T. Colin Campbell: Liar, Joke or Fraud?

reply to post by Sourdough4life


Hi there. I will reply in more depth later this week, right now I'm on my way out the door to babysit a probated old house whose only computer access is dial-up AOL. Anyway 2 quick points:

In the vast majority of reported studies on human nutrition, be they from medical, public health, or nutritionist perspectives, correlation is the method most often used because cause-and-effect relationships are rarely if ever proven. Human nutrition is that complex a subject, and it is very much an arena of emerging science.

Studies about phytic acid intake have reported varying results. One in-depth study I saw reported that for a group of college volunteers over time, the effects of phytic acid were found to be insignificant. When I get back into internet-land I will see if I can find that study for you.

reply to post by Uphill


Observational studies are great for forming hypotheses. But their data are too easily manipulated to support any hypothes (see the op). Cherry picking.

What happens, uphill, when all of the data are tabulated, and the biochemistry/laboratory evidence compliments the observations?

Now I do love to read studies on nutrition and try to grasp what they exactly mean, but one thing has always bothered me.

Take a typical American, or Canadian or anyone from this sort of "culture" and diet.

Let's say you dropped them into the middle of Ethiopia where the peoples survive on one bowl of rice a day, and have very little water to drink. Would they survive if they have to live on the same diet as those who are "used" to it? Or do those indigenous peoples bodies survive in this area because they have adapted to the environment around them.

I think that the human body will adapt and change more so than most people think, and will also end up having a diet that will end up compensating for what is lacking in their diet. As well as adapting to a diet that has too much of something.

Like a study on the French and their high intake of fats and the results of such a study don't take into account the rest of their diet that just might compensate for this. I believe that this is where the benefits of reservatrol came into being. ( I could be wrong on this)

Or look at the Eskimo's and their very high intake of fat. This didn't come about by wanting said fats, but by the environment they live in and the only foods available to them. What sort of grains and vegetables are available to them? And yet they survive quite well on what they are consuming. But could the typical American survive on this diet if forced to live there for a few months with no grains and vegetables? I think they would survive, but not be in the best of health by any stretch as their bodies are used to a completely different diet.

So for a study to state that this or that is good or bad for you, well that depends on what your diet is like now, as well as your environment, and not all factors are being brought into play when the study is done. In my opinion anyways.

Give a large steak to someone who has been on a vegetarian diet for a few years and watch as they double over in pain as their bodies do not have the bacteria and enzymes to digest this properly.

All I am trying to say is that there are way too many factors in play in order to make a study of diet that can be totally conclusive. What works for one population, certainly won't work with another in certain instances. So I am left with just looking at the studies done that have very similar diets to mine as to what is good and what is bad.

Then again, I could be so far out in left field that I am not even in the game... obviously I have no background in nutrition at all but love to study it.

Originally posted by tribewilder
Let's say you dropped them into the middle of Ethiopia where the peoples survive on one bowl of rice a day, and have very little water to drink. Would they survive if they have to live on the same diet as those who are "used" to it? Or do those indigenous peoples bodies survive in this area because they have adapted to the environment around them.

1 bowl of rice a day would mean a very, very early death.

I think that the human body will adapt and change more so than most people think, and will also end up having a diet that will end up compensating for what is lacking in their diet. As well as adapting to a diet that has too much of something.

It's an excellent question, Tribe, but there are ways of testing this thought. The alaskan innuit are a good example. Vilhjalmur Stefansson was an arctic explorer who made some very interesting discoveries about the indigonous eskimos.

Stefansson is also a figure of considerable interest in dietary circles, especially those with an interest in very low-carbohydrate diets. Stefansson documented the fact that the Inuit diet consisted of about 90% meat and fish; Inuit would often go 6 to 9 months a year eating nothing but meat and fish—essentially, a no-carbohydrate diet. He found that he and his fellow European-descent explorers were also perfectly healthy on such a diet. When medical authorities questioned him on this, he and a fellow explorer agreed to undertake a study under the auspices of the Journal of the American Medical Association to demonstrate that they could eat a 100% meat diet in a closely-observed laboratory setting for the first several weeks, with paid observers for the rest of an entire year. The results were published in the Journal, and both men were perfectly healthy on such a diet, without vitamin supplementation or anything else in their diet except meat and entrails.

So, a canadian man who certainly wasn't "adapted" to an all meat diet did very well on one. But, we see that these Inuit become obese and begin to develop the heart disease and cancer and diabetes at an alarming rate when consuming a typical western diet. Same with the japanese or the french.

Like a study on the French and their high intake of fats and the results of such a study don't take into account the rest of their diet that just might compensate for this. I believe that this is where the benefits of reservatrol came into being. ( I could be wrong on this)

Hate to burst your bubble here...but the "French Paradox" doesn't exist if you accept that saturated fat isn't causing heart disease. The french eat lot's of fat, and saturated fat, and yet they have low levels of heart disease incidence...(until recently). Since we KNOW that saturated fat causes heart disease, there has to be something protecting them from the negative effects of saturated fat. Enter Resveratrol. The french drink a lot of red wine and red wine has a cool little polyphenol called resveratrol in it that "reverses aging and is an antioxidant".....well, what they don't tell you is that it would take 800 bottles of red wine to get the required amounts of resveratrol to have any real effect on you.

And...recently, resveratrol studies have shown some startling effects on certain tumor cells, causing them to grow.

So for a study to state that this or that is good or bad for you, well that depends on what your diet is like now, as well as your environment, and not all factors are being brought into play when the study is done. In my opinion anyways.

Abslutely, and this is the biggest problem with observational studies.

Campbell is a joke, the dude just like most of these "vegan" doctors has a major agenda imo. Anyone think its weird that most these people aren't even vegan??

They would have us believe that he published extensive data to support the health value of cow's milk and high cholesterol animal based foods and, further, that he 'discovered' a fat soluble factor in milk that is likely responsible for these healthy effects of cow's milk.

Really is this guy that dense? He has a degree in nutritional science but doesn't realize that these products contain pre-formed fat soluble vitamins specifically A, D and K which are major contributors to optimal health?

Indeed, the so-called fat soluble factor mentioned by Price was noted at a time during the early days of vitamin discoveries when little was known about their metabolism and biochemical effects,

This quote right here just proves how far price was ahead of his time, He had discovered the fat soluble vitamins needed for proper bone re-mineralization without actually knowing what they were. Modern day science has only reinforced his discoveries.

Wheat protein, unlike casein for example, did not stimulate cancer development but when its limiting amino acid, lysine, was restored, it acted just like casein.

AHA! So the problem isn't casein or animal protien its an overabundance of complete proteins, I'm sure if you fed anyone a diet of 20% of any protien who didn't have some major muscle(muscles help protect the body from anabolic nutrients, i.e. GH, proteins etc.) would eventually develop health problems. Who knows tho, comparing isolated protien to whole food sources is ridiculous.

While it may seem reasonable to assume that grass-fed animal products compared with feed lot animal products are somewhat healthier on some accounts (perhaps due to a more favorable fatty acid composition, slightly more--but still minimal--tissue antioxidants derived from the plants being consumed), they do not come close to the health value of plant based products.

The guy is a joke. Its way to esay to tear apart everything he says. Most of it is just a bunch of propaganda BS to lure in the people who can't do there own research.

www.vegsource.com...

Originally posted by Sourdough4life
Who knows tho, comparing isolated protien to whole food sources is ridiculous.

Absolutely. And this statement also applies to the giant "cancer is dead" thread.....Whole foods and isolated nutrients are two completely different animals.

Thanks for the commentary!