T. Colin Campbell Biography

He is the author of over 300 research papers and three books, The China Study (2005, co-authored with his son, Thomas M. Campbell II, which became one of America’s best-selling books about nutrition), Whole (2013) and The Low-Carb Fraud (2014).

Campbell featured in the 2011 American documentary Forks Over Knives. Campbell was one of the lead scientists of the China–Cornell–Oxford Project on diet and disease, set up in 1983 by Cornell University, the University of Oxford, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine to explore the relationship between nutrition and cancer, heart, and metabolic diseases. The study was described by The New York Times as “the Grand Prix of epidemiology”.

T. Colin Campbell Age

T. Colin Campbell was born on March 14, 1934, in the United States of America. He is 85 years old as of 2019.

T. Colin Campbell Wife

T. Colin Campbell is married to Karen Campbell. The couples were blessed with a child known as Thomas M. Campbell.

T. Colin Campbell Education

T. Colin Campbell studied pre-veterinary medicine at Pennsylvania State University, where he obtained his B.S. in 1956, then attended veterinary school at the University of Georgia for a year.

He completed his M.S. in nutrition and biochemistry at Cornell University in 1958, where he also studied under Clive McCay (known for his research on nutrition and aging) and received his Ph.D. in nutrition, biochemistry, and microbiology in 1961, also at Cornell University.

T. Colin Campbell Biochemist

Campbell joined MIT as a research associate, then worked for 10 years in the Virginia Tech Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition, before returning to Cornell in 1975 to join its Division of Nutritional Sciences.

Campbell worked as a senior science adviser to the American Institute for Cancer Research and sits on the advisory board of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Campbell is known in particular for research, derived in part from the China study, that appears to link the consumption of animal protein with the development of cancer and heart disease.

T. Colin Campbell argues that casein, a protein found in milk from mammals, is “the most significant carcinogen we consume”. Campbell followed a “99% vegan” diet since around 1990.

He does not identify himself as a vegetarian or vegan because, he said, “they often infer something other than what I espouse”. He told the New York Times: “The idea is that we should be consuming whole foods.

We should not be relying on the idea that genes are determinants of our health. We should not be relying on the idea that nutrient supplementation is the way to get nutrition because it’s not. I’m talking about whole, plant-based foods.”

He has been a member since 1978 of several United States National Academy of Sciences expert panels on food safety and holds an honorary professorship at the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. T. Colin Campbell is featured in the documentaries, Forks Over Knives, Planet, Vegucated, and PlantPure Nation, a film produced by Campbell’s son, Nelson Campbell.

T. Colin Campbell is also on the advisory board of Naked Food Magazine, for which he is also a regular contributor of articles espousing a plant-based diet. In 2010, after cardiac surgery, former U.S. president Bill Clinton mostly adopted the plant-based diet recommended by Dean Ornish, Caldwell Esselstyn, and Campbell.

He is also the author of over 300 research papers and three books, The China Study (2005, co-authored with his son, Thomas M. T. Colin Campbell has one of his book known as Campbell II, which became one of America’s best-selling books about nutrition), Whole (2013) and The Low-Carb Fraud (2014).

T. Colin Campbell featured his films in the 2011 American documentary Forks Over Knives. T. Colin Campbell was one of the lead scientists of the China–Cornell–Oxford Project on diet and disease, set up in 1983 by Cornell University.

T. Colin Campbell Charity

He is the founder of  T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies, a 501c3 organization, which was created to provide education about the whole food, plant-based lifestyle Campbell recommends. The Center partners with Cornell to provide an online course which is the focus of the education programs. He is the president of the board of directors for the Center.

T. Colin Campbell Books

• The China Study 2004
• Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition 2013
• The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted T. 2007
• The China Study, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health T. 2016
• The Carolina what about Science Series: What about the food you eat T. 1981

Net worth

T. Colin Campbell is an American biochemist who specializes in the effect of nutrition on long-term health who has an estimated net worth of $ 8 million dollars as of 2019.

Recommendations for Dietary Guidelines

In 1980, T. Colin had his first report on the Dietary Guidelines (DG) Advisory Committee where he was authored by his two friends of mine, the late Harvard School of Public Health Professor Mark Hegsted Ph.D. (representing the McGovern Committee and the USDA) and Allan Forbes MD, formerly FDA Chief of Nutrition.

I have remained keenly interested in the 5-year reports ever since. During the past 35 years, I have seen little if any progress toward a better understanding of diet, nutrition, and health.

This is regrettable because these reports serve as guidelines for health education, government school lunch, WIC (women, infants, and children), and other important public programs. I do not see how this report is any more progressive or insightful than its predecessors.

Previous reports have included new words and phrases which unfortunately did not lead to any real change. These modifications seem more intended for media attention, and I have found them to be cosmetic.

Over the decades, we have witnessed the recommendations take the form of a square (“Basic Four”) turned into a pyramid, into a dinner plate, and (almost) into a circle all with similar content.

Marketing yes, but science no. Failing to be more critical of the relationship between food and health favors the status quo, which already promotes the consumption of food that promotes costly diseases.

A more impactful message is needed if the health of the nation is to be advanced. Some people are pleased that the 2015 DG report mentions an association between livestock-based food and climate change.

But USDA Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack has already stated that the environment-food association is unlikely to be taken seriously. Read also Scott Campbell This coincides with food industry leaders’ contention that this committee has no expertise in this area.

Others are impressed with the phrase “plant-based food” as evidence that there might be enlightenment in the air. Sadly, I believe that merely using this language without being more specific is relatively superficial. The urgency for real dietary changes should be taken seriously.

The DG committee likes to develop its advice especially from the more in-depth content and findings of the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Thus my comments mostly concerning the scientific evidence probably should be directed to the FNB/IOM.

The executive summary of the 2002 FNB report made the extraordinary statement that up to 35% protein is associated with “minimizing risk for chronic disease” when 10% protein (the RDA) is enough.

The 35% protein recommendation was accepted and is still promoted by the DG committee. Promoting 35% protein as an acceptable level for the school lunch and WIC programs, for example, is a disaster.

In fact, he had a whole food plant-based on (WFPB) diet, with no added oil, can easily provide 10-12% total protein, which meets the long-established recommended daily allowance (RDA) of 9-10% protein.

He continued using an upper ‘safe’ level of 35% protein of total, daily dietary calories in my view is grossly unscientific and completely irresponsible. Whether overtly stated or not, this ‘safe’ level of protein has major implications for virtually everything that is said about the effects of food and nutrients on human health.

Another advisory with a much longer history, recommends abolishing the 300 mg/day limit on cholesterol consumption “because available evidence shows no appreciable relationship between dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol”. I agree with the proposal that the association of dietary cholesterol with serum cholesterol is very weak, if not non-existent.

It should also be added that the ability of serum cholesterol to predict heart disease for individual people is not especially impressive, even though serum cholesterol is useful 1) for monitoring time-dependent change in disease risk for individuals upon dietary intervention (i.e, inter-individual variance is eliminated) and 2) for comparing health status of large populations.

Dietary cholesterol is not a good predictor of heart disease or other degenerative diseases if this is based on the assumption that cholesterol specifically causes heart disease. But removing this dietary limit should not be interpreted as welcome news for carnivores, an implication that is left unexplained by the committee.

For decades, the unusual focus on cholesterol, without considering other possibilities, has been an exceptionally reductionist and misleading interpretation.

Dietary cholesterol may help to clog arteries but this condition accounts for only a small fraction (~10%) of coronary heart disease events. Far too much attention has been given to cholesterol as if it is a major cause of disease.

Such focus diverts attention away from the much more reliable evidence showing that a diet rich in animal protein, which represents multiple risk factors, is the main dietary cause of heart disease, cancer, and related degenerative diseases.

In experimental animal studies begun over a century ago, animal-based protein (casein), not cholesterol, was more responsible for increasing blood cholesterol and its association with the development of atherosclerosis.

Later studies (about 75 years ago) in experimental rabbits showed that casein (an animal protein) was five times more effective than soy protein (a plant protein) in raising serum cholesterol and in generating angiogenesis (early cardiovascular disease).

Animal proteins as a group are more effective in raising serum cholesterol in experimental animal studies than plant proteins, as a group.

Although follow-up human studies do not appear to respond to the specific effects of casein on serum cholesterol levels in the same way as do experimental animals, a broader perspective clearly shows that high animal protein-based diets increase risk.

Some of this is attributed to the direct effects of animal protein (by many mechanisms) and some of this is due to the displacement of the whole plant-based food containing disease protective nutrients (e.g., antioxidants, complex carbohydrates), also by countless mechanisms.

On a related topic, the long-held belief that saturated fat is a major cause of heart disease and certain cancers also should be questioned.

The 2015 report ignores research showing that dietary cholesterol and saturated fat are indicators of animal protein consumption, thus of animal food in The longtime tendency to infer disease causality to fats (e.g., saturated fats, cholesterol), intentional or unintentional,

he was generally accepted by the marketplace because he allowed for the removal of fat from animal-based foods (lean meat, low fat and skim milk), thus maintaining continued consumption of these foods.

Removing protein from these products was not an option because this would no longer even remotely be considered the same food or the same diet. This latest 2015 DG report repeatedly assumes that saturated fat is independently unhealthy, thus recommending that its intake be controlled.

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