The China Study or Dry

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health

Author: T Colin Campbell

This exhaustive presentation of the findings from the China Study conclusively demonstrates the link between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Referred to as the "Grand Prix of epidemiology" by The New York Times, this study examines more than 350 variables of health and nutrition with surveys from 6,500 adults in 65 counties, representing 2,500 counties across rural China and Taiwan. While revealing that proper nutrition can have a dramatic effect on reducing and reversing these ailments as well as obesity, this text calls into question the practices of many of the current dietary programs, such as the Atkins diet, that enjoy widespread popularity in the West. The impact of the politics of nutrition and the efforts of special interest groups on the creation and dissemination of public information on nutrition are also discussed.

[This] elaborate study of rural Chinese gives big points to the health value of their plant-based diets.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer: Susan Nitzke, PhD(University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Description: This book has 18 chapters divided into four sections titled: The China Study, Diseases of Affluence, The Good Nutrition Guide, and Why Haven't You Heard This Before?
Purpose: T. Colin Campbell, an emeritus professor from Cornell University, and his son, Thomas M. Campbell, coauthored this book to present "a new framework for understanding nutrition and health, a framework that eliminates confusion, prevents and treats disease and allows you to live a more fulfilling life." This broad purpose is partially achieved by summarizing the evidence that favors eating only plant-based whole foods.
Audience: This book is written for the lay public. The senior author is the J. G. Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University.
Features: This book presents a mix of personal experience, population studies, and biomedical research to support the health benefits of a totally vegetarian diet. The benefits of this eating pattern are claimed to be wide-ranging -- from losing weight to reducing risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and diseases of the bones, kidneys, eyes and brain. Unfortunately, the authors are too quick to dismiss studies that oppose or weaken their conclusions.
Assessment: Students and health experts who wish to examine the evidence that favors a plant-based diet may find this book to be a useful and interesting summary. The book includes hundreds of notes and references, adding to its value for such scholarly applications. However, its value as an unbiased guide for the general public wouldbe difficult to justify.

Library Journal

In the 1980s, a comprehensive study of the effects of diet on disease and lifestyle was conducted among 6500 adults in 65 counties in rural China. Campbell (nutritional biochemistry, Cornell Univ.) examines the results of that study and compares the predominantly plant-based Chinese diets with the high consumption of meat and dairy products in the West. Drawing on hundreds of references and his 40-year career as a nutritional biochemist, Campbell compellingly argues that animal-based foods are responsible for high rates of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis, and the effects of aging. He challenges long-held beliefs about the nutritional benefits of animal products and points out the confusing glut of contradictory information disseminated by the food industry. Campbell urges readers to eliminate meat and dairy from their diets to achieve better health and longevity. His study will add a new dimension to the public debate about the role of plant-based foods in the human diet. Recommended for nutrition and health collections.-Irwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., New York Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Dry: A Memoir

Author: Augusten Burroughs

From the bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Dry—the hilarious, moving, and no less bizarre account of what happened next.You may not know it, but you've met Augusten Burroughs. You've seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants: a twenty-something guy, nice suit, works in advertising. Regular. Ordinary. But when the ordinary person had to drinks, Augusten was circling the drain by having twelve; when the ordinary person went home at midnight, Augusten never went home at all. Loud, distracting ties, automated wake-up calls, and cologne on the tongue could only hide so much for so long. At the request (well, it wasn't really a request) of his employers, Augusten landed in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey, Jr., are immediately dashed by the grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. But when Augusten is forced to examine himself, something actually starts to click, and that's when he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life—and live it sober. What follows is a memoir that's as moving as it is funny, as heartbreaking as it is real. Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a higher power.

The New York Times

Mr. Burroughs remains ebulliently glib when it's useful, as befits his advertising skills. But Dry also deals with two deaths: his lover's and, very nearly, his own. These are no laughing matters, but Mr. Burroughs remains adept at mixing comedy and calamity. — Janet Maslin

Publishers Weekly

Imagine coming home to find hundreds of empty scotch bottles and 1,452 empty beer bottles in your apartment. This is what Burroughs (Running with Scissors) encountered upon returning from Minnesota's Proud Institute (supposedly the gay alcohol rehab choice). "The truly odd part is that I really don't know how they got there," admits Burroughs in this autobiographical tale of being a prodigy with an extremely successful career in advertising and a drive to get as wasted as possible as often as possible. Burroughs's telling of the tale alternates among hilarious, pathetic, existential and hopeful. It is an earnest and cautionary tale of calamity, brimming with Sedaris-like darkly comic quips: "Making alcoholic friends is as easy as making sea monkeys." Burroughs's slight Southern accent and gentle yet glib delivery should summon empathy on the listener's part that may have been lost with another reader. From Minnesota, Burroughs returns to New York and participates in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Like James Frey in the similar yet very different book, A Million Little Pieces (see audio review, below), Burroughs believes that when rehab is over, he must walk into a bar to see if he can resist the temptation to drink. Though not a technique condoned by A.A., it certainly makes for a fascinating listening experience. Simultaneous release with the St. Martin's hardcover (Forecasts, Apr. 21). (June) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Burroughs's memoir of his troubled childhood, Running with Scissors, which was recently issued in paperback, captured considerable attention and even had a run on the New York Times's best sellers list. This sequel is an account of his early adult life as an advertising executive in New York City attempting to recover from alcoholism. He begins his advertising career as a 19-year-old with intelligence and a flair for writing but no education past elementary school. But scars remain from the years with his alcoholic father, his lunatic mother, and her wacky psychiatrist, and drinking slowly becomes the focus of his life. Consuming prodigious amounts of alcohol often leaves him hung over and reeking, causing his employer to urge him to attend rehab for a month. He chooses a hospital for gays in Minnesota and, after a week or so, begins to gain some insight about his drinking. After rehab, he returns to his apartment and begins to gather up the 27 large garbage bags of liquor bottles he has accumulated. With irreverent and humorous touches, Burroughs manages to personalize the difficulties of recovery without ever lapsing into sentimentality. This heartfelt memoir will interest readers who enjoyed his debut and those wanting new insights into addiction and recovery. Recommended for large public libraries.-Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Like the alcohol he so enjoys, Burroughs's story of getting dry will go straight into your bloodstream and leave you buzzing, exhilarated, and wiped out. Burroughs is a malcontented, successful advertising copywriter: in his 20s, gay, living in Manhattan, and owner of a childhood that the word "nightmare" doesn't even begin to cover (as described in Running With Scissors, 2002). Burroughs is an alcoholic, a true-blue, two-fisted, drink-till-you-see-the-spiders-on-the-wall alcoholic. He is not, as he would say, the man you'd want operating the cotton gin—he is funny and dark. This is his story of trying to keep the next drink from coming. Declaring he's "vain and shallow"—"If I were straight, I am certain I would be one of those guys who goes to wet T-shirt contests and votes with great enthusiasm"—he's quick to strike a pose to admire his silhouette; but in his own half-mad way, he's an original, a step aslant of the cutting edge, and wonderfully capable of expressing the miseries and sublimities of detox. It starts with his agreement—dry out, or get fired—to enter rehab; he chooses a gay clinic in Minnesota: "a rehab hospital run by fags will be hip. Plus there's the possibility of good music and sex." Reality quickly intrudes when the clinic staff checks him for cologne ("Oh, you'd be surprised by the things alcoholics will try and sneak in here to drink") and proceeds along a circuitous path thereafter, with plenty of opportunities for cliffhanging—bad decisions in his love life; a coworker trying to sabotage his efforts to reform; AA abandonment; his best friend's death; the "alcoholic terrorist" in his head—weaving in and out of gallows humor and ahoned starkness. In the end, it's all up to Burroughs, and to give the end away would be criminal, for this memoir operates on a high level of involvement and suspense. Didn't think you'd ever feel even an ounce of sympathy for—let alone root for—a drunken adman, did you? Meet Mr. Burroughs. Agent: Christopher Schelling/Ralph M. Vicinanza Ltd.

What People Are Saying

Robert Sabuda
From the master pop-up artist:
I'll never complain about having a "tough day" again.... This memoir is so brutal, yet funny -- it should be required reading for anyone touched by the specter of substance abuse.