From: strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight)
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: China Study
Date: 15 Sep 92 18:55:24 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)


Thanks to Michelle Dick for her droll, highly informative, and
extremely interesting message. (Some cynic who has posted before will
now accuse me of attempting to butter her up. No, but the tone and
content of her message, in comparison with some of the "chip on the
shoulder" responses I've seen here, deserves an ecomium.)

Unfortunately, some of my comments seem to have become distorted in
translation.

First, since she's so amused by the Cows Don't Drink Milk comment, let
me enliven her day further by telling her that another reason for
vegetarianism is that it's a lot easier to sneak up on a plant.

Now to the substance.

1. It's not true that things are equal to the same thing in comparing
fat and carbohydrate content and thus concluding that a no-meat,
no-dairy diet is just the same sort of thing nutritionists have been
advising already, only writ slightly larger. Meat and dairy products
have a lot more than their fat and carbohydrate content, and if the
China Study shows that people who don't eat meat and dairy have lower
disease incidence and longer lives compared to us or compared to the
Chinese control group, that is a statement about no meat and no dairy,
not a statement about lowering fat a bit more.  The first follows
directly from the evidence; the second would require a separate and
equally reliable study in which people ate meat and dairy but with the
same fat/carbohydrate content in their diets as the Chinese in the
study. That hypothetical study, to confirm Michelle's assertion, would
have to produce similarly low disease and similarly high longevity as
the Chinese Study (compared with the control group in the Chinese
Study). Such a study has, to my knowledge, never been done.

2. I found Michelle's use of the tiger analogy as droll as she finds some
of my remarks. The point isn't that there aren't any fat tigers. For all
I know there may be. The point is that a tiger is biologically a
carnivore, and man is not. Man is, at best, an omnivore, though there's
some biological reason to believe he's not designed to eat meat. Apparently
(from my reading) we only secrete enought of the Uric acid processing
enzyme to handle a couple of ounces of meat a day, while carnivores
secrete enough to handle much larger amouonts. Yet the SAD (standard
American Diet) includes lots more than an ounce to an ounce-and-a-half
of meat a day. There ARE consequences to having unprocessed Uric acid
wandering around one's body. Putting it another way (out of deference
to a previous "so what" message) it's not a "good thing".

I know this is going to be misunderstood, and I don't advocate
vegetarianism on religious grounds, but as a small, episodic piece of
evidence the bible says God made man to be a vegetarian, and so
commanded him. It was only after the flood that God (according to the
Bible) gave man permission to eat meat, yet there's no biblical
evidence that in association with this God redesigned man. As I
say, a side observation, not intended to "prove" anything, so let's
not make more of this paragraph than it warrants. Consider it
another gratuitious attempt to add amusement to Michelle's day.

3. I never suggested that nutritionists were part of some conspiracy
by the meat and dairy industry; I suggested that they were one force
advocating some meat and dairy products. I attribute this to their
current state of knowledge and training, not to any base motives.
I also suggest that nutritionists have given incorrect and nonsensical
advice in the past, which they've had to recede from. Never mind,
every profession learns and makes progress. The point is that just
because nutritionists advise something, it isn't necessarily so.
Their track record speaks to this. (Again, I'm not attacking
nutritionists per se. Physicians once practiced blood-letting
and used leeches. They once believed in "humours.") Thus,
it's no argument that the profession believes something, when
new evidence to the contrary is developed.
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition