By Gabriel Cousens, M.D.

The Tree of Life Foundation, under the direction of Gabriel Cousens, M.D., M.D. (H), is involved in a study of the effects of a live food diet on the growth patterns of pre-pubescent children as measured by height and weight.

At this stage, the preliminary data shows that the heights of 74 percent of the children are above the lowest 25th percentile and the weights of 68 percent of the children are above the lowest 25th percentile.

All children were above the lowest 10th percentile. In fact, the heights of 37% of the children are actually above the upper 75th percentile, which is above average. Over 60 percent of the children are above average for both height and weight as measured by The National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

It is important to note that the height and weight of the raw food children are in these ranges without being influenced by the stimulating affects of growth hormones to which the majority of non-vegan children are exposed.

It is interesting to note that the National Center for Health and Statistics 2001 shows the average weight for children “has doubled” while heights have remained the same. This suggests that we have a serious obesity problem in US children.

The preliminary conclusion of our data is that a live food diet has no major positive or negative effect on height and weight. None of the children in the study have a score above the top 90th percentile or below the lowest 10th percentile. Therefore, the children fall into the middle 80 percent of normal height and weight.

The Tree of Life is a nonprofit foundation in Patagonia, Arizona that is currently doing research in healing depression, on healing diabetes naturally for all groups--with a particular focus on Native Americans--and on the effects of a live food diet on the growth of pre-adolescent children as determined by height and weight.

Note: Susan from Tree of Life writes us the following about the raw babies study:

We are not actively seeking or promoting the study on live-food babies. We still want the contacts and we are filing them for future focusing. We have a Master's Degree program in vegan and live food nutrition and we are encouraging students to take on this project for their master's thesis. Our preliminary results are rather premature, as we only have 30 babies in the pool.


Write to Tree of Life at info@treeoflife.nu