example l of the exceptional elegance of nature's ability to regulate itself.

AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES                           187
The immune system uses a very delicate process to decide which pro-
teins should be attacked and which should be left alone.l l The way this
process, which is incredibly complex, breaks down with autoimmune
diseases is not yet understood. We just know that the immune system
loses its ability to differentiate between the body's cells and the invading
antigen, and instead of using the body's cells for "training," it destroys
them along with the invaders.
TYPE 1 DIABETES
In the case of Type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks the pancreas
cells responsible for producing insulin. This devastating, incurable
disease strikes children, creating a painful and difficult experience for
young families. What most people don't know, though, is that there is
strong evidence that this disease is linked to diet and, more specifically,
to dairy products. The ability of cow's milk protein to initiate Type 1
diabetes 12- 14 is well documented. The possible initiation of this disease
goes like this:
• A baby is not nursed long enough and is fed cow's milk protein,
perhaps in an infant formula.
• The milk reaches the small intestine, where it is digested down to
its amino acid parts.
• For some infants, cow's milk is not fully digested, and small amino
acid chains or fragments of the original protein remain in the in-
testine.
• These incompletely digested protein fragments may be absorbed
into the blood.
• The immune system recognizes these fragments as foreign invad-
ers and goes about destroying them.
• Unfortunately, some of the fragments look exactly the same as the
cells of the pancreas that are responsible for making insulin.
• The immune system loses its ability to distinguish between the
cow's milk protein fragments and the pancreatic cells, and destroys
them both, thereby eliminating the child's ability to produce insu-
lin.
• The infant becomes a Type 1 diabetic, and remains so for the rest
of his or her life.
This process boils down to a truly remarkable statement: cow~ milk
may cause one of the most devastating diseases that can befall a child. For