Published by: Maya Linson on 5/26/2011 12:01:27 PM
Yesterday, I went to see Forks Over Knives – a film that recently opened in major cities across the U.S. The film examines the notion that our diets are to blame for the high incidence of cancer, heart disease and a host of other “diseases of affluence.” By default, they are also to blame for skyrocketing health costs associated with treating those afflictions. Having worked in health care journalism for a while, I was pretty certain I already knew this! But what shocked me is that by changing our diets, we can actually reverse disease in our bodies.
The major storyline follows two physicians who were on parallel career paths – both farm boys grew up to study the effects of animal-based diets on humans, one in the scientific arena and one in the clinical setting. Dr. T. Colin Campbell discovered wealthier children in the Philippines, who were consuming relatively high amounts of animal-based foods compared to their less-wealthy counterparts, were much more likely to get liver cancer. Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, meanwhile, found that many diseases he was routinely treating at the Cleveland Clinic were virtually unknown in areas of the world where people rarely ate animal-based foods.
These two discoveries independently inspired them to continue their research in depth. Ultimately, we learn about some of their major studies and from Ohio to China. For one, Dr. Campbell replicated a study from India that suggests animal-based protein actually turns cancer “on” and “off” in our genes. If we eat a diet of 5% animal-based protein, we never turn those cancer genes on. If we eat a diet of 20% animal-based protein, we turn them all on. Even more surprising? If we had been eating 20% and then drop down to 5%, those cancer genes turn off again! Curious about the science behind it? Watch one of his presentations (and possibly a precursor to this film). It is also worth reading the article, “Huge Study of Diet Indicts Fat and Meat,” from a 1990 New York Times, which breaks down Dr. Campbell’s China study – still considered one of the most comprehensive health-related investigations ever.
The China Study, as it is called, yielded a ton of information. The New York Times pulled out a few key items (bolding is mine): “Obesity is related more to what people eat than how much. Adjusted for height, the Chinese consume 20 percent more calories than Americans do, but Americans are 25 percent fatter. The main dietary differences are fat and starch. The Chinese eat only a third the amount of fat Americans do, while eating twice the starch.”
The Times also notes: “Eating a lot of protein, especially animal protein, is also linked to chronic disease. Americans consume a third more protein than the Chinese do, and 70 percent of American protein comes from animals, while only 7 percent of Chinese protein does. Those Chinese who eat the most protein, and especially the most animal protein, also have the highest rates of the 'diseases of affluence' like heart disease, cancer and diabetes.”
NAPH member Dr. Terry Mason, who is an NAPH Fellow and serving as the interim head of Cook County Health and Hospitals System, makes a key appearance in the film – and also got the biggest laugh from my fellow viewers! Mason, who also is the health commissioner of Cook County, promotes a plant-based diet as a means to better health. In the film, he says we really shouldn’t eat anything that walks, talks, swims, slithers, has eyes, or has a mom and a dad (I definitely butchered that quote – but people were still repeating it walking out of the theater!).
Mason also points out that we continue to treat our bodies as if they are compartmentalized, and they aren’t. What we put in our bodies matters, and what manifests can be indicators of other things. One new thing I learned? Erectile dysfunction is an indicator of heart disease.
While the film felt a little vague and imprecise, it remained somehow powerful. I came away with the awareness that foods today are all about trickery. I am angry that I crave what is essentially artificial food. I have been rewired to think that comfort lies in the throes of a value meal – I know it's bad for me, but it just tastes. so. good. Even if it makes me feel lethargic and all around gross after eating it. Someone in the film points out that Americans are not lazier than they were decades ago. Americans have just been given more and more opportunities to eat fake but convenient foods that have wreak havoc on our bodies.
If we are looking to curb the high costs of health care in the U.S., it would seem that a first order of business is to increase our intake of whole fruits, vegetables and grains. Whether you buy what they are selling in this film, that concept resonates across many scientific and health care disciplines.