The Hauser Diet vs. The China Study Diet

How does the Hauser Diet® compare to the China Study diet?

By Ross Hauser, MD, and Marion Hauser, MS,RD

The book The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, PhD, co-written by Thomas Campbell, is a synopsis of the most comprehensive human study of diet, lifestyle and disease ever done in the history of biomedical research. It was a massive undertaking jointly arranged through Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. The project surveyed a vast range of diseases, along with diet and lifestyle factors in rural China. It involved a survey of 65 counties, 130 villages, and 6,500 adults and their families in China. The main result consistently found in the study was people who ate the most animal-based foods developed the most chronic diseases.

Dr. Campbell’s book is an easy read and we would recommend everyone who wants to learn about nutrition and health read this book. First, let us state that we wholeheartedly agree with 95% of what is written in The China Study. Let us also state that the disagreeable 5% portion may be incredibly significant as it relates to an individual’s health. This will become clearer as you read this review…

Facts in The China Study that agree with The Hauser Diet® principles:

Dr. Campbell notes that published research in the most reputable scientific journals show the following:

  • Dietary change can enable diabetic patients to discontinue 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. (We would add that it is also related to estradiol hormones that women take, including birth control pills.)
  • Consuming dairy foods can increase the risk of prostate cancer.
  • Antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables are linked to better mental performance in old age.
  • Kidney stones can be prevented by a healthy diet.
  • Type 1 diabetes, one of the most devastating diseases that can befall a child, is convincingly linked to infant feeding practices. (We would add a child receiving cow’s milk instead of breast milk.)

Dr. Campbell states, “These findings demonstrate that a good diet is the most powerful weapon we have against disease and sickness….these issues all come down to three things: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” We cannot say “Amen” louder! A-M-E-N! One of the Hauser Diet’s mottos is “Never underestimate the power of food.”

In the early chapters of the book, Dr. Campbell discusses research that shows that protein, especially casein (the protein in dairy products), promotes all stages of the cancer process. Animals and people who consumed diets low in this protein exhibited much lower rates of cancer. The safe proteins that animals and humans could consume were from plants, including wheat and soy. Even when animals or humans were subjected to definite carcinogens, they did not develop cancer if they consumed plant-based protein versus animal products.

The facts are just astounding:

Cause of Death Deaths per year in the United States
Diseases of the heart 710,760
Cancer 553,091
Medical care 225,400
Stroke 167,661
Lung diseases 122,009

Deaths by medical care are broken down as follows:

Medical errors 7,400
Unnecessary surgery 12,000
Other preventable errors 20,000
Hospital borne infections 80,000
Adverse drug reactions 106,000

The bottom line here is the current medical and nutritional principles and regulations in the United States are not working! Obesity rates in the United States are climbing, going from 15% in the late 1970s to over 30% by the year 2000.

We concur with Dr. Campbell when he writes the following:

  • …impressive evidence now exists to show that advanced heart disease, relatively advanced cancers of certain types, diabetes and a few other degenerative diseases can be reversed by diet.
  • …one of the benefits of good nutrition is the prevention of diseases that are thought to be due to genetic predisposition.
  • ..in my own laboratory we have shown in experimental animals that cancer growth can be turned on and off by nutrition.

Facts in The China Study that conflict with The Hauser Diet® principles and why:

Those reading this may not be familiar with The Hauser Diet®. It is based on the following scientific principles:

  • Physiology is individualized.
  • An individual’s physiology can be tested. Thus, it becomes objective and not subjective.
  • Individual nutritional advice for a person with a specific medical condition should be provided only after the individual’s physiology is tested in order to gather objective data.
  • The blood tests, or other objective data, that will be tested on the individual depends on the health of that individual and what specific health questions are trying to be answered.
  • The Hauser Diet® advocates specific dietary blood tests noted as Hauser Diet Typing.
  • Hauser Diet Typing involves performing a modified glucose insulin tolerance test along with a venous whole blood pH test, after an overnight fast of 12 hours. The overnight fast is necessary to see the results during an individual’s homeostatic state.
  • We also recommend a food sensitivity blood test be done to look at immune response to specific foods.
  • Once the individual’s Hauser Diet Typing results are known, along with a thorough medical history, including food intake, an appropriate Hauser Diet Type is prescribed.
  • The Hauser Diet Types include the Lion Diet Type (true carnivore), Otter Diet Type (75% calories from protein/fat), Bear Diet Type (50% of calories from carbohydrates), Monkey Diet Type (75% calories from carbohydrates), and Giraffe Diet Type (true vegetarian).
  • Individuals with altered immune responses to certain foods are instructed to remove these foods from their diets.

By testing hundreds of people in our office since 1993, we have found these general principles to hold true:

  1. Venous whole blood pH varies according to body temperature (which generally correlates with outside temperature).
  2. In hot climates where high temperatures prevail, so does blood alkalinity (higher than normal blood pH).
  3. In cold climates (like Chicago), the tendency is toward whole venous blood acidity (lower than normal venous blood pH).
  4. Plant-based foods (carbohydrates) typically acidify the blood (lower the blood pH).
  5. Animal-based foods (proteins) alkalinize the blood (raise the blood pH).
  6. A true carnivore generally is a fast oxidizer (from the glucose-insulin tolerance test) and has a low whole blood venous pH (acid blood).
  7. A true vegetarian generally is a slow oxidizer and has a high fasting venous blood pH (alkaline blood).

The conflict between The China Diet and The Hauser Diet:

The China Diet Says The Hauser Diet® Says
Everyone should be a vegetarian. Only those whose Hauser Diet testing reveals vegetarian physiology should be a vegetarian.
No matter what climate you live in you should be a vegetarian. More vegetarian Diet Types are found in warm climates compared to colder climates.
Vegetarian protein is better than animal protein in regards to human health. The type of protein is not as important as the percentage contained in the individual’s diet.
Fruits function much like vegetables in human health. Fruits are full of fructose and thus, are not as healthy as vegetables in regard to human health.

If The China Study is 100% correct, then all studies in regard to human health should point to a vegetarian diet as the best diet (not just The China Study). All one has to do is look at research done around the world to note that some research points to a vegetarian diet as the answer to a particular health concern, whereas other research points to a higher protein diet (carnivorous diet). What The Hauser Diet® would say to this is most likely because the research showing vegetarian diets are best were probably performed in a warm/hot climate/area, whereas research done in cold weather locations, would show that the higher protein diet is best.

Let’s use a practical example. When at the beach with temperatures hovering around 95 degrees F with 100% humidity, most people are hot, sweating, and extremely thirsty after being there for say four hours. We have two restaurants we can go to after our day at the beach: The Hauser Steakhouse or The China Study Vegetarian-Fruit Buffet. Which one would most people choose under these circumstances? The Vegetarian-Fruit Buffet, of course! Under very hot, humid conditions, you crave carbohydrate, or plant-based foods.

Another example of this is exercising, especially in extreme heat. When you are running a marathon (26.2 mile) race in 80 degree weather, you want sugar-based drinks (plant-based foods), not a big glass of milk! Let’s take an example in an opposite climate. We are skiing in Colorado where the temperature is 10 degrees F and we are not dressed appropriately. After four hours of skiing, we are freezing and shivering. We can go to one of the same two restaurants. Where would you want to go? We are going to crave a steak or some other protein (animal-based) food. Under very cold circumstances, your body craves high fat and high protein foods. It is essentially trying to rebalance your blood pH which was pushed out of the normal range from the drastic temperature.

The only diet that explains these differences is The Hauser Diet®, because it is based on changes in an individual’s physiology in regard to weather, health conditions, and everything else that affects the human condition. In other words, two people may have heart disease and one may need a vegetarian diet (Giraffe Diet Type) and another may need to be a carnivore (Lion Diet Type). We believe you need to test an individual’s physiology to determine proper diet. Two people with the same medical condition, whether heart disease, obesity, diabetes, Wegener’s Granulomatosis, or Rheumatoid Arthritis, may need to eat different diets. This has been our experience in the clinical setting.

Some key points to explain some of The China Study’s results:

  • Page 5 – Philippines. The Philippines is extremely hot climate, so we agree that most people living would likely benefit from being vegetarian. Our explanation of bad health coming from a high protein diet in a hot tropical climate would be that those folks most likely ate too much protein for their particular physiology. In other words, people living in very hot climates, like the Philippines typically type out Monkey/Giraffe Diet Types and need to eat a more vegetarian diet. If they eat too much protein, their blood pH becomes too alkaline, resulting in poor health.
  • Page 23-24 – Various athletes fare better on vegetarian diets. Many full-time athletes tend to live or train extensively in warmer states (such as Florida/California). Athletes from these states, especially with all their exercise (in hot weather), would tend to have alkaline blood pH. They would need a lot more carbohydrates (plant-based foods) than the average American. Athletes and folks from colder climates, like Minnesota, Alaska, or Maine, would need much more protein in their diets.
  • Pages 52-67 – Dr. Campbell goes into great detail to explain the experiments he and his colleagues did to show that cancer from aflatoxin in rats was highest in the rats fed casein protein. We commend his research, as it clearly showed that the cancer physiology can be turned on or off with food. We agree with the statement he wrote, “The results of these, and many other studies, showed nutrition to be far more important in controlling cancer promotion than the dose of initiating cancer.” This conclusion is awesome. We would state that casein is a cow’s milk protein. Who should be consuming cow’s milk? Calves – that’s it. Almost everyone we test in our office as altered immune responses with cow’s milk (cow’s milk sensitivity). Hence, we agree that way too many people are consuming casein or cow’s milk. It would be far healthier to consume other sources of protein besides cow’s milk. We would also say that no infant should be fed cow’s milk, and instead should be fed mother’s milk. Cow’s milk substitutes can be consumed such as almond, soy, or rice milk.
  • Pages 73-74 – In America, 15-16% of our total calories comes from protein and upwards of 80% of this amount comes from animal-based foods. In rural China, only 9-10% of total calories comes from protein and only 10% of the protein comes from animal-based foods. Here is the key to understanding why we do not agree with some of the conclusions of The China Study:

Chinese and American Dietary Intakes:

Nutrient China America
Calories 2641 1989
Total fat (% calories) 14.5 34-38
Dietary Fiber (g/day) 33 12
Total protein (g/day) 64 91
Animal protein (% calories) 0.8 10-11
Total iron (mg/day) 34 18

The above chart is standardized for a 65kg or 143 pound person. Bottom line is the average Chinese person requires 650 more calories than an equal-sized American. The question is “why?” Without being really sophisticated, the answer is simple. Americans sit most of their day and rural Chinese folks are farming, or performing labor-intensive work, along with biking and walking daily. Because they do a lot more physical work, their physiology is much more like high-level athlete than a typical American’s physiology. To give you an example, Ross weighs 155 pounds or 70kg. He has done the Ironman Triathlon five times and train about 10 hours per week on average. He is in much better physical shape than most Americans. He has run up to 60 miles in one day and has completed seven endurance events that have lasted longer than 11 hours each. The average calorie consumption he requires each day is around 2,500 calories. According to Dr. Campbell, the average Chinese person my size would need around 3,000 calories. This means the average Chinese person in this study is in better physical shape, and has a higher metabolism, than a 5-time Ironman finisher! The average rural Chinese person has minimal body fat because they do such physical work.

This subject is discussed by the author on page 100. The average American weighs a lot more, yet the average calorie consumption is about 30% lower than their Chinese counterpart. The average rural Chinese person needs to consume 42-43 kcal/kg compared to 30 kcal/kg for the Americans, yet the average Chinese person’s body weight was 20% lower. Dr. Campbell does discuss activity levels as being one explanation, as folks in China ride their bikes everywhere compared to Americans who drive cars. He also notes that being more physically active, shifts their body fat to body heat. This very fact is the one that we think explains why the rural Chinese need to consume a vegetarian diet, but this would not apply to sedentary Americans, unless they exercised and had jobs similar to their Chinese counterparts.

Metabolisms rise, the more you workout, thus, the more heat you can produce. As we also discuss in the Hauser Diet book, the higher a person’s muscle mass, the higher their metabolism. The higher their metabolism (the more calories they can burn doing nothing), and the hotter they feel. A person with a very high metabolism, especially if doing a lot of physical work (and this increases in a hot climate) the more toward vegetarianism his diet should be. In other words, the more muscle a person makes, the higher their metabolism, the more heat is produced, the more alkaline their blood. The more alkaline a person’s blood, the more carbohydrates they need to eat. Remember, carbohydrates acidify blood pH. So, the person who is tending toward alkaline pH will need to eat carbohydrates to acidify their blood pH back into the normal range.

Applying this logic, it is no surprise that those in China would do better on a vegetarian diet. It is a far stretch though to make claims that Americans sitting around all day need to eat 75% of their calories from carbohydrates. What The China Study is saying is that the average rural Chinese person on this diet ate about 10% of their calories from protein and 14% from fat, which leaves 75-76% from carbohydrates. According to the Hauser Diet®, this is similar to the Monkey Diet Type. For the average American, many are already eating this diet and developing diabetes! They do not have jobs that require physical labor such as the rural Chinese. Most American jobs involve sitting and very little physical work. That is the main difference. We suspect when the author discusses the differences between the health of rural Chinese and those of affluence, the affluent Chinese have jobs much like the Americans which just do not involve physical labor.

Obesity

Much of the body weight of rural Chinese people is muscle, whereas the average American has much more fat. Fat slows the metabolism, while muscle speeds the metabolism. The diet that will work best for one’s overall metabolism helps to keep the blood sugars and blood pH in the optimal range. For the rural Chinese person this is primarily a vegetarian diet. This data is indisputable from The China Study. We suspect that if you did Hauser Diet Typing across America, most folks would type out to be a Bear (like 50% of the population, general diet), 25% would type out to be a Monkey/Giraffe (vegetarian), particularly those people living in warm climates, and 25% would type out to be a Lion/Otter (carnivorous), particularly those living in cold climates.

If we were to look at the percent breakdown of most American’s diets, we estimate most eat a general or Bear diet. The quality of the food is another story – as most people eat far too many processed and junk foods to even be technically following the Bear Diet. But we digress…

For anyone who is overweight or has a health condition, most likely you are consuming the wrong diet! If you suffer from energy swings, chronic fatigue, or other health concerns, the Bear, or general, diet is not working for you. Your physiology most likely matches one of the other Diet Types.

Before we say just become a vegetarian as in The China Study, let us tell you that at our clinic (Caring Medical in Oak Park, Illinois) we see vegetarians every day with all kinds of health concerns. So, what is causing them? According to The China Study, it must not be their diets, because they are already eating organic vegetarian. But when we Diet Type these folks, guess what? They have very acidic blood compared to normal and/or are fast oxidizers of food. What does this mean? It means their current diet is NOT balancing their blood sugars or blood pH, and their health is suffering because of it. To stabilize these two problems, there is one solution – more protein! Do they need to eat animal protein? Not necessarily. According to The Hauser Diet it is the percentage of calories from protein that is the key. The person may be eating 25% of their calories from protein/fat (vegetarian sources) and may need to change it to 50/50 or 75/25, protein-fat/carbohydrates, but it is acceptable to use vegetarian protein. In some cases, however, the person really only feels better once some animal protein is added back to the diet. Again, the Hauser Diet looks at the individual.

We are confident that The Hauser Diet® is better way to approach an individual’s diet. We may never have access to the millions of dollars that The China Study cost. But if we did, we are confident we would prove our point. It is individual physiology that is the key, and that a couple tests can objectively show a snapshot of a person’s metabolism. Having said that, if we took seriously the edicts of The China Study by:

  • Becoming vegetarian
  • Eating primarily vegetables
  • Stopping animal protein (especially casein)

We believe, compared to the processed junk food that most Americans consume, these principles would make our nation healthier. Would we support our national diet being more vegetarian than it is now? Absolutely! However, we do need to bring up the point that many vegetarians we know actually do not eat many vegetables at all, but rather eat a lot of cheese, breads, and processed foods. We also know that many of these vegetarians eat a tremendous amount of wheat products, and upon testing we find the wheat is a contributing factor to their illness. When we say “vegetarian,” we are talking about a gluten and casein-free vegetarian. Will future studies find vegetarian protein is healthier than animal protein? We believe so. But it would not surprise us that certain individual’s physiologies simply do better with animal protein versus vegetarian protein. This has been our clinical experience.

Perhaps a statement by Dr. Campbell says it best “Everything in food works together to create health or disease.” He notes on page 107 that The China Study was an important milestone in his thinking. Standing alone, it does not prove that diet causes disease. Absolute proof in science is nearly unattainable. Instead, a theory is proposed and debated until the weight of evidence is so overwhelming that everyone commonly accepts that theory as most likely true. We agree with this completely and have the utmost respect for Dr. Campbell and his team. We just believe that the test of time and future studies will confirm the tenants of The Hauser Diet®, and not The China Diet.

While we are sure that some of what we have written may offend some people, particularly our vegetarian friends, please realize that we treat one patient at a time. Many books written by clinicians or researchers in cold climates claim high protein/animal protein diets are best, while other books or research done in warm climates claim that vegetarian diets are best. What The Hauser Diet® does is explain why both are correct! While broad recommendations can be made for whole populations, we still believe that a person with a particular health goal should get Hauser Diet Typing and food sensitivity testing for an individualized healthy diet plan.

Never underestimate the power of food!

Ross A. Hauser, MD and Marion A. Hauser, MS, RD
The Doctor & The Dietitian®

Please feel free to email any questions or rebuttals to drhauser@caringmedical.com.

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