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The China Study Finding Number Four

By adopting a nutrient rich diet and an active lifestyle, the risks for several diseases are reduced at the same time, without even thinking about it. This finding emerges from the observation that diseases cluster together in the same geographic regions and for the same populations, which suggests that they may have a common cause.

One of the most exciting general principles supported by the China-Oxford-Cornell Diet and Health Project was that certain diseases cluster together in the same geographic regions, populations, and individuals. There turns out to be two general groupings of disease: Diseases of Affluence and Diseases of Poverty, as seen in the chart.

This evidence supports the hypothesis that diseases that cluster together may have a common cause. In other words, the same conditions that foster diabetes also foster coronary heart disease. Otherwise, why would they so consistently appear in the same populations? In rural China, many of the Diseases of Affluence were associated with higher blood cholesterol levels, which again were strongly associated with dietary patterns. Extensive research from other studies and other settings support the finding that one type of diet and lifestyle (a nutrient-poor diet and sedentary lifestyle) is associated with many of our leading killers in the same way.

This leads to the exciting principle that lifestyle choices, if made correctly, can affect not just one, but many, of the major diseases that afflict Americans.

You don?t have to choose just to fight lung cancer, or heart disease. The same choices that affect one also affect the other. Successful lifestyle choices are tools to achieve wide-ranging health benefits.