The Full Measure

The D’Adamo shift starts at 9:30 each Friday morning and after a week of early morning classes that stretch into clinic work that often goes into the early evening, needless to say, each of the six of us students hurry into the conference room clutching large cups of something caffeinated. Dr. D’Adamo, on the other hand, is always ready to go; he swears by some special kind of green tea. As we all plunk into our seats, Dr. D’Adamo starts riffing on a variety of topics: the perils of using peppermint Dr. Bronner’s soap to wash your face, ways we can tweak the patient interview to make it run more smoothly, and the content of the different books he brings in weekly to show us. After taking a few of our questions, Dr. D’Adamo breaks to allow the first team to take the patient who’s just arrived. Our two patients today are a couple of friends who are acolytes of Dr. D’Adamo’s who have just come off his annual conference that was held over the summer. They are mad for the GenoType plan, have measured themselves already, and are eager to have their intake done and questions answered by the man, himself.

When Sue walks off the elevator with the two other students I work with, Jaime and Jen, I can tell she means business. This is a woman not to be deterred from her GenoType: she strides swiftly down the hallway, looking me straight in the eye as she grasps my hand firmly in greeting without much of a smile: she’s ready to get to work. And get to work, we do. Jaime and Jen are 4th-years, and therefore the student clinicians while I am a 3rd year, also known as an intern. One of the clinicians is tasked with taking the patient history and vitals while the other conducts measurements; I record measurements and generally provide assistance on measuring the patient.

Sue is thin, intense and knowledgeable. She’s a nutritionist and acupuncturist and favors the color purple: her sweater, t-shirt and socks are all shot through with different shades of the color. Her salt-and-pepper hair is straight and cut in a bob style. As Jen interviews her about her history, her eyes peer through frameless glasses out onto an invisible horizon as she recounts her lengthy and detailed history. Sue already knows that she is a blood type B+ and a non-secretor (more on what the latter means in a few paragraphs). She started on the Blood Type diet and has since switched to the GenoType Diet, after identifying herself as a Nomad (again, more on this later — so much to explain, so little time). Her chief complaint consists of a host of eye problems: chronic blepharitis, corneal ulceration and chalazians. In addition to the diet, she takes a few supplements for immune support including nucleotides, olives leaf extract and echinachea. She also treats her eyes with colloidal silver eye drops. Recently, she’s experienced vitreous detachment in her left eye, causing her to see “zillions of black floaters like a meteor shower.” Problems of lesser concern are an overly revved sympathetic division of her autonomic nervous system that causes sleep disturbances with night sweats, heavy metal toxicity, deep body coldness, a self-diagnosed goiter that sits to the left of her throat and sinusitis. We have our work cut out for us.

As Jen continues the patient history, Jaime and I get to work on taking Sue’s measurements, which will be entered into the SWAMI software to determine her GenoType. The first question that often comes up, and that Dr. D’Adamo addresses in his book The GenoType Diet, is why are these measurements taken to determine genetic makeup as opposed to having lab tests done? His answer to that is 3-fold: first, lab testing takes time and money; second, there are no lab tests for every genetic disorder such as Alzheimer’s so taking a good family history is as good as doing a genetic test for determining predispositions; and thirdly, and most importantly, most genetic diseases are not caused by one gene but by a combination of genes interacting, something which genetic lab tests don’t take into account. So, instead of lab testing, we take the GenoType measurements, which give a fuller picture of an entire genetic makeup.

I will walk you through some, not all of the measurements we do and why we do them.
First, we measure trunk length and leg length to determine whether the patient’s torso or legs are longer. These measurements are connected to the level of insulin-like growth factors 1 and 2 the patient was exposed to in utero. These factors determine leg length and height and are connected to risk for various diseases. For example, having short legs is connected to an increased risk of coronary heart disease. Tallness is associated with increased risk for hormonally-dependent cancers like breast and prostate cancer. Dr. D’Adamo has linked the various leg and torso lengths, and their ratios, with the various GenoTypes.

We also measure the length of the index (D2) and ring fingers (D4) on both hands, looking for the D2:D4 ratio. Finger length shows how much sex hormone a fetus has been exposed to in the womb, predisposing it to certain illnesses. “A longer ring finger means you encountered more androgens in the womb (androgens are a testosterone precursor); a longer index finger means you faced higher levels of estrogen,” says Dr. D’Adamo. From comparing the ratios of the two sides of the body, we also get information about the body’s symmetry. Higher levels of symmetry indicate less in utero stress. Finger length ratios also correlate to GenoType groupings.

Speaking of fingers, fingerprints are also a great indicator of developmental symmetry. We take a patient’s full set of fingerprints and then examine them to see if they’re one of three patterns: arch, whorl or loop. The more symmetrical your two hands are (index finger to index finger, for example), again, the calmer was your existence before birth. Many studies have been done linking specific diseases to fingerprint patterns and Dr. D’Adamo uses them as clues to a patient’s GenoType. What I found the most fascinating about fingerprints is that if a person has horizontal lines on her fingers, it indicates gluten sensitivity and malabsorption; this can be reversed with proper diet.

Jaw angle is the next measurement we take to help determine GenoType. This is called gonial angle. There are three basic jaw angle groupings: wide-angled, which lends the face an almond shape, and narrow, also called “lantern jaw,” and everything that falls in between those two. “Statistically,” D’Adamo writes, “an almond-shaped jaw seems to correlate to such disorders as toxemia during pregnancy, pernicious anemia, ulcers, and migraines in women, and to migraines in men. Square- or lantern-shaped jaws, on the other hand, may reflect more slippery tissue, and that may be why they’re more correlated with breast and uterine cancer: The cancer cells have an easier time detaching from slippery tissue and spreading through the body.”

Blood type is also factored in to GenoType, as is secretor status, which is a fascinating thing. Secretor status is linked to your blood type. Basically, your secretor gene controls whether you secrete your blood-type antigen in your body secretions like saliva, mucus, etc. Eighty-five percent of people are secretors and it is the non-secretors who have greater environmental sensitivities, a harder time burning fat, weaker defenses against parasites, and are generally your problem patients. Secretor status is determined by a blood test.

We take a lot of other measurements and since there’s not enough time here to discuss them all, I’ve included a complete list of the measurements we take at the bottom of this posting. Please pick up Dr. D’Adamo’s book The GenoType Diet for a further discussion of particular measurements, if you’re interested. At the end of the appointment, we take our full list and feed them into the SWAMI software, which then swiftly makes thousands of calculations to tell us the patient’s GenoType.

Back to our faithful patient, Sue, who, it turns out is an Explorer. Sue’s hydrogen is off the charts so D’Adamo diagnoses her with small intestinal overgrowth. Breath hydrogen is another factor we take into account when determining GenoType: we determine levels with a small machine that the patient blows into after ingesting a small amount of sugar in the form of lactulose, which transits the GI tract. If there is lots of intestinal overgrowth, the little critters will give off copious amounts of hydrogen. As we print out Sue’s diet and recipe plan, D’Adamo tweaks SWAMI to deemphasize foods that cause bacterial overgrowth. He emphasizes foods that have butyric acid (an anti-inflammatory particularly indicated for the GI), choline (which prevents inflammation), lauric acid (as is found coconut oil, which is useful for its antimicrobial properties) and lignans (high in phytoestrogens). He also recommends that she puts tomato slices on her eyes when they flare up, as tomatoes agglutinate staph, which he diagnoses are responsible for her infections.

Along with her brand new Explorer diet protocol, D’Adamo also gives her a long list of supplements to take home. For those of you interested, I’ve listed them below. Needless to say, Sue is in for an adjustment period as she comes off her old list of supplements and switches up her eating habits. But for this kind of patient, a challenge is just what she wants. We’ll visit with her in a month to see how she’s doing.

Next week in The Shift: Maura finally explains the characteristics of each GenoType.

If you have any questions or comments, please make them known! Email me at: maura.henninger@gmail.com.



Sue’s full list of supplements and why she’s taking them:
• Licorice: This was prescribed for her overactive sympathic nervous system. Licorice is known to block 11 hydroxysteroid, which is responsible for converting cortisol to cortisone, which can actually act as a precursor to cortisol, causing a build-up in the bloodstream. It is also a potent antiviral and anti-inflammatory.
• Methionine: Augments licorice effects.
• Potassium: Licorice can produce salt and water retention (this is called pseudoaldosteronism). Extra potassium is needed to counteract this.
• Cortiguard: An NAP product that contains bacopa leaf and boerhavia to maintain proper cortisol levels.
• Polyflora B: An NAP product that contains acidophilus and other healthy bacteria particular for B blood type.
• Deflect B: An anti-lectin supplement also produced by NAP for the B blood type.
• Burdock: He recommended either capsules or cooking up a “chunk” and eating it. It’s a blood purifier.
• Arabinogalactan: Support liver and provides immune support.
• Intrinsa: An NAP product to help balance GI flora.
• Fucus: Prohibits lectin binding especially in digestive tract.


The full list of measurements taken to determine GenoType:
Height, weight, waist circumference, hip circumference, somatotype, trunk length, leg length, upper leg length, lower leg length, upper leg space, tendon visibility, wrist encirclement, handedness, intracellular water %, extracellular water %, body fat %, lean muscle mass % (the previous four measurements are taken with an impedance machine), Carabelli cusp absence or presence, incisor shoveling absence or presence, cranial width, cranial length, gonial angle, blood type, PROP taster status, secretor status, caffeine sensitivity, lactose tolerance, ethnicity, present or absence of urine free radicals, urine analysis full reading, hydrogen breath test taken at 5 intervals, length of index and ring fingers, fingerprints on both hands with presence or absence of white horizontal lines.