thumb|''The China Study''
'''''The China Study''''' (ISBN 1-932100-38-5) is a 2005 book by T. Colin Campbell, of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University<ref name="Arnold">{{cite journal
  | last =Arnold
  | first =Wilfred Niels
  | title =The China Study
  | journal =Leonardo
  | volume =38
  | issue =5
  | pages =436
  | publisher =MIT Press
  | date =October 2005
  | accessdate = 2008-01-26 }}</ref>, and one of the directors of the China Project<ref name="Arnold"/>, and his son, Thomas M. Campbell II. T. Colin Campbell is currently on the advisory board of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.<ref name=PCRM>[http://www.pcrm.org/about/index.html "About PCRM"], accessdate 2008-07-21.</ref>

The book examines the relationship between the consumption of cancers of the breast, prostate, and large bowel, diabetes, coronary heart disease, obesity, autoimmune disease, osteoporosis, degenerative brain disease, and macular degeneration.  The "China study" referred to in the title is the China Project, a "survey of death rates for twelve different kinds of cancer for more than 2,400 counties and 880 million (96%) of their citizens" conducted jointly by Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine over the course of twenty years.

The authors introduce and explain the conclusions of scientific studies, which have correlated animal-based diets with disease.  The authors conclude that diets high in protein, particularly animal protein (such as casein in bovine milk) are strongly linked to diseases such as heart disease, cancer and Type 2 diabetes.  

The authors recommend that people eat a plant-based diet and avoid consuming beef, poultry and milk as a means to minimize and/or reverse the development of Atkins diet), which include restrictions on the percentage of calories derived from complex carbohydrates.

==Principles of food and health==

In the book, the authors describe their eight principles of food and health<ref name="The China Study Part III">{{cite book
|last = Campbell
|first = T. Colin
|title = The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
|format = 
|accessdate = 2008-01-07
|date = 2006
|publisher = Benbella Books
|page = 223-240
 |isbn=1-932100-38-5
}}</ref>:

*Nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances.
*Vitamin supplements are not a panacea for good health.
*There are virtually no nutrients in animal-based foods that are not better provided by plants.
*Genes do not determine disease on their own, they must be activated or expressed, and that nutrition plays a critical role in determining which genes, good and bad, are expressed.
*Nutrition can substantially control the adverse effects of noxious chemicals.
*The same nutrition that prevents disease in its early stages can also halt or reverse it in its later stages.
*Nutrition that is beneficial for a particular chronic disease will support good health across the board.
*Good nutrition creates health in all areas of our existence.

==Basis for the principles==

The authors state that their views are scientifically based on research, and that much of the evidence is obtained from human studies.<ref name="The China Study Part I p21">{{cite book
|last = Campbell
|first = T. Colin
|title = The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
|format = 
|accessdate = 2008-01-07
|date = 2006
|publisher = Benbella Books
|page = 21
 |isbn=1-932100-38-5
}}</ref>  One such human study, The China Study, they describe as a comprehensive study of dietary and lifestyle factors associated with disease mortality in China<ref name="The China Study Part I p21"/> comparing the health consequences of diets rich in plant-based foods to diets very rich in plant-based foods<ref name="The China Study Part I p75">{{cite book
|last = Campbell
|first = T. Colin
|title = The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
|format = 
|accessdate = 2008-01-07
|date = 2006
|publisher = Benbella Books
|page = 75
 |isbn=1-932100-38-5
}}</ref> among people who are genetically similar.<ref name="The China Study Part I p72">{{cite book
|last = Campbell
|first = T. Colin
|title = The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
|format = 
|accessdate = 2008-01-07
|date = 2006
|publisher = Benbella Books
|page = 72
 |isbn=1-932100-38-5
}}</ref>

===Statistical evidence: "Western" diseases correlated to concentration of blood cholesterol===

The authors state that the China Study included a comparison of the prevalence of Western diseases (coronary heart disease, diabetes, and cancers of the colon, lung, breast, leukemia, childhood brain, stomach and liver)<ref name="The China Study Part I p76">{{cite book
|last = Campbell
|first = T. Colin
|title = The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
|format = 
|accessdate = 2008-01-07
|date = 2006
|publisher = Benbella Books
|page = 76
 |isbn=1-932100-38-5
}}</ref> in each county with diet and lifestyle variables and found that one of the strongest predictors of Western diseases was blood cholesterol with a statistical significance level equal to or exceeding 99.9% certainty.<ref name="The China Study Part I p77">{{cite book
|last = Campbell
|first = T. Colin
|title = The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
|format = 
|accessdate = 2008-01-07
|date = 2006
|publisher = Benbella Books
|page = 77
 |isbn=1-932100-38-5
}}</ref>

The authors report that lower blood cholesterol levels are linked to lower rates of heart disease and cancer.  They add that as blood cholesterol levels decreased from 170 mg/dl to 90 mg/dl, cancers of the liver, rectum, colon, male lung, female lung, breast, childhood leukemia, adult leukemia, childhood brain, adult brain, stomach and esophagus (throat) decreased.<ref name="The China Study Part I p78-79">{{cite book
|last = Campbell
|first = T. Colin
|title = The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
|format = 
|accessdate = 2008-01-07
|date = 2006
|publisher = Benbella Books
|page = 78-79
 |isbn=1-932100-38-5
}}</ref>  They also report that the counties in China with the highest rates of some cancers were more than 100 times greater than counties with the lowest rates of these cancers.<ref name="The China Study Part I p71">{{cite book
|last = Campbell
|first = T. Colin
|title = The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
|format = 
|accessdate = 2008-01-07
|date = 2006
|publisher = Benbella Books
|page = 71
 |isbn=1-932100-38-5
}}</ref>  
 
The authors also state that “as blood cholesterol levels in rural China rose in certain counties the incidence of “Western” diseases also increased.  What made this so surprising was that Chinese levels were far lower than we had expected.  The average level of blood cholesterol was only 127 mg/dl, which is almost 100 points less than the American average (215 mg/dl).  ...Some counties had average levels as low as 94 mg/dl.  …For two groups of about twenty-five women in the inner part of China, average blood cholesterol was at the amazingly low level of 80 mg/dl.”<ref name="The China Study Part I p78-79"/>

They add that these "Western" diseases were relatively rare in China by western standards adding for example that "at the time of our study, the death rate from coronary heart disease was seventeen times higher among American men than rural Chinese men."<ref name="The China Study Part I p79">{{cite book
|last = Campbell
|first = T. Colin
|title = The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
|format = 
|accessdate = 2008-01-07
|date = 2006
|publisher = Benbella Books
|page = 79
 |isbn=1-932100-38-5
}}</ref>

===Blood cholesterol levels correlated to diet, particularly animal protein===

The authors state that “several studies have now shown, in both experimental animals and in humans, that consuming animal-based protein increases blood cholesterol levels.  Saturated fat and dietary cholesterol also raise blood cholesterol, although these nutrients are not as effective at doing this as is animal protein.  In contrast, plant-based foods contain no cholesterol and, in various other ways, help to decrease the amount of cholesterol made by the body.”<ref name="The China Study Part I p80">{{cite book
|last = Campbell
|first = T. Colin
|title = The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
|format = 
|accessdate = 2008-01-07
|date = 2006
|publisher = Benbella Books
|page = 80
 |isbn=1-932100-38-5
}}</ref>  

The authors also state that "these disease associations with blood cholesterol were remarkable, because blood cholesterol and animal-based food consumption both were so low by American standards.  In rural China, animal protein intake (for the same individual) averages only 7.1 grams per day whereas Americans average 70 grams per day."<ref name="The China Study Part I p80"/>

The authors conclude that “the findings from the China Study indicate that the lower the percentage of animal-based foods that are consumed, the greater the health benefits—even when that percentage declines from 10% to 0% of calories.  So it’s not unreasonable to assume that the optimum percentage of animal-based products is zero, at least for anyone with a predisposition for a degenerative disease.”<ref name="The China Study Part III p242">{{cite book
|last = Campbell
|first = T. Colin
|title = The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
|format = 
|accessdate = 2008-01-07
|date = 2006
|publisher = Benbella Books
|page = 242
 |isbn=1-932100-38-5
}}</ref>

'''コリン・キャンベル'''（T. Colin Campbell）はコーネル大学の栄養学の教授で、栄養と癌の関連についての専門家であり、ダイオキシンやアフラトキシンといった毒物に関する研究や、疫学研究の「中国プロジェクト<ref>[http://www.nutrition.cornell.edu/ChinaProject/ Welcome to the China-Cornell-Oxford Project] '''（英語）'''</ref>」を指揮したことで有名である。研究結果を受け、妻と子どもも含めて完全菜食者になった。大学でベジタリアンの栄養学を教えている。

中国プロジェクトは、アメリカ国立癌研究所が資金提供し、イギリスのオックスフォード大学、アメリカのコーネル大学、中国のがん研究所をはじめ様々な国家の機関が関わり1983年から1990年にかけて中国で行われた。中国では、非常に食事や生活方法の多様性があるために、食事の違いによって疾患のリスクがどのように変化するのかを調査するのに最適だと考えられた。研究の結果、コリン・キャンベルは動物性食品をまったく食べないことが一番安全であると結論した。後に書籍として発行されベストセラーになり、いくつかの国でも翻訳出版された。

マサチューセッツ大学とコーネル大学で栄養学、生化学、毒性学を学んだ。

世界がん研究基金とアメリカ癌研究協会のアドバイザー。

彼の息子と共同でBioSignia社<ref>[http://www.biosignia.com/ BioSignia]　'''（英語）'''</ref>という医療関連の会社を創立している。