A Few Words on Blood Type

Before I say anything about our first patient in the Clinic this week, let me first talk a little bit about the Blood Type Diet. Back in 1996, the book Eat Right For Your Type came out and became a sensation. Since then, Dr. D’Adamo’s books have sold 5 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 65 languages. Person after person, after reading my blog and learning that I’ve been working with Dr. D'Adamo have voiced their skepticism or humbly offered that they just don’t understand why it works. Certainly, this is understandable. People trying to lose weight will blindly look to the latest fad (Grapefruit! Cabbage! Fasting!) in a desperate attempt to knock off the accumulated baggage of nightly dances with Ben and Jerry, without any understanding of why the plan they’re undertaking works or even if there’s any science to back it up. Who cares why it works, as long as it worked for someone, right? With Blood Type, the research is actually there to back it up.

So what happens when you eat something and what does it have to do with your blood? I'll use myself as an example. I’m a Type 0. In a nutshell, I’m supposed to eat lots of proteins, including red meat, and stay away from wheat and dairy. Let’s say I eat a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. That bagel and that cream cheese—and all foods, in fact— are packed with things called lectins, which are proteins found on the surface of the cells food. So, I’ve had my breakfast and the bagel bits and their accompanying lectins are swimming around in my stomach and they eventually enter my bloodstream where they meet my blood cells. Now, my blood cells will see the bagel and cream cheese lectins as foreign invaders (also known as antigens) and attack them with their own army of antibodies. This will result in the clumping of blood known as agglutation, literally the gluing together of tissues. This inflammation will lead to a host of health problems that can range from simple bloating, constipation and weight gain to full-fledged gastric ulcers and even severe respiratory allergies and autoimmune disorders. Bottom line: you want to reduce your body’s inflammation as much as possible. Dr. D’Adamo has tested hundreds if not thousands of foods and how they interact with each blood type, drawing correlations between disease and blood type. All you have to do is go on Dr. D’Adamo’s incredibly active message boards to see how many people for whom this has been an effective approach in everything from curing diabetes to lowering cholesterol to weight loss to simply clearing away that low level fatigue that seems to plague many of us.

I’m not going to take up any further space here by explaining each of the blood types, as my focus is D’Adamo’s more recent project the GenoType Diet, which is what we’re using in Clinic this fall.

For a good overview of the Blood Type Diet, check this Seattle Times article: http://www.dadamo.com/media/seattle.htm.

Do you want some basic guidelines on how to eat according to Blood Type?
Type O: Eat a high protein diet with lots of vegetables and fruit; limit grains, beans and legumes. Intense physical exercise suits you best, such as running or martial arts.
Type A: You’ll do best on a vegetarian diet. Dairy and too much wheat will make you feel sluggish and cause accompanying health problems; soy and pineapple will aid your metabolism. You’ll benefit most from exercise that calms your nervous system such as yoga, tai-chi, golf and brisk walking.
Type B: You are a balanced omnivore: you should eat meat, dairy, grains, fruit, vegetables, fish, beans and legumes in equal measure. To lose weight, avoid chicken, corn, lentils and peanuts. You should do moderate physical exercise that engages your mind such as tennis or cycling.
Type AB: This type is the anthropologically newest blood type, a combination of A and B. Foods that cause weight gain: red meat, kidney and lima beans, corn and wheat. Foods that encourage weight loss: tofu, seafood, dairy and green vegetables. AB’s are have the high stress profile of Type A’s so should also engage in exercises such as yoga, tai-chi, dance and hiking.