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Does anyone have experience with altering your diet depending on your specific blood type? The theory is that people with certain blood types should stick with certain "beneficial" foods and avoid others that may influence any number of health issues. A naturopath I've gone to highly recommends this kind of diet. We're doing some tests to see if my thyroid is f-ed up, and she believes this will help. Need some support to believe it's worth giving up my beloved tomatos, potatoes, mangos, oranges and.......ketchup. cry.gif

 

Hey but vino is still a-ok!! thumbs_up.gif

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i'm skeptical of the blood type diet craze. i read up on blood type distribution a while back and the inheritance is just your basic independently assorted allele. while you get more A's in western europe and more O's in eastern europe, the level admixture is too great to be of much use as a genetic marker for an individual's ancestral makeup. just my $.02

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cj001f said:

Is there a special diet for 0- people?

 

Yeah there are supposed to be specific beneficial foods for each type. My doc gave me a 5-page handout for Type A. I did a quick google for O's and it seems that you're meat eaters/high protein, but didn't list specifics. But my doc didn't categorize people like that. I could be a meat eater, too, but have to avoid bacon (mmmmm), beef (mmmmmm), and liver (fine by me).

 

I think if you look at the book "Eat Right 4 Your Type" it lists all the specific foods.

 

But again....I'm not totally endorsing this program cuz I don't know anyone who's done it.....hence this thread......

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I call bullshit. Someone at my work told me about this kind of diet and we all concluded it is crap. The concept is flawed in that they are saying that blood type your blood type is based upon what prehistoric region your ancestors lived in and what kind of food they ate, so their bodies had adapted to live of the whatever nutrients were available. Problem now is that everyone is so outbred that even though you have a specific blood marker your genetic makeup is so completely mixed there is no way you could make an association. The research this guy did was crap too, the subjects were him and his son.

 

This is a hippy/yuppy diet. When you eat like crap or are vegan and then start eating better with the inclusion of meat obviously you are going to feel better. DUH!

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trustyredalien said:

cj001f said:

Is there a special diet for 0- people?

 

Yeah there are supposed to be specific beneficial foods for each type. My doc gave me a 5-page handout for Type A. I did a quick google for O's and it seems that you're meat eaters/high protein, but didn't list specifics. But my doc didn't categorize people like that. I could be a meat eater, too, but have to avoid bacon (mmmmm), beef (mmmmmm), and liver (fine by me).

 

I think if you look at the book "Eat Right 4 Your Type" it lists all the specific foods.

 

But again....I'm not totally endorsing this program cuz I don't know anyone who's done it.....hence this thread......

I'm not O-, but a number of people I know are... I was more asking because as a universal donor I'd think the O- diet would be fairly similar to all the others. I'm suspicious that it's not.

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The thing about most diets out there is that they will work for SOMEONE, some time, but no diet works for everyone. Instead of spending money on a bunch of books, follow this plan: MODERATION -- take in fewer calories than you expend -- IF you're trying to lose weight, that is -- and try to eat a wide variety of foods... then of course there will always be those comics who interpret that suggestion as bacon, beer, bananas and berries (AHA, a new diet, the "B" foods diet!), but hopefully you get my drift.

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I have experience with it. I am an A+, and try to follow when it is practical. I will eat a steak now and then, but now I know why I feel so bloated afterwards. And the way that certain beans are friendlier to my system, if you know what I mean. If I'm at someone's house and they make me a non-type meal, I won't make a big deal about it, just graciously eat what is put in front of me. I totally believe in the "diet". It's not really a true "diet" like "eat organic Nepalese blackroot every day for a week and lose 20 pounds" but rather a philosophy of eating.

 

All I have to say is the proof is in the pudding, try it for a few weeks and see how you feel. You may not feel anything, but it's not the immediate benefits from the diet, but the long-term wear and tear from eating the wrong foods that can make the difference. I like it, I feel justified in why I tend to favor eating salads over the typical American meat and potatoes meal. You will notice that the O-type diet favors meat protein and minimizes carbohydrates. What are the majority of people? Type O. What does the Adkins diet emphasize? Protein and fat good, count (minimize) carbs. What's one of the hottest diet crazes in the country? The Adkins diet. My dad did the Adkins diet and hit a plateau with his weight loss. I had been talking to them over the years about this blood type "diet" and all of a sudden it seemed to make sense. He's always so skeptical about anything new, Mr. PhD Scientist, but I bought them the book, and they are now practicing the methods of eating described in the book, and my dad has been able to approach his ideal weight. He eats according to his type, but counts calories and works out three or more days per week.

 

 

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Mountain Woman-

With all do respect, just because your losing weight, doens't mean the diets healthy. Most of america coud go on the Gulag diet and lose weight - that doesn't mean it's healthy, or the best solution. With all honesty the best diet I've found is calorie reduction - simple things like 1 beer a day, no more candy, and no bacon at breakfast, coupled with an evening walk(in addition to waterever normal exerise routine) can make all the difference.

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From a scientific basis there is no data to support it. Even Pizzorno's Textbook of Naturopathic Medicine (which I refer to on occasion to understand what some of my patients are talking about when they come in complaining of "systemic candidiasis", "leaky gut syndrome" and "acetaldehyde poisoning") doesn't mention it. I did find an obscure Norwegian journal that published a few articles on it, but the abstracts appeared to be refuting any supposed benefits.

 

The global distribution of blood types definitely would not support the idea that blood types are related to available food sources. If this was true then what should be present is a distribution related to distance from the equator. Instead what we see is a distribution based on goegraphic isolation, which would best be explained by migration and a founder effect.

 

When the average American is 3 times more likely to believe in the virgin birth of Christ than evolution it's no wonder that people are taken in by ideas like this. A lot of people don't like science mucking up there perfectly explainable world based on common sense and teleology.

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No offense to anybody who believes this crap but this diet is so obsurd. Maybe it is obvious to me because I studied metabolism and human genetics and actually have a clue about this. I would believe that there is a diet by your hair color before this. Reason this ticks me off besides the fact that americans have no clue about proper diet is that there are people in this world who get paid with our tax dollars to do this type of bogus research. It's too common and I fight this every day in my own work.

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cj001f said:

With all do respect, just because your losing weight, doens't mean the diets healthy. Most of america coud go on the Gulag diet and lose weight - that doesn't mean it's healthy, or the best solution. With all honesty the best diet I've found is calorie reduction - simple things like 1 beer a day, no more candy, and no bacon at breakfast, coupled with an evening walk(in addition to waterever normal exerise routine) can make all the difference.

 

Yes, true. But I'm not trying to lose weight. I eat what I want, and try to keep 95% of what I eat from my Type A list. To all of you who poo-poo this based on what "a friend of a friend of a friend read on the internet", shame on you. Read the book, try it for three weeks, make up your own mind. But oh, that would take some effort. It's so much easier to dismiss new ideas than to embrace them.

Hopefully you will never have to regret years spent abusing yourselves with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, poor diet, etc. Most of you are young. Time marches on. You think you are immortal. You aren't. Stack the deck in your favor while you have time on your side.

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And I'll repeat what I've already said earlier: "The thing about most diets out there is that they will work for SOMEONE, some time, but no diet works for everyone." Mtnwoman, if you've found something that works for you, (whether real or imagined) then GREAT, keep doing what you're doing. Will it work for others? Maybe. Everyone? NO. Even the "perfect diet" will not work for everyone, because there will always be those who for whatever reason choose not to (or can't) stick with it. Any eating plan has to include tasty foods and be at least somewhat enjoyable, and fairly easy to follow, or nobody will be able to live with it for life. Moderation is a pretty easy rule to follow, and (as you point out with the 95%) if you can "pretty much" follow any sort of plan that requires you to take in less than you expend, you'll be far better off than most. The huge trick is to find what works for each individual, and what works at certain stages in one person's life won't necessarily work at the rest of the stages!

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My intention with this thread was not to discuss how to lose weight with the latest fad. If you want to flame the Jennifer Anniston Flat Ass Starvation diet then start another thread. The intention was about how diet (re: food type - not food volume/moderation) and blood type may or may not effect health issues (re: thyroid, migraines, high blood pressure, allergies, et. al.). Some of you made valid points about the difficulty in linking divergent blood types to ancestral eating patterns. Hmmmmm good point.

 

BUT I think that many of you are like most practitioners of Western medicine in that they debunk alternative ways of thinking in favor of shoving the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry down our systems. Pharmaceutical researchers do their own type of bogus research on the human lab rats in America - that's anyone who's ever walked into a drug store pharmacy - and then shove our own money up our ass with the price of prescription medicine. If Western docs and the public would look more at the root of ailments rather than covering them up with an exponential number of drugs there would be a decrease in the American dependency on prescription meds. Oh but wait, the pharmaceutical and insurance companies might lose some money. Can't let that happen.

 

I'm not saying we need to do away with Western medicine. Believe me I'll be in line for the cure for cancer. I'm not some hippy freak and am skeptical of a lot of foofoo natural medicine, but believe there should be an open mind for balance. In the past year that I've seen a naturopath she's helped stave off two ailments of mine that I thought were ending my active outdoor lifestyle, ones that my Western doc blindly wrote prescriptions for and left me even more frustrated and depressed. And don't you dare call it a placebo effect cuz I'm living proof that it wasn't. So if I try this blood type diet and it helps me some more, great. If not, I got back to eating ketchup. But don't sit on your high horse and call it hooey or baloney or bogus or quack until you've done it yourself.

 

bigdrink.gif

 

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BUT I think that many of you are like most practitioners of Western medicine in that they debunk alternative ways of thinking in favor of shoving the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry down our systems. Pharmaceutical researchers do their own type of bogus research on the human lab rats in America - that's anyone who's ever walked into a drug store pharmacy - and then shove our own money up our ass with the price of prescription medicine.

 

I think you're assuming a lot of things there. I didn't see anyone suggest drugs can compensate for a good sound diet. I agree with you that by and large America is overly medicated and also in very poor physical condition. 3 out of every 5 americans is clinically obese, and this is what causes most of the health problems in this country. As a result the american public is quite ready to accept that there is some sort of magic pill that can save them from having to actually exercise to stay in good health.

 

You're right about Western medicine in that the only thing they are primarily concerned with is putting band aids on wounds - which isn't necessarily a bad thing. If I get hit by a truck, I'm pretty glad the trauma center is just a Life-Flight away. However, the focus on preventative care that alternative forms of medicine is also as sound to a point.

 

Simply because someone publishes a book doesn't mean that it should be taken as fact. There are many citations in the book, but not one study had been documented. Apparantly there are also some gross inaccuracies that discredit the author.

 

Remember...there are just as many studies that refute a claim as there are ones that support it. And just because you're calling hooey on a fad diet doesn't mean you're against alternative medicine smile.gif

 

another side of the story

 

my dos centavos

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