By Paul H Kemp

Healthy diet plans, so-called, bloom like Spring flowers every January, but few are appropriate for someone who is concerned with battling cancer. Most of these diet plans pull their punches on health in order to be more marketable to the vast majority of people who don't want to be that healthy.

When you delve into the scientific literature -- the pure science, unbiased by the agendas of those multinational food and pharmaceutical industries that often fund research -- you will find some disturbing truths about common food items that are actually contributing to the spread of cancer.

So says top cancer researcher T.Colin Campbell, PhD, who in his 45 year career at the highest levels of scientific research has had more than his share of run-ins with food industry politics. There are many lobbyists for the meat and dairy industry, in particular, that worked hard to keep Dr. Campbell's findings from being revealed to the public.

If you or a loved one have been diagnosed as having cancer, you may know that there are three stages in the life cycle of the disease. The first is "initiation"; the second is "promotion"; and the third stage is "metastasis". Many things can initiate cancer, but our body can destroy many cancers at this early stage if our immune system is doing its job.

Promotion is the critical stage when cancer can be arrested -- But How?

Dr. Campbell found that cancer growth can be "promoted" by certain types of protein sources, and turned off by others. Specifically, he found he was able to cause cancer cells to begin growing by feeding them on milk protein -- and "turn off" that growth by replacing milk protein with a vegetable source protein.

Raised on a dairy farm, and charged with finding ways to increase the protein levels in Third World diets, this discovery was a complete surprise to Dr. Campbell. It was assumed in the research community in those days that what people in poor countries needed for better health was more protein in the form of meat, fish, and dairy foods.

What T.Colin Campbell and his team of researchers found was just the opposite of what they had expected. Too much protein -- animal source protein -- was predictably connected with the growth and spread of cancer cells.

These findings were replicated by other researchers and have been published in peer-reviewed medical journals. They have been confirmed by the most comprehensive research project on the relationship of diet and disease, which is the subject of Dr. Campbell's book The China Study. There it was found that Chinese communities that consumed traditional, plant-based diets had far lower rates of cancer than those where the residents ate more animal-source protein.

This information has been kept out of the public eye for too long. Public health agencies hint that Americans, in particular, need to eat more fruit, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, but -- to avoid displeasing the powerful farm lobby -- you will never hear them suggest the wisdom of totally removing meat, eggs, and dairy products from our diet.

But Why Not?

When you are faced with the life-or-death question of how to stop cancer in your own body, you may be more willing to consider radical dietary changes than those whose primary motivation is merely losing a few pounds.

Perhaps it is time to draw a very clear distinction between the truly healthy diet plan and those that are simply focused on short-term weight loss.