The Blood Type Diet is a diet program that was developed by a naturopathic doctor Peter D’Adamo.
D’Adamo says that the blood type of your body determines the foods that your body has designed to consume and which foods you should cut out completely from the diet.
When you follow these guidelines, he claims you can enhance your health and prevent various ailments.
Does this really happen, however? Are you able to really improve your health through an eating plan based on blood type?
Find out the answer to this question in this article.
What is The Blood Type Food?
The Blood Type Diet, also often referred to in the form of “the blood group diet,” is a diet program that encourages you follow a diet that is based on the blood type of your.
It was popularized in late 1990s by naturopathic physician Peter D’Adamo (a naturopathic doctor is someone who seeks to utilize natural treatments to aid the body in healing itself) He wrote a book called Eat Right for Your Type explaining the diet’s theoretical foundation and the best way to follow it with success.
According to the book of D’Adamo it is recommended that we consider our blood type to figure out what foods our ancestors were able to eat, and then eat similar food items so that we are able to thrive as our ancestors did.
The book further states that failure to follow this can lead to Agglutination (clumping to form a clump) in red blood cells. This results in a myriad of medical issues.
How to Eat when following the Blood Type Diet
The blood type you have can be genetic (determined by your genes passed down through your family members) and is typically classified with two systems that are The ABO Rh and the ABO Rh systems.
The ABO system classifies blood kinds into four categories that are: A, B O, and AB. The Rh system categorizes you blood type in two more subgroups: negative or positive (A- for instance). So, when you mix these two systems, you will have eight blood types that could be identified.
The Blood Type Diet doesn’t factor the Rh system into its recommendations. Instead, it uses it’s ABO system to suggest one of the four diet plans that include The type A blood-type diet the type B blood diet the type A blood diet as well as the Type O blood-type diet.
A Blood Type Diet
D’Adamo refers to people who have type A blood type as “agrarians” or “cultivators.”
They are more susceptible to diseases like cancer, heart disease as well as diabetes. They should take in certain vegetables, fruits fish, nuts beans, seeds, legumes grains, and beans.
According to D’Adamo’s advice, those who adhere to the A Blood Type Diet should nearly completely stay clear of dairy products in order to avoid ” insulin reactions” and meat, as they have a “low stomach acid content” signifies the that they “store meat as fat.” They should also reduce consumption of wheat, as the “muscle tissue will become overly acidic.”
D’Adamo suggests that those with blood type A take part in relaxing exercises like yoga and Tai Chi, hiking and swimming, as well as bicycling. He advises against vigorous exercise due to “the heightened sensitivity of the nervous system gradually frays the person’s delicate protective antibodies.”
B Blood Type Diet
D’Adamo refers to those with Type B blood, referred to in the form of “nomads.”
They can “resist” most diseases or be able to survive them in the event that they get them, but are susceptible to developing diseases of the immune system, including chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) as well as the lupus, and multiple sclerosis.
They can consume all seafood, fruits, vegetables dairy products, meats (though it is not recommended to eat chicken, because of an unknown reason) as well as choose to eat seeds, nuts beans, legumes and grains.
According to D’Adamo’s advice the Type Bs should engage in exercises that aren’t too intensely aerobic or completely focused on mental relaxation. This includes biking, hiking, moderately aggressive tennis, martial arts and aerobics.
AB Blood Type Diet
D’Adamo refers to those with the type AB blood type as “enigmas.”
The AB diet is the most complicated of the D’Adamo Blood Type Diets because it’s a combination of types A and B.
Type ABs should stay clear of any meats, except rabbit, lamb turkey, pheasant and certain animal livers, however they can enjoy all kinds of fish. They can consume the majority of fruits, vegetables and cereals, as well as select dairy products, nuts beans, and pulses.
For physical exercise Type ABs should adhere to a similar schedule as Type As and concentrate on yoga and tai-chi.
O Blood Type Diet
D’Adamo refers to those with Type O blood, also known in the form of “hunters.”
Type Os are awe-inspiring on animals’ protein (the most meats they need to be wary of are goose, bacon Ham, pork, and bacon) however they should stay clear of dairy products as well as grains. They are also able to eat a wide variety of vegetables and fruits, and pick nuts, beans and seeds.
D’Adamo thinks that the most effective method for people with Type Os to handle stress and keep an ideal emotional balance, weight and positive self image is to do regularly intense exercises like the weight lifting, martial arts such as stair climbing, stair climbing, as well as contact sports.
A Proposed Connection Between blood type and diet
D’Adamo believes that blood reacts to specific kinds of proteins found in your food known as “lectins.”.
Lectins are proteins that bind to certain carbohydrates, like sugar (blood sugar), sucrose (table sugar) and the cellulose (fiber). They are found in nearly all life forms including animals, plants to microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria and fungi.
According to D’Adamo you consume lectins not compatible with your blood type, they target the organ or body system and begin to form clumps of blood cells in the area and cause a myriad of adverse consequences, such as Irritable digestive tract syndrome, cirrhosis of the liver, and reduced kidney circulation, to mention just some.
Your blood type determines the way your body reacts to various foods and the lectins that they comprise. Therefore, D’Adamo suggests that you tailor your diet to suit the blood type of yours to avoid any lectins that can cause harm to your body.
Should You Adjust your Diet based on the Blood type ?
No.
None of the studies back D’Adamo’s assertions about The Blood Type Diet, and in essence, it’s just simply his opinion on what foods to consume food, not an evidence-based approach to diet.
Certain people with an inclined to accept popular diets may think it’s unfair to denounce those who advocate the Blood Type Diet, because we don’t have any research to challenge D’Adamo’s assertions. To that, I’d add it’s not the way science operates.
A fundamental tenet in the science method is unusual claims require extraordinary proof to back them up, and if the evidence isn’t there it is assumed that the claim isn’t true (this is technically referred to by the term “the null hypothesis”).
At the minimum you’d think D’Adamo to come up with a convincing scientific argument to explain the reasons why his diet does the trick (for instance, proving that chicken proteins can cause the clumping of red blood cells inside the test tube) however, he hasn’t yet gotten over this hump.
D’Adamo has also stated that in his two books released in the years 1996 and 2004 that there would be scientific evidence to support his diet suggestions within a short time after publication However, to date we have no evidence to support the diet and no evidence that gives confidence.
For instance, a study study carried out by scientists from Belgian Red Cross-Flanders looked through hundreds of studies that could give clues about what it is that the Blood Type Diet affects health. After collecting 1,415 relevant studies and analyzing them, they discovered that only 16 of them were developed in a manner that could provide valuable information and only four of them had an eating regimen that was comparable to that of the Blood Type Diet.
In the process of digging deeper they had to eliminate 3 study which were rife with methodology flaws. The one study that was left (again from a total of 1500) included a method that was far away from Blood Type Diet (it explored the ways in which LDL cholesterol levels changed when individuals who had different blood types adhered to the low-fat diet and the Blood Type System of MNS but in contrast to an ABO method).
It is not surprising that the researchers concluded the following “no evidence currently exists to validate the purported health benefits of blood type diets.”
A more recent study that is an observational study carried out by researchers at University of Toronto. University of Toronto provides more evidence to question the advantages from The Blood Type Diet.
The study found that those who adhered to the type A diet had improvements in many indicators of health that included BMI the waist circumference, cholesterol, blood pressure and the triglycerides. The people who adhered to those following the types AB and the type O diets also saw positive results, but they didn’t show as much improvement as the type A diet.
There’s a twist. Although certain Blood type-specific diets have been linked with better cardiometabolic health these associations were not dependent on the individual’s ABO blood type.
Also, anyone who adhered to the diets for type A or type AB as well as the type O, type A and type AB diets experienced improvements , regardless of whether they consumed the proper diet for their blood type or not.
It makes complete sense.
The majority of Americans consume a pathetically poor diet. If you were to take the typical American and replaced their diet with any among D’Adamo’s blood Type Diets that are rich in healthy foods , such as vegetables and fruits, as well as minimally processed meats, dairyproducts, grains eggs, and grains and they’d notice improvements in their overall health, regardless of blood type.
There’s a good chance, though, they’d get even more positive results if they didn’t apply absurdly restrictive rules to themselves which force them to eat food items they don’t like and cut out food items they love.
The actual “secret” to better health The key to better health, therefore, isn’t following an eating plan that is based on your blood type but eating an eating plan that is rich in nutrients foods that are processed in a minimal way.
If you’d like some information on how many calories you should consume, how much of each macronutrient, as well as the foods you should consume to achieve your fitness and health targets, take the Legion Diet Quiz and in less than one minute, you’ll be able to determine which diet is best for you. Visit this link to take the quiz.