The China Study is a ground-breaking analysis of more than 8,000 statistically significant associations between various dietary factors and disease. The author is Dr. Colin Campbell, PhD, (with Thomas M. Campbell II) who started his work more than 20 years ago, looking for correlations between disease (heart disease, cancer and diabetes) and what we eat.

The overwhelming amount of research and work that went into this book means it's not an easy read. You will have to think when you pick this book up - that's not a bad thing, but don’t pick up this book expecting to find the newest and greatest nutrition advice from Suzanne Sommers. This book has been a monumental undertaking and is 417 pages, including index.

We are inundated with information about what is good for us and what is bad for us. Most of the time it just depends on nothing more than who is funding the study. Back when big tobacco corporations were losing their grip on the American cigarette market, they actually funded studies to say that smoking was good for your health. While we wouldn’t fall for that marketing scam today, we are still being blasted with information that’s just as bogus. Part of the problem is that we don’t know what’s true and what isn’t because it’s not as in-your-face or obvious as “smoking is good for your health.” The marketing ploys of today are more subtle and far-reaching.

Take lycopene: Dr. Campbell talks about the industry’s love of “tinkering” with what nature is providing us, using lycopene as an example.

Lycopene is found in tomatoes and is considered good as a prostrate cancer preventative. What the industry then did was forget that the start of the lycopene craze was about tomatoes and they started turning and twisting the information to suit their marketing and sales goals.

“As of this writing, there now are 1,361 (!) scientific publications on lycopene cited by the National Library of Medicine. A major market is developing, with trade names like Lycopene 10 Cold Water Dispersion and LycoVit 10% to be used as food supplements,” writes Dr. Cambpell. He goes on to explain why lycopene may or may not actually prevent anything and that isolating lycopene from the actual food is not the answer to our problems.

The reason “industry” messes with anything and everything though it money. They find something “new and exciting” and they run with it. They package it wrapped in the fear of cancer and then they sit back and take in millions. And Americans can’t seem to get enough of it.