Dangers of High Protein Diets

Could a High Protein Diet be Dangerous for your Health?

That I have found contradicting information about this question would be an understatement, and to a very large extent this post is going to contradict some of the things I have said before.

On a previous post, Optimal Weight Training Diet, I talked about how the body reacts to excess protein, and provided you with the view of nutritionist Nancy Clark who states that consuming extra protein will not put your health at any risk simply because your body cannot store any excess protein; at the same time Clark is quick to explain that the body could build muscle just as well from carbohydrates.

For all those trying to lose weight carbohydrates are as bad as the devil itself, and to a point this may very well be true if the carbohydrates being consumed are mainly simple carbohydrates such as processed and refined carbs, white flour, white rice and sugar, but the right carbohydrates (mainly whole grains) could hold the key to not only weight loss, muscle development, but most importantly to optimal health.

Dr. Thomas Campbell II on his groundbreaking work The China Study compared western and eastern diets and found that protein was responsible for increasing cancer rates in the developed world.

Could protein really be the food of cancer cells?

Dr. Campbell went as far as to call protein “a cancer fertilizer!” But don’t panic yet, only high quality protein is linked to cancer development.

What are sources of high quality protein?

Animal sources of protein are considered high quality protein; this includes meat, eggs, and dairy. The China Study included animal research where animals were exposed to known carcinogens and a group was fed high quality protein (casein) and the other group was fed plant protein.

The results always showed that animal protein resulted in cancer development in 100% of the animals when the animals were exposed to carcinogens, and 0% cancer development on animals exposed to those same carcinogens when fed plant protein.

The study did not focus only in animals, he compared diets across China and other eastern countries where people had different dietary patterns based on the area where they lived and he found a direct link between cancer and amount of animal protein consumed. To give you a quick recap, the study showed that the poorest people, those who could not afford animal protein had a much lower cancer rate than their wealthier counterparts, who ate plenty of animal protein.

Cancer is a pretty big deal for me since my sister is sick with it at only 27 years of age, and I can attest to her poor eating habits, was that enough to cause cancer? I don’t know, I can’t tell, and perhaps you don’t even care, cancer may not be a concern of yours although that 1 out 2 males in the U.S. is going to get sick with cancer at some point, and 1 out of 3 women.

A healthy diet, can (according to Dr. Campbell)

• Enable diabetic patients to off their medication
• Heart disease can be reversed with diet alone
• Breast cancer is related to levels of female hormones in the blood, which are determined by the food we eat.
• Consuming dairy foods can increase the risk of prostate cancer.

What is the biggest lesson from the China Study?

What you eat has the potential to help your body fight, and prevent disease, even in the face of deadly diseases. The following paragraph from the book summarizes it pretty well:

“What we found was shocking. Low-protein diets inhibited the initiation of cancer by aflatoxin, regardless of how much of this carcinogen was administered to these animals. After cancer initiation was completed, low-protein diets also dramatically blocked subsequent cancer growth. In other words, the cancer- producing effects of this highly carcinogenic chemical were rendered insignificant by a low protein diet. In fact, dietary protein proved to be so powerful in its effect that we could turn on and turn off cancer growth simply by changing the level consumed.”

The China Study