Negative effect of Western diet on Asian populations
have traditionally existed on a primarily plant-based diet might be
lost as more people in Asia switch to a Western-style diet that is
rich in animal-based foods.
The long-term health benefits to Chinese and other Asian people who have traditionally existed on a primarily plant-based diet might be lost as more people in Asia switch to a Western-style diet that is rich in animal-based foods, reports US Cornell University this month following the results of a recent study. This conclusion is being drawn by some scientists after reviewing results from the latest survey of diets, lifestyles and disease mortality among Chinese populations - this one comparing current dietary habits in Taiwan and mainland China - and measuring them against a time when fewer meat and dairy products were available in rural China. Preliminary results of "China Study II," the follow-up to the China-Oxford-Cornell Study on Dietary, Lifestyle and Disease Mortality Characteristics in 65 Rural Chinese Counties, or "China Study I," were discussed on June 16 at the Congress of Epidemiology 2001 in Toronto by T. Colin Campbell of Cornell, Sir Richard Peto of the University of Oxford, Dr. Junshi Chen of the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine and Dr. Wen-Harn Pan of Academia Sinica in Taiwan. "With the new data from mainland China, along with the fascinating new data from Taiwan now in hand, we will have the opportunity to explore dietary and disease mortality trends," Campbell says. "We will see how fast dietary changes in rural China - preceded by earlier changes in Taiwan - result in the development of Western diseases." Planned since 1987, China Study II was designed to re-survey the same mainland Chinese population as China Study I, in addition to a few new sites in mainland China and a new population of 16 counties in Taiwan. China Study II was directed by the three collaborators in the first study and by Dr. Win-harn Pan. When it started in 1987-88, it was the first collaborative research study between mainland China and Taiwan. Data from China Study II are now freely available at an Oxford University web site: www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/projects/cecology1989
