People
have called blood typing a "revolutionary new way of eating" and
companies in Japan hire according to it (Bloodprofiling). However, categorizing
people into different types and using this information to heal them are
thousands of years old. The only difference is that this is the first time in
history someone has used a scientifically recordable way of categorizing human
beings into types. Modern allopathic practitioners question this new "blood
typing" as a crazy new idea, but typology has a long history of success in
Chinese and Islamic medicine. And just like the typology of traditional healing,
blood often needs some professional modifications, but in general sees a high
success rate.
Every
traditional system of healing provides the practitioner with a way to categorize
their patient into a certain type. This typology evalution then assists the
practitioner in advising their client about certain ways of eating, living and
healing. The type of a client can even reveal their tendency to certain
diseases. The Chinese system of healing speaks about earth, wood, fire, water
and metal people. The Islamic healing system speaks of the Phlegmatic, Sanguine,
Melancholic, and Choleric type. The Ayurvedic system divides people into three
types; while the homeopathic system divides people into many types, based on
remedy profiles. In each system a person is categorized by their response to
certain questions, their physical appearance, their likes and dislikes and even
by their health conditions.
In
blood typing, however, all these traditional criteria are ignored and each
person is simply categorized by their blood type of A, B, AB, or O. Although
this may seem to be a strange modern and fashionable idea, in reality, it
probably would have been put forth years ago if man had been aware of what blood
types were. The only reason blood typing is such a new science is that blood was
not categorized into types until 1901 (Franklin Institute).
In
1901 Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian scientist noticed, as many traditional
practitioners already had, that everyone's blood is not the same. However,
Landsteiner was not using traditional observation methods. He was using a
microscope and was able to distinguish, for the first time in history, two
distinctive chemical molecules present in blood. He labeled one molecule A and
the other B. He further categorized the blood by stating that if a red blood
cell had A molecules in it is was a type A, if it had only B molecules in it was
a type B, if it had both it was an AB and if it had neither it was a type O. It
was also observed at this time that not all blood types were compatible with
each other and that A and B, when mixed together, for example, would create a
deadly clotting. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his achievements (Franklin
Institute).
It
was not long after this discovery that the Japanese and Korean societies made a
second observation - people of certain blood types often exhibited personality
traits typical to that type of blood (Ishiri). This is not as surprising as it
sounds considering that blood types are said to have originated historically
with different groups of people. Current theories suggest that the basic blood
types evolved chronologically in the order O, A, B, AB. These types correspond
to changes in the food supply experienced by hunter-gatherers,
settler-agriculturalists, nomadic herds people and the modern, rather enigmatic
AB "blend". Each of these groups of people would have had vastly
different lifestyles, inducing in them distinctive personality traits according
to their environment.
Peter
D'Adamo and his father take this one step farther in their book "Eat
Right 4 Your Type." They state that not only do people have different
personalities according to their blood type but that they also have certain food
and disease patterns. Although this makes sense according to traditional
medicine, D'Adamo brings his theory into the scientific and medical arena by
presenting a scientifically measurable reason for his theory. D'Adamo states
that the reason different blood types react to different foods in unique ways is
that various foods contain lectins (proteins found in food) that react
differently to different types of blood. Some food lectins act as a healing
medicine to various blood types and some lectins actually act as a poison in
certain blood types (Doheny). In fact it has long been recognized that some
foods are capable of causing the cells of a certain blood type to agglutinate
while having no impact on cells of another blood type. This reaction is
dependent upon the interaction of human cells with the lectins found in food.
Food lectins can also interact with white blood cells, acting as mitogens and
stimulating cell division and replication. Interestingly enough, D'Adamo states
that pork contains lecithins that react badly with all blood types. This
statement alone is enough to cause the average Muslim healer to stop and take
note.
D'Adamo
takes his theories one step further when he states that each person's ability to
digest food varies depending on their blood type as well. He has found, for
example that type O's can efficiently digest meats because they tend to have
high levels of stomach acid (Doheny). Type A's, he says, have low stomach acid
and store meat as fat. Although the allopathic medicine community largely
rejects D'Adamo's ideas, there are records in medical journals that reflect this
phenomenon as well. It has often been observed, for instance that type O people
tend to get stomach ulcers more often than other blood types do (Kelley). This
all makes sense when one looks at how blood types evolved.
Type
O's were said to evolve from the traditional hunter-gatherers who lived on a
diet high in meat. D'Adamo says that even today, type O's still need the
vigorous exercise associated with hunting and gathering, as well as a diet
higher in protein. In fact, Dr. D'Adamo has found that 90% of the factors
dealing with the connection between health and blood type are dependent on the
ABO, or primary blood type system (Martin).
Critics
of D’Adamo’s theories tend to miss that D’Adamo has not really invented
this association, but has rather discovered it in the scientific and medical
literature of the twentieth century. Recent research, for example, has shown
that the Pima Indians of the Gila River reservation in Arizona have what appears
to be a genetic tendency to insulin resistance and have the highest rates of
diabetes and diabetic-related disease and mortality in the world. Based on
D'Adamo's work, one could theorize that the Pima’s are probably type O.
Hunter-gatherers - even modern ones - do very badly on diets high in refined
carbohydrates, particularly wheat, which is what the reservation Pima's live on.
Wheat germ agglutinate is an insulin mimic, which adds to the picture. It is
known that separate groups of Pima, who still live in the mountains, and eat a
more traditional type O diet, do not have the same rates of diabetes - despite
their genetic predisposition to insulin resistance. Perusal of anthropological
research on this group of people shows that indeed they are type O (Miller).
D’Adamo
admits that his research is not yet complete and has recently come out with a
new book, Live Right 4 Your Type that updates information from his
previous book, Eat Right 4 Your Type. However, even traditional medicine
admits that no system is perfect in diagnosing or categorizing every person into
a perfectly stereotypical profile. If this had ever been possible there would
have been no reason to invent any new scientific methods or theories on health.
In traditional healing practices such as the Chinese or Ayurvedic system,
practitioners take into account that someone may not fit a certain profile
exactly, and that a fair amount of clinical observation has to be added to one’s
original typology categorization. In the same way, D’Adamo advises that people
using his diet also use their powers of observation and their knowledge about
their own bodies. If a type B person, for instance is lactose intolerant, then
the milk he advises them to drink would not be applicable in their case.
As
research continues on this fascinating topic it is clear that there is still
much more that needs to be known about blood types, diet and disease. However,
for now, over two million people around the world have used D’Adamo’s
methods with great success and are feeling better than they have in years. For
Muslims, we have found a modern dietary advocate who recommends through
scientific observation that people not consume pork or alcohol.
Sources:
