Can diet cure illness? No medicine or treatment can ensure such robust health as nutrition.

„Information about the benefits of a diet based on whole plant foods is the most significant discovery in the history of Western medicine.,“ writes T. C. Campbell, the main author of the book The China Study, adding: „No medicine or treatment can ensure such good health as nutrition. Diseases that slowly kill us can be prevented, and we can even treat them with the right diet.."

In his book The China Study (CS), Professor T. Colin Campbell, one of the most respected authorities on nutrition, analyses the mistakes of contemporary medicine, our hectic lifestyle and, above all, our diet. The book describes the findings of a dietary study that has been ongoing for more than 30 years – The China Study, which compared what Americans eat with the diet in traditional China, where the same ingredients, mainly of plant origin, have been consumed for centuries. It then links diet to diseases that are common in the US and China.

Thanks to Czech research, we have more evidence than ever confirming the benefits of a natural plant-based diet. These findings are described in the book. Yet we pay twice for our health: first as taxpayers contributing to subsidised food production with high levels of animal protein, and then when we pay for medicines and treatment.

Nutrition at medical faculties and health schools

Nutrition is not among the 26 officially recognised medical fields in the USA. It is only mentioned marginally in other lectures, and only at some universities. (The situation is no better in our country.)

It is common for doctors who are not educated in nutrition to prescribe high-carbohydrate milk drinks to obese diabetics, high-meat and high-fat diets to patients who want to lose weight, and increased milk consumption to patients with osteoporosis. Medical ignorance in the field of nutrition causes a lot of damage. Just the idea that patients have their health in their own hands is enough to irritate doctors. Dietary treatment is really effective, for example, in heart disease (as proven by ČS), but imagine a nutritionist training a cardiac surgeon!

One of the most serious causes of burnout syndrome among doctors is the feeling that their treatment is not helping patients as much as they had hoped. According to research, 50% of American doctors experience burnout syndrome. And medicine is throwing away its greatest weapon – changing diet and lifestyle.

An interesting challenge from the author of the China Study            

In The New China Study, Dr. Campbell calls on publicly funded authorities and institutions to stop supporting senseless drug advertisements on public television. If this is not possible, then the same airtime should be reserved for discussions on the impact of nutrition on human health. These institutions should act in accordance with the interests of taxpayers.

Will we change?

However, most of us live with the unshakeable belief that pills and medical procedures are the only way to treat our illnesses. What's more, people generally don't want change – 99% of people (in the US) eat an unhealthy diet. It is difficult for them to look at this and say, „Yes, they are right, we are wrong.“ But even these people will get sick...

Taken from the second edition of T. C. Campbell's The Chinese Study, published by Svítání Publishing House (www.svitani.eu)

This article was published with the kind permission of of the magazine Sphere

DIOCHI

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