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Roy Collins
01-09-2002, 10:58 AM
Greetings: the following information is in regards to the Blood Type Diet. Much of the research came directly from the internet
and the authors of the works cited have been identified. I merely tried to put the post into a more readable format by adding my own thoughts and restructuring the facts I culled from other sources. As I have been overwhelmed with work lately I had to a rush job and apologize for the patchy composition. Hopefully some discussion will come from this series of messages. Following is part 1:

Macrobiotics & Blood Type Diet? Pt 1
“Blood Type Diet” author/promoter, Peter D’Adamo uses two main theories as the underlying basis for his ideas of correlating specific foods to each of the four blood types that human beings have.
The first is that the type O blood group is the “original” blood type of our ancestors and that the other three types evolved from this. . The foundation of this theory is his belief that Cro-Magnons, who lived 40,000-20,000 years ago, were all type Os and ate mainly meat. Types A, B, and AB came along later, he says, and only they are genetically equipped for a diet that includes grains. There is no evidence anywhere in the scientific literature, however, that suggests Cro-Magnons were mainly or all type Os.
Hence the more primitive the blood type (O) more animal food is required to maintain that genetic group. It doesn’t matter where you reside, you simply need to eat more meat. They are told also to avoid oranges, apples, wheat, peanut butter, avocados, cabbage, and potatoes, but encouraged to eat veal, ground beef, and beef heart.
Type Bs are told to eat a lot of dairy product. They are to avoid sunflower seeds, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, whole wheat bread, corn, pumpkin, tofu, tempeh, and tomatoes, but encourages them to eat rabbit, lamb, and mutton. (again, geography, season, etc. does not play much of a role in selection).
Type As are told they do well on vegetarian diets, but they should avoid cabbage, potatoes, eggplant, olives, peppers, and tomatoes, among many other foods. They are, however, advised to eat snails. So even if you live in the Northern Tundra where none of these foods are locally produced these are the foods you need.
Type ABs are told to avoid corn, peppers, olives, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and lima beans, but encouraged to eat jam, jellies, rabbit, and turkey.
In Fact: According to paleontologist Richard Leakey, who is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost experts on the evolution of the human diet. Leakey points out, “You can’t tear flesh by hand, you can’t tear hide by hand. Our anterior teeth are not suited for tearing flesh or hide. We don’t (and Cro-Magnons didn’t) have large canine teeth, and we wouldn’t have been able to deal with food sources that required those large canines.”
If Cro-Magnons had large canine teeth, they still almost certainly would only rarely have eaten meat. Their diet would have been similar to that of the chimpanzee, our closest genetic relative. This makes perfect sense (from the evolution standpoint) since the original primates were tree dwellers and ate the fruits, leaves, nuts, seeds, and barks which don’t require canines but more flattened teeth instead. Hence the macrobiotic theory holds up very here – the proportion of non-canine teeth (28) to canine teeth (4) shows that we need to be eating 7 times as much vegetable quality food than animal (at least).
It is also well known, for example, that the chromosomes of the man-apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, etc.) are very similar to those of man himself, differing in fact only very slightly, thus suggesting a genetic relationship. CHIMPANZEES are A, minimal O, never B. GORILLAS are B, minimal O, but never A. AB is missing - only HUMANS have it.

28 separate studies showed that Chimpanzees have the blood types A and minimal O, but never B. 8 separate studies showed that Gorillas have the blood types B and minimal O, but never A. There is NO blood type AB in either of the man-apes. But man has both A and B AND blood type AB as well as very much O.
Blood types did not originate with humans. Dr Stephan Bailey, a nutritional anthropologist at Tufts University states that there is no anthropologic evidence whatsoever that shows that all prehistoric people with a particular blood type ate the same diet. Furthermore, depending on the geographic zone you live in that is the food which must be eaten. This is the way of nature, survival depends on the ability to adapt to the environment. Types A and B are very likely the originals according to the modern scientific community.
Different kinds of animals have different types of blood. Dogs have 4 blood types; cats have 11; cows have about 800. Pigs are widely considered the best potential animal donors of organs for humans because pigs have the same blood types as humans. Pig organs are of similar size and operate in similar ways to human organs.
Type O blood and type A blood existed long before hominid species began. During the Ecocene relatives of horses and pigs, had these blood types.
Anthropologists have investigate blood differences among the races. They have noted that certain races and subraces have particular distributions of one or another blood type. This has enabled scientists to categorize the races and, since blood types are genetically determined, to trace early migration patterns. It is possible to make maps of allele frequencies in different populations.
The second theory is based on on the action of lectins, the proteins found on the surface of certain foods that can cause various molecules and some types of cells to stick together. D’adamo maintains it is these lectins that account for serious disruptions throughout the body. For instance, certain legumes, especially lentils and kidney beans, we are told, contain lectins that deposit in your muscle tissues, making them more alkaline and less charged for physical activity.
In Fact: According to Michael Klaper, M.D, In modern medical literature, especially that of blood pathology, there is no mention of tissue infarcation due to lectin-induced red cell agglutination as a cause of any disease in humans. D’adamo (without offering evidence) says otherwise. According to Klapper, “a syndrome of organ failures due to lectin-induced micro-infarctions of the brain, heart, kidneys, retinas, and adrenals would be well known to pathologists and other medical scientists. It would not be a subtle disease. In the pathology texts, there would be clear descriptions - complete with photographs taken through high-power, optical microscopes as well as electron microscopes - of damage from lectin deposits and blood agglutination in most major organ systems. The existence and intricacies of such a widespread disease would be as common knowledge among physicians and cell scientists as atherosclerosis is today. Yet, I am aware of no such descriptions in the pathologic literature.”
Lee Lipsenthal, MD, the vice president and medical director of Dr Dean Ornish’s Preventive Medicine Research Institute, likewise sees no correlation between blood typology and nutritional needs: “There is no evidence in the scientific literature associating blood typology with nutrient needs. Although heart disease almost invariably gets worse, even when patients follow the American Heart Association recommendations, most of our patients have shown actual reversal of their disease, and the vast majority have shown measurable improvement in many areas – improved physical function on exercise tests, improved blood flow to the heart muscle, improved mood and sense of vitality, improved cholesterol levels, improved blood pressure, improved sleep patterns, and improved social function. We’ve had many hundreds of patients show dramatic improvements, and all this has been measured by objective tests. I don’t see any possibility that people with blood types 0 and B (who together represent nearly 60 percent of the population of the U.S.) are not being helped by the Ornish program.”
More to come later…..

In peace, Roy

Roy Collins
01-10-2002, 06:09 PM
More On Blood Typing:
The study of (human) blood is called hematology. The part of a chromosome determining a character is called a locus. Each of the distinguishable types of information at a locus is an “allele” of that locus. The blood group locus in humans is on chromosome 9 (the chromosome that controls longevity is 4).
Four blood types are recognized in primates: O, A, B, and AB. The O allele is recessive. A and B alleles are codominant, meaning that the phenotype determined by these alleles is not masked by the presence of other dominant alleles. AB individuals, heterozygous at the blood group locus, produce both A and B type chains.
Most of us, for example, know our blood type in the ABO system. Each letter (O, A, B, AB) refers to a kind of antigen, or protein, on the surface of red blood cells. For example, the surface of red blood cells in Type A blood has antigens known as A-antigens.
Each blood type is also grouped by its Rhesus factor, or Rh factor (another type of antigen). Blood is either Rh positive (Rh+) or Rh negative (Rh-). Depending on your blood type and Rh factor also determines your ability to accept a blood transfusion. Hence the following blood types exist among human species: A-positive, A-negative, B-positive, B-negative, O-positive, O-negative, AB-positive, AB-negative.

Given the above facts, blood types AB and O seem to be some form of combination of A+A, A+B or B+B (AB as exclusive and O as inclusive) - whereas A and B
themselves appear to be separate original groups.
Only if the father and mother are A and B or B and A blood type can the child then be born with any of the human blood groups A, B, AB or O.
This negates Blood Type Diet creator Peter D’amado’s claim that blood type O is the original blood type, especially since the man-apes have little or no O blood type
and no AB blood .

The most up-to-date theory on human evolution is called the Out of Africa theory. Much of this theory is based on DNA evidence (see L. L Cavalli-Sforza, W. F. Bodmer, The Genetics of Human Populations ). Based on the overwhelming facts thus presented by the scientific community we are told that all human species originated in Africa’s Rift Valley. Hence we all have black forebears and prior to their walking on two feet they were tree dwellers. This changed after the first ice ages came and our primate ancestors came down from the trees to look for food (see chapter of my book Fire Over Heaven).

Currently accepted thought on speciation is that it usually occurs in a small isolated group as a result of genetic drift and natural selection. The population of a species is reduced to a small number and then builds up --where a new species starts out with just a few members. In both cases, the allele frequencies are quite different from the original population, and many alleles are fixed--only one allele in the population for a given gene.

Much genetic evidence points to a bottleneck in the human species between 100,000 and 300,000 years ago. This period probably represents the origin of Homo sapiens. It is not the food that is changing the blood type but rather the body’s attempt to adjust to the environment by it’s finding a protective immune response (over time) which shows up on chromosome # 9 as a specific blood type. No matter what you eat, this will most likely never change. The antigens you need for you, and your place in time/space is what you are born with. Michio Kushi says it does if you eat macrobiotics over a long time it is possible to change your blood type. No evidence thus far seems to validate this thinking. It would be nice to see this presented as it would be of great value to the science of biology and anthropology.

In an earlier post, I stated that researcher Adam Chou put forth the theory that Homo Sapiens developed as a result of having wider access to vegetable quality nutrients so the brain size. This is most probably due to inter-glacial warming periods that gave rise to more botanical food sources. Michio Kushi uses a similar theory (Milky Way and Galactic Orbiting Cycle) that shows influence of warm and cold periods in the galactic year (p. 29, The Book of Macrobiotics). However, even though species are changing and morphology looks different, Blood Types did not change. Yet we can, in general, map the migration patterns of early man according to dominant blood groupings. In our modern culture we see people with different blood types living under varied conditions across the globe. It is the climate of the environment, and seasonal availability of food that determines what we eat – whether we are human, pig, man-apes, fish, etc.

So how does one explain the number of success stories from people who have tried the blood type diet? The reason,given by opponents of D’Adamo is that the diets recommended for all four blood types are each extremely low in calories. Some day’s plans have only 1,000 calories, half the caloric needs of an adult woman.
How about Dairy Foods? According to Michael Klaper, M.D, “[D’Adamo] makes three hard-to-believe statements concerning dairy products - two which made me doubt his understanding of basic science and one that raises concerns about the safety of his nutritional advice:
1.) D'Adamo states on Page 23 that, "If a person with Type A blood drinks it (milk), his system will immediately start the agglutination process in order to reject it." If he wants me to believe a statement like that, he had best show me pictures of Type A blood cells under the microscope agglutinating after the person drinks milk, wherein Type O and Type B blood cells are shown not to agglutinate. He again shows no such photos or other believable evidence of the phenomenon. D'Adamo would also have to explain why Type A people who drink milk (sometimes-massive quantities of it) do not suffer strokes and emboli as their blood agglutinates throughout their vascular system. He presents neither proof nor even plausible explanations for the above - very troubling in a book presented as "based on science."
2.) On page 151, D'Adamo states that, "...the primary sugar in the Type B antigen is D-galactosamine, the very same sugar present in milk." Actually, the primary sugar present in milk is not D-galactosamine, but rather, lactose. Lactose is a very different molecule than D-galactosamine, with very different chemical properties. Even if there were significant amounts of D-galactosamine in cow's milk, the antibodies in a Type A person's blood that agglutinate with a Type B person's blood cells do so by reacting not with D-galactosamine alone, but with a molecule of D-galactosamine combined with a molecule of the sugar, fucose, projecting from the surface of the red blood cell. Just because Type A antibodies will agglutinate with D-galactosamine+fucose on the surface of a Type B red cell, does not mean Type A blood will agglutinate with the lactose (or even free D- galactosamine) in cow's milk. (It is recognized that people of any blood type may react badly to cow's milk and other dairy products - for a variety of reasons, but likely not because lectins in the milk are agglutinating their "wrong" type blood cells.)
3.) A statement that causes me great concern regarding the safety of D'Adamo's dietary advice appears on page 37, where, despite widespread knowledge that many non-Caucasians are intolerant of dairy products due to the normal disappearance of lactase enzymes in their intestinal cells, D'Adamo recommends that "Type B's of Asian descent may need to incorporate them (dairy products) more slowly into their diets as they adjust their systems to them." This seems like strange counsel from an author trying to improve the intestinal health of his public. I fear that the consequences for many of his unsuspecting, lactase-deficient readers who follow such advice will be severe bouts of abdominal cramps and diarrhea.”

More to come later. (Again, sorry for the rush job here. I need a vacation! Actually I will be on vacation in Orlando Florida during the third week of February. If anyone wants to meet there please send me an email.)

In peace, Roy

Roy Collins
01-11-2002, 10:29 AM
On Vegetarianism: Like with all of his other fradulent claims about blood typing and lectin research we find D’Adamo’s science and math slightly off when it comes to vegetarianism. There are a number of internet articles that oppose D'Adamo's views on this and according to author John Robbins:

“D’Adamo believes that people who are type O and type B must eat meat daily to be healthy. When confronted with the fact that vegetarian diets have been consistently shown to produce lower rates of cancer, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, gallstones, kidney disease, obesity, and colon disease, and to enable people to live longer and more healthfully, he explains that type As do well on vegetarian diets. It is, however, mathematically impossible that the health advantages for vegetarians could be accounted for only by type As benefiting from the absence of meat. According to the Red Cross blood bank, the population of the United States is approximately 39 percent type A, 46 percent type O, 11 percent type B, and 4 percent type AB. There is no possible way that the consistent superiority of vegetarian diets that has been demonstrated repeatedly by world medical research could be due to vegetarian diets having health advantages only for type As, who are, after all, a minority of the population.

"D’Adamo believes that the risk of heart disease for type Os is reduced by eating meat.There is, however, no evidence in the world medical literature for this belief. The blood-type diet’s explanation for why type Os presumably need meat is that type Os do “well on animal products and protein diets – foods that require more stomach acids for proper digestion.” In fact, D’Adamo says that “type Os can efficiently digest meats because they tend to have high stomach acid content.”

"[In truth] It is well known, however, that not all men and women with type O blood produce more hydrochloric (stomach) acid; some secrete normal levels and some have less than normal. Further, it is pepsin, not hydrochloric (stomach) acid, that is responsible for meat protein digestion. In people who have large amounts of hydrochloric acid, the stomach environment becomes unusually acidic. An especially acidic stomach actually make pepsin less effective at digesting protein.”

The latest scientific research shows that MINIMIZING the amount of meat consumed contributes to better health. There is an excellent article on this topic in the January 2002
issue of Family Circle (Can What You Eat Really Prevent Cancer? by Michael Castleman. pps. 61-64) that discusses this.

D’Adamo’s Blood Type Diet theory is flawed from many angles and does not really take into full consideration of the natural environment we currently live in, nor the varients of the changing seasons. We must ask how is it that humans as well as other animals have been living relatively sound lives for so many eons without knowing their blood types? Why are we not all dropping like flies and dying in the streets each time we eat some evolutionarily incompatible food for our blood type?

Yin/yang however is an intuitive response in all living things. When the weather is hot and dry we become attracted to cool, wet and sweet foods. When it is cold and damp outside we are attracted to warm, salty, and drying foods. This is the way of balance. It doesn’t matter what your blood type is to know this. It has been the method of survival for all living things since our beginnings in the Cambrian Age ocean – expansion and contraction, environmental availability, adaptation and survival. Listen to Nature, the action of the sun on plants in the environment and listen to your own needs when the season’s change. Try to avoid living your life according to fixed rules and correlative schemes. This will lead only to an enslaved and narrow mentality. There needs to be a lot more research done in both the fields of biology and and nutrition as well as ancestrial eating and migration patterns. We no longer live in the ice age.

In peace, Roy