The plan is based on the theory that your blood type is determined by your ancestors’ diet and that your diet should match your blood type to be healthy. The diet plan popularized by naturopathic doctor Peter D’Adamo is based on the theory that your diet should be based on your blood type.
D’Adamo states that the food you should consume and avoid is based on your blood type.
He states that you can improve your health and steer clear of numerous illnesses by consuming food following these guidelines.
Is this true, though? Some people believe that you can improve your health by eating a diet that is based on your blood type.
What Is the Blood Type Diet?
The Blood Type Diet was created by Dr. James D’Adamo, a naturopathic doctor, in the 1980s and then popularized by his son and fellow naturopathic doctor, Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo. Even though its popularity has been going down in the past 10 years, it is still getting attention today.
After inputting your blood type, the program provides you with a personalized list of the best types of foods to eat, what foods to avoid, stress management tips, and the most beneficial types of exercise for you. So, someone with type A blood should supposedly eat differently than someone with another blood type, according to D’Adamo.
The Blood Type Diet, which was made popular by Dr. Peter D’Adamo’s book Eat Right 4 Your Type, was published in 1996. There are now multiple books available on personalized diets, such as cookbooks and lists of recommended foods and supplements. He has sold over 7 million copies of his original book. Dr. D’Adamo has built his own version of the Blood Type Diet into a major business, selling a variety of branded dietary supplements, teas, nutrition programs, and even a skincare line.
What to Eat on the Blood Type Diet
Your blood type is determined by the genes passed on from your parents and can be classified using the ABO or Rh systems.
There are four blood types categorized in the ABO system: A, B, AB, or O. The Rh system classifies your blood type into positive or negative. For example, if you have type A blood, it will be classified as A-. When two different blood type systems are combined, there are a total of eight possible blood types.
The Blood Type Diet does not consider the Rh system in its recommendations. Instead of using the ABO system to recommend one of four diet plans, it only uses the ABO system to recommend one diet plan. The four diet plans are the type A blood diet, type B blood diet, type AB blood diet, and the type O blood diet.
A Blood Type Diet
D’Adamo classifies people with type A blood as people who are associated with agriculture or cultivation.
A person’s likelihood of developing certain illnesses can be based on their genetics. For these people, it’s best to eat specific types of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seafood, seeds, legumes, beans, and grains in order to avoid diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
D’Adamo states that people with type A blood should largely avoid dairy and meat, as they can cause insulin reactions and low stomach acid content, respectively. Too much wheat intake can also lead to muscle tissue becoming overly acidic.
D’Adamo recommends that people with type A blood do calming exercises such as yoga and tai chi, hiking, swimming, and bicycling, and avoid vigorous exercise because it can make them more sensitive to things.
B Blood Type Diet
D’Adamo refers to people with type B blood as people who are constantly moving and never staying in one place for too long.
These people’s immune systems are unusually strong, allowing them to resist most diseases or recover quickly if they do contract them. However, this same strength can also lead to problems, such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME), multiple sclerosis, and lupus.
They can eat from most food groups with the exception of chicken. This includes fruits, vegetables, seafood, dairy, meats, nuts, seeds, beans, legumes, and grains.
D’Adamo believes that type B personalities should do exercises that are somewhere in between too aerobically intense and completely mentally relaxed, such as hiking, biking, the less aggressive martial arts, tennis, and aerobics.
AB Blood Type Diet
D’Adamo refers to people with type AB blood as “enigmas” because they are less likely to have a specific reaction to a food than people with other blood types.
The AB diet is the most complex of all D’Adamo’s Blood Type Diets because it is a mix of type A and B.
If you have type AB blood, you should avoid eating all meats except lamb, rabbit, turkey, pheasant, and some animal livers. However, you can enjoy many types of seafood. Most animals that are classified as omnivores can eat fruits, vegetables, and cereals. They can also choose to eat nuts, dairy products, beans, and pulses.
Type ABs should exercise similarly to Type As by focusing on yoga and tai chi.
O Blood Type Diet
D’Adamo states that people with type O blood are “hunters.”
It is best for type Os to eat animal protein, avoiding bacon, goose, ham, and pork, but they should avoid dairy products and grains. They can eat most fruits and vegetables, as well as beans, nuts, and seeds.
D’Adamo believes that the best way for Type Os to deal with stress is through regular intense exercise such as weightlifting, martial arts, stair climbing and contact sports. This will help them maintain a healthy weight, emotional balance and strong self-image.
What the Blood Type Diet Gets Right
Some Blood Type Diets Limit Animal Products
First, some blood types are encouraged to limit consumption of animal products and eat healthier. Dr. James D’Adamo originally tried prescribing a low-fat, vegetarian diet to all his patients. D’Adamo theorized that if individuals didn’t all do well on the same diet, it might be because of their blood type. So, the diet originally came from the idea that plant foods are better for your health than animal foods.
Even though a plant-based diet isn’t the main focus of this program anymore, the blood type A diet is still mostly vegetarian, with the additions of turkey and seafood.
He also suggests eating organically grown food to reduce exposure to pesticides and live a healthier and more ethical lifestyle.
The Blood Type Diet Encourages Lifestyle Adjustments
The Blood Type Diet is aware that diet and lifestyle can affect someone’s health and how likely they are to get sick. The article is largely focused on diet and lifestyle changes that can improve health and prevent disease. Even though the evidence is not credible, the text encourages people to think about how and why to change their diet and lifestyle based on their blood type.
Lifestyle is an important aspect to consider when developing a diet plan, as global research suggests that ” four key factors – maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly, following a healthy diet, and not smoking – are associated with reducing the risk of developing chronic diseases by up to 80%.”
Blood Type Diets Are a Form of Personalized Nutrition
The program is an example that a one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition does not work. Phenotypic nutrition is a method of nutritional guidance that considers an individual’s genetic, physical, medical, and dietary factors to create recommendations for that individual.
Research has explored the need for personalized nutrition. In the 2015 journal Cell, researchers did a study where they monitored the blood glucose trends of 800 people over the course of one week. They measured how 46,898 different meals affected the blood glucose levels. The researchers found that people had very different responses to the same meals in terms of their blood sugar levels. This indicates that one-size-fits-all dietary advice may not be effective for everyone.
There’s certainly precedent for personalized nutrition. It is probably best to consider multiple factors when trying to improve one’s health, such as blood markers, dietary habits, body measurements, physical activity, and gut microbiota, rather than relying on blood type alone.
Other factors that can influence a person’s nutritional needs are their age and stage of life. There are differences in the recommended nutrition needs between different groups of people, such as children, teens, adults, pregnant and lactating women, and seniors.
Problems with the Blood Type Diet
A Focus on Genetics
The blood type you have is determined by your genetics. Research suggests that genetics are only one part of the puzzle when it comes to your health and that they rarely determine your destiny by themselves.
Your genes are not the only factor that determines your behavior, diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices. Environmental influences and current health conditions must also be taken into consideration. There are no genes that determine whether you will go for a walk, or order a salad instead of a cheeseburger, or whether you live in a food desert.
Additionally, your genes can be influenced by the foods you eat, not just specific variants. If you are genetically predisposed to type 2 diabetes, you can often avoid the disease by eating a high-fiber, plant-based diet that is mostly made up of whole foods. Type 2 diabetes can develop in anyone who eats the standard American diet, even if they don’t have the genes for it.
Blood Type Diets Emphasize Supplements
This diet suggests that you will see certain health benefits based on your blood type, and they have supplements to help you achieve these benefits.
The supplement advisor program is designed to improve your quality of life, but it does not consider input from your health care advisor.
In general, you should get most of your nutrients from food, especially whole foods, rather than from supplements.
Should You Change Your Diet Based on Blood Type?
No.
D’Adamo’s claims about the Blood Type Diet have not been supported by any studies, making it more of a collection of his opinions about dieting rather than a science-based approach.
Some people who are more accepting of fad diets might say that it is not fair to dismiss the Blood Type Diet without studies to refute D’Adamo’s claims. I disagree with that statement. Science does not work that way.
An important tenet of the scientific method is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to substantiate them. If such evidence is lacking, it is assumed that the claims are invalid (this is technically known as the null hypothesis).
At the very least, one would expect D’Adamo to provide a strong argument based on how his particular diet regimen works (for example, demonstrating that chicken proteins cause clumping of type B red blood cells in a test tube). However, he has not even been able to meet this low standard.
According to D’Adamo, we should have seen scientific evidence by now to support his diet recommendations, but there is very little evidence, if any, that suggests his diet is effective.
A review study conducted by scientists at Belgian Red Cross-Flanders found that the Blood Type Diet affects health. The researchers looked at 1,415 studies and found that only 16 were designed in a way that would provide useful answers. Only 4 of these involved a diet that was remotely similar to the Blood Type Diet.
As they dug further, they had to remove three studies that were riddled with methodological flaws, and the one study left (again, out of almost 1,500) involved a protocol that was a far cry from the Blood Type Diet (it explored how LDL cholesterol levels changed when people with different blood types followed a low-fat diet and used the MNS blood type system, not the ABO system).
The researchers concluded that there is no evidence that blood type diets have any health benefits.
An observational study conducted by scientists at the University of Toronto provides more reasons to doubt the benefits of the Blood Type Diet.
The type A diet was shown to improve health markers including BMI, waist circumference, blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides in this study. The types AB and O dieters also had some good changes, but they weren’t as great as the type A dieters.
There’s a twist, however. Although some blood type diets were linked to better cardiometabolic health, these associations were not related to a person’s ABO blood type.
This means that the improvements seen were not due to following the specific diet for each blood type, but were instead due to other factors.
And this makes perfect sense.
Most Americans eat an abysmally poor diet. You would see improvements in your health if you took the average American diet and substituted it for D’Adamo’sBlood Type Diet, which is rich in healthy fruits, vegetables, minimally processed meats, dairy, grains, and eggs.
If they didn’t restrict themselves to eating only foods they disliked and cutting out foods they enjoyed, they would probably see even better results.
Eating a nutritious diet that is minimally processed is the real key to better health, not following a diet based on your blood type.
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