Earlier this month on 4^th of February was World Cancer Day – a day that unites people, around the world, with the aim to raise awareness and education about cancer. METI’s contribution will be to devote its weekly column for the rest of the month on various aspects of cancer. 

In this column we will focus on the ground breaking work of Colin T. Campbell Ph.D. Emeritus Professor of Nutrition chemistry at Cornell University in New York, USA. Dr. Campbell is one of the pioneers of the whole food, plant based nutrition approach that METI has been promoting for nearly ten years for the control of various non-communicable disease (NCD) conditions such diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer. 

Early in his career, Professor Campbell studied the high incidence of malnutrition in children in the developing world. One of his assignments in the 1970s was to study malnutrition among Filipino children. These were the days that animal protein were considered the treatment of choice for malnutrition and he definitely had this preconceived idea when he embarked on his mission. 

However, when he assessed the problem once arrived in the Philippines, he found the extent of the malnutrition so enormous that no amount of containers of American beef (that had already been planned to be sent!) would be sufficient to solve the problem.  There had to be a local solution to finding a steady supply of proteins and so, they stumbled on a local source of protein: peanuts! 

Peanuts were grown all over the country and so feeding the malnourished children with peanut butter would solve the problem. It then so happened that Dr. Campbell at a reception met with a surgeon, who, in fact, was the personal physician of President Marcos, who was then in power. The surgeon reported that they had to deal with a high number of cases of cancer of the liver in young children. This baffled Dr. Campbell since cancer of the liver usually happens in older adults. But in children: obviously something had to be there that poisoned the children’s livers. Dr. Campbell and his team studied the problem and found the culprit:  it was aflatoxin, a chemical found in mouldy peanuts, which is a known potent liver poison. 

The team went to examine the different brands of peanut butter and sure enough: they found a high percentage of the samples contaminated with aflatoxin…. They soon found out that the companies trading in peanuts were selling the high quality peanuts to be eaten fresh but that all the poor quality peanuts (including the mouldy ones!) were turned into peanut butter! The Filipino government agencies increased their supervision of the peanut butter manufacturing and so the problem was solved. 

Or so it seemed. When Dr. Campbell met his surgeon friend again, he was happy to report on how the aflatoxin contamination of peanut butter had been eliminated. But then the surgeon reported another startling finding: his team had noticed that cancer of the liver only developed in children of rich families. A subsequent survey of the children – rich and poor – concluded that those that eat a diet rich in animal products developed cancer of the liver; those that consume a plant-based diet, like the children of poor families, who could not afford to buy animal products did not.

Serendipity had it that Dr. Campbell had just read an Indian research paper that reported that rats injected with aflatoxin developed cancer only when given a high-animal protein diet. Dr. Campbell repeated these experiments at Cornell University and found the same results! This shaped his vision ever since and which led him to join with other pioneers like Drs. Dean Ornish, Caldwell Esselstyn, John McDougall and others on the road to promote plant-based diets for the prevention and reversal of NCD, including cancer. The conclusion of all this: animal-based diets promote cancer; plant-based diets protect against cancer. 

We invite you to visit METI’s Healthy Living Clinic at House No. 51 at Motootua (across from the Kokobanana Restaurant) to become acquainted with METI’s whole food plant based diet and Lifestyle Change program. You can also purchase METI’s WFPB Cookbook written in English and Samoan. You can contact us on telephone 30550.