Talk:Blood type diet

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Dr. D'Adamo's theory, which is a theory based on ABO genetics and immunology and the effect of the alleles (alternate forms of genes) that code for ABO blood type on chromosome 9, around band Q34 (9q34) and through cross-linkage affect seemingly unrelated aspects of individuality like differences in acid levels and enzyme levels in different ABO blood types, has met with certain objections, many stating he has provided little or no evidence for his theories and recommendations.

These objections have most often not taken into account the more than 1300 citations throughout PubMed (the US national medical database of more than 9 million citations made available online by the National Institutes of Health) with reference to the nontransfusion aspects of the ABO blood types, which relate to the many biochemical differences each different ABO blood type manifests. Nor have these objections taken into account the more than 100 references provided in his first book Eat Right 4 Your Type, and grouped under the the headings of Blood types and general information, Diet and lifestyle, Blood types and anthropology, Blood types and lectins, Disease associations with blood type, and Blood types and cancer. When looked at through this lens, in view of the real relevance of ABO blood type -- expressed on many cells beyond red blood cells in the body and far beyond just looking at ABO blood type transfusion reaction, one can clearly see that ABO blood type is much more a tissue type than just a manifestation of a surface antigen on a red blood cell.

Dr. D'Adamo has culled references for his theory from the fields of genetics, immunology, hematology, lectinology, anthropology, and paleoserology using the pioneering work of Dr. Jan Jansky (discovered the four distinct blood groupings: O, A, B, and AB); Dr. Karl Landsteiner (discovered ABO blood group antigens and antibodies), William Clouser Boyd, Ph.D (coined the word "lectin"); Frank Livingstone (paleoserologist); and A.E. Mourant, (a physician and anthropologist), to name a few.

Among the research of these 20th Century pioneers there is ample, compelling evidence that human blood groups followed certain evolutionary paths and that people can be grouped by blood type into ancestry groups associated with different ancestral diets. Through Dr. Peter D'Adamo's more than 21 years of clinical practice coupled with his father Dr. James D'Adamo's still ongoing practice, there are more than 50 years of accumulated validation that the Blood Type Diet has effectively improved health by using the appropriate dietary selection according to ABO blood type.

The principal error in this text is that other people's researches into blood groups do not address or support Adamo's specific dietary claims, nor his evolutionary just-so story about the relationships of blood groups with ancestral food sources or ways of living. It continues to be simply dishonest to present these citations here as if they were evidence in support. All you need to offer is a single well-designed study showing a relationship of diet, blood groups, and health, with changes in health associated with changes in diet as predicted by the theory. That is all you need and I will gladly withdraw the "no evidence" claim and describe the supporting study, but not one of the 1300 citations or the website describes such a study. Using this type of flim-flam is a strong indication of the fantasy nature of Adamo's theory and "science". alteripse 20:16, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Powerful words against untested belief systems and invested interests

Apologies for writing - this is my first go at writing anything on Wikipedia.

I do not know who wrote the original piece, or who pulled it. All I can say is that there appear to be a few "facts" about the blood type diet "theory" that I believe could be easily confirmed, or denied, by the right scientist - if you are reading this please come forward with supporting evidence. Please email me - this is an important subject.

The first is whether the blood type antigens do in fact coat the lining of the intestines, as claimed. If they do, then there ARE 4 different human digestion systems - and the chemicals in the food we eat are likely to react with them differently, as claimed, and foods that damage the type A gut are likely to be different from foods that damage the type O gut. Also I have read that 45% of the bacteria in the gut are blood type specific - because they feed on the blood type antigens - which are sugars - on the surface of the gut. It is about once a month that I hear someone mention how important these bacteria are.

The second is whether it is true that the gene for stomach acid is right next to the gene for blood type, and if so is it true that there is a high stomach acid gene, and a low stomach acid gene - and if so, is it true that blood type A people inherit the low stomach acid gene, and blood type O inherit the high stomach acid gene? If this is true it is very likely that type A people have difficulty digesting large quantities of red meat, while type O people will have little difficulty. I have only ever two blood type A people who eat large quantities of red meat - most avoid it, or eat small portions infrequently. The two type A eaters of red meat that I know are both fat, with high blood pressure. I know 50 fat type O people, and no fat type B people. Why?  !!

The third is whether a few particular foods agglutinate, or do not agglutinate, the different bloods type differently. I believe that there are a lot of scientific experiments that support this. You only have to try testing the blood of 20 or 30 people yourself - and watch the different blood type agglutinate differently on the blood type test cards to get a good idea of what happens. The blood of different people with the same blood type agglutinate in the same places on the blood type test cards - but in surprisingly different ways - some very quickly and obviously, and some very slowly - it has been quite interesting to see how different people are. If some foods do indeed agglutinate the different blood types differently, then indeed they will have a profound effect if they get through the intestines undigested.

The fourth is whether undigested food can get through the lining of the intestine into the blood. I am very sure that it can - in some people - for that is what coeliac disease is - another name for it is leaky gut syndrome - undigested wheat protein gets into the blood of the ill person - and does a lot of damage. If undigested wheat protein can get through, then it is pretty certain that more or less anything else could - in the right circumstances. One of those circumstances is age - every bit of our bodies functions less well as we age - and we finally die when the one functioning least well fails us. I am sure that our guts get progressively leakier as we age - a very simple reason for things like arthritis, or obesity, first appearing when in middle age, and then getting worse.

The fifth is - is it true that the particular chemical chain that is peculiar to blood type B is the predominant sugar in cows milk? If true this could be of significant importance to blood type B people, because it may make them more tolerant of cows milk.

There are many other aspects of the blood type diet theory that are very interesting - but these five seem to be the most important to me.

Out of interest - what can an amateur like me achieve? To whom the "science" makes sense. I have bought a couple of hundred blood type test kits, and distributed them around most of the people I know. So far I have not found a single case/example that contradicts d'Adamo's assertions - and about a dozen people are leading substantially better lives - 3 peoples arthritis is better, two people have stopped being depressed, lots of people have lost weight, a woman aged 38 - a nurse - who had never had proper periods all her life now has them every 28 days, two peoples headaches have largely gone after 20 years of ineffective help from doctors, including Harley Street doctors, a lot of people are a lot less tired, a womans hair is growing back, and so on and so on. It could of course all be mumbo jumbo - but I personally suspect that the "experts" have missed this - it is almost too simple and obvious to be true - but I have come to believe it is, after thinking about this subject for about 10 years. The ailments that D'Adamo predicts will afflict the different blood types have turned out to be very largely what I have found in the 250 or so people that I have questioned - particularly obesity, arthritis, and particular types of cancer. All the "diets" that you read about fit loosely into the blood type system - vegetarian diets, meat diets, mediteranean diets, fish diets. Even the Hay diet - which suggests that you do not mix carbohydrate with protein - which works - for people with low stomach acid - type As.

Anyone interested in this should try and read up on what Ayurvedic medicine has to say about food. A lot of it appears at first glance to be completely potty! - but a lot is quite sensible - it has after all been evolved over 5000 or so years. Ayurvedic doctors group people into three type - something like Earth people, Fire people, and Water people - who suffer from 3 different sets of diseases - generally. Three different particular lots of foods are recommended - that are very similar to D'Adamo's.

All sorts of things start to become understandable if the blood type/food reactions theory is true. Like why tests with organic food often make ill people worse - as a famous study in Bristol found. If a supermarket tomato is no good for you, an organic tomato - with more of everything in it - is likely to be worse for you. Just about every bit of diet/disease related stuff that I have read in the last 5 years is understandable if the blood type/food/lectin science is as D'Adamo explains it - and I have checked a number of his sources.

EVERYTHING that you eat has been alive - give or take the odd thing like salt - and everything has had at least a 500 million year history of being eaten by bacteria and attacked by viruses - so everything you eat has its own powerful immune system - full of marker chemicals and so on. It would be very surprising if some of this stuff did not attack us - indeed some of this stuff very clearly does, and we call it poisonous. Everything we eat is in fact very complex chemically - new - some quite basic - discoveries are being made every year. It would be very surprising if some of this stuff, if it got into us undigested - did not cause some damage. Anybody think that our gut is perfect - or that our immune system is perfect?

Get yourself a couple of hundred test kits and distribute them yourself. It is just affordable.

Please contact me at george@cyard.com if you have scientific evidence one way or another on this.

Perhaps somebody can write a sensible entry - not just write the whole thing off with a few glib words - you could be doing humanity a disservice.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.92.156.115 (talk • contribs) 2006-02-12 22:36:50 (UTC)

As you say, if the theory and the diet provide such strikingly beneficial effects, and can be proven with equipment as simple as blood test kits, then it is a real shame that its proponents have not used a fraction of the book profits to fund a real study, leaving many of us to suspect that it is nonsense and its proponents either deluded or dishonest. Why do you think they haven't? A doctor who developed a cure for AIDS would conduct a trial to demonstrate it before he expected people to accept it. Do you think these folks might be in the business of selling books and the value or truth of the message simply doesn't matter as long as people buy the books? alteripse 23:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
The writer above did not read my piece (above his) properly. If he checks what I wrote in the piece above his I did not say that the theory can be proven with a blood test kit. A lot of research needs to be done. All the blood test kit tells you is your blood type.
I said that I have found it interesting to actually do the blood tests myself - because different peoples blood - people with the same blood type - seem to react quite differently to the kits - the agglutination - curdling - effect can be very different, and happen at different speeds. It makes you think about what is going on. Agglutination very obviously does happen! Putting the wrong blood into you kills you rather quickly. Now what would happen if a little of the same sort of thing happened to you three times a day for the rest of your life? Arthritis? Diabetes? Heart disease? Dry eyes? Headaches? It is quite certain - it has been demonstrated many times - that minute quantities of improperly digested food (equals stuff with its own immune system) can, and does, get through your gut into your blood. Then what?
Who is doing the research needed? Not the wheat farmers. Not the pig farmers. Agribusiness? Drug companies? There are numbers of reasons why targeted basic research is not being done. Apart from the obvious ones - a lack of funding from industries that feel threatened by such research - and that is most food/drug related businesses - there is the basic Hans Christian Andersen reason - the king with no clothes reason. How foolish would you feel if your whole profession has ignored this for many years. Who is going to be the first one to stick his head above the parapet? This kind of thing does happen to the human race every so often. How long is it going to take for academics to research Sir Henry Neville? - it is beginning to look rather obvious that he wrote the works of Shakespeare? 10 years? 20 years? Look at horse training - humans have spent 10000 years spending weeks "breaking them" - when it is now apparent it can be done in half an hour - with the right, horse centred, technique. Or growing rice - a priest somewhere has found a way of producing nearly twice the yield with a fraction of the water - 1000 farmers in Nepal are now using it - why did the chinese not discover his method in 5000 years?
Accepted wisdom - by humanity - and especially by "experts" is very hard to shift. A huge number of people have a powerful interest, and a lot invested, in the current belief system. We are all programmed to believe experts - especially scientists - with good reason - most of the time they are right. If they have spent their entire lives believing something - thousands of them - who are we to disbelieve?
But of course experts themselves suffer the same problem - only worse. Who are they to go against the belief system of their own profession? To become a laughing stock, and lose respect from the central respect generator of their lives?
Human belief systems - how they come about - etc etc etc - need to be researched too! Luckily that is happening at quite a rate - the new brain scanning systems are beginning to reveal a lot of interesting stuff. It will probably take 50,100 or 150 years to do anything about it. Religion etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.157.239.235 (talk • contribs) 2006-02-24 11:17:45 (UTC)
Great message! I share your contempt at unexamined and unproven belief systems. I share your contempt with so-called "experts" who claim for years that their armchair theories work without having the intellectual honesty to test them in a way that would actually confirm them or refute them. I share your contempt at so-called experts who accumulate hundreds of citations of other people's research to argue plausibility instead of doing the straightforward tests with the simple blood test kits you describe to actually prove or disprove the claims that changing diet to match one's blood type improves health. It does make you wonder about people who want you to "accept a belief" without proof. Your eloquent words make us realize that untested claims are just a "belief system" pushed to sell books. Do you think those "blood-type diet experts" are worried that the results of real tests would go against their own interests and make their books unsellable? I agree with your brilliant diatribe against untested belief systems and untested expert claims! D'Adamo and his ilk should be forced to read your challenging words every morning until they either test that belief system or stop asking people to take it on faith! Thanks for being a powerful voice for reason. alteripse 11:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
PS: Now that you have added a couple of messages, you might want to begin to learn the customs here. May I suggest you make a quick free account and learn to sign your messages? It tends to make it easier for people to understand who they are conversing with. Unsigned posts are considered sometimes rude or at least gauche. Thanks
I've set up an account as the writer above suggested. The writer above again did not read my piece properly. Having thanked me for my contempt with so-called experts - he has again failed to see the point. D'Adamo's books most probably point to a place not far from the truth. He is the one who rails against the medical profession for ignoring some rather simple science and a lot of evidence.
If you look on his site you will see that he has gathered a lot of serious evidence - by researchers all over the planet. My problem is that I am not qualified, or properly able, to check it. But a lot of people are able, but are not checking, because they have a big blind spot. All the evidence that I have - including a whole pile of changes in my own body - cold feet, painful achilles tendons, arthritis, bloating, excessive and smelly wind, fat, acid reflux, weak bladder, itchy skin, dry eyes, bad back, dry eyes, headaches, tiredness, stutter and tinnitus. These have gone, or got a lot better, with a change of diet - and nothing else - no exercise was needed. They come back if I revert to my old diet. If I change some bits of the diet, and not others, some things get better, but not all. What is going on? The same is true of friends that I have persuaded - who have changed their diets in quite different ways - according to the quite different diets recommended by D'Adamo.
D'Adamo's site has, or at any rate had - I have not checked for a couple of years - several thousand reports by people who had tried the diet, supplied by themselves, using the internet. A very high percentage of these got powerful positive results, as I did.
The internet is proving an interesting tool for this sort of stuff - many ways are being found to completely bypass conventional methods of doing things. For instance it is interesting to go to amazon.com and type in "Dr. Atkins New Diet" The book that comes up has got 1302 reviews - most by people who have tried the diet - and other diets. These are real people, with real experience, giving you a good idea of what happened to them. They are self selected of course, as am I. Not a place to make statistical and scientific statements - but a jolly good place to go if you want to know what the Atkins diet might or might not do for you. D'Adamo's stuff, the blood type diet stuff, would suggest that Atkins will help about 90% of fat people lose weight - and it does. However it will not make them particularly healthy! - though being fat is a significant health risk, so it might do some good. Anybody doing the Atkins diet, who has any sense, will leave off eating unhealthy fats - even though they may tast nice!
I have read a great deal around the subject. I have yet to see any other diet system that will predict with a high degree of certainty what will work for you. All the other systems require that you try one after another, until you find one that works. In my own experience D'Adamo's 4 different diets work at least 90% of the time.
The Blood Type diet is not just about being fat - it is about all round health. The scientific explanations given make solid sense to me - I would like to see some heavy duty scientific institute take it up - the literature D'Adamo quotes needs to be collated and thoroughly checked and tested by a serious independent scientific institute. 25 people need to work on it for 5 years. I hope some multibillionaire reads this - and sets up a new department at Harvard just for this - make your name! - and save the world from a huge amount of unnecessary illness.
The Blood Type Diet is the only diet that I know that picks and chooses between different cheeses, different meats, different fruit, different vegetables, different grains, between good cooked, or good uncooked for different foods, between white bread good brown bread bad for some, and brown bread good white bread bad for some. It does this in what appears to be at first glance a completely random way, but at second third and fourth glances sense appears.
The randomness is entirely scientific, and exactly what you would expect if you think long enough about the subject. What has a carrot got in common with a potato - other than it is a root vegetable? Or a banana with an orange? Or wheat with rye? Or prawns with salmon?
Most of the the other diets systems are unbelievably simple - or complete hocus pocus! All fruit is not good for you - or is the definition of fruit something that is good for you - and if so, who says so? The same applies to vegetables, meat, grain - you name it.
All the diet systems that I know of, apart from the clearly crazy ones, make sense - come together in the Blood Type Diet. The studies on appetite. The studies on Glycemic index.
D'Adamo's critics - of the science - do a very much poorer job than D'Adamo.
Doctors tend to see only rather sick people! In my own personal research I know mainly healthy people - myself included - I regarded my long list of ailments as not serious and normal, if annoying - but am happy to see them gone. Over the years I have seen a number of doctors about some of the things on my list - the most annoying such as dry eyes, or tiredness - the doctors I saw had not got a clue! Exercise was suggested to me on a number of occasions, by quite a number of people, but it made no difference.
In my youth I was extremely critical of anyone who suggested that diet might have anything to do with disease. That was because the arguments - and evidence - presented to me was very weak. In the absence of any hard science the only logical thing to do was to try an exclusion diet.
The problem with this approach is that some foods take literally months - if not years - to have a beneficial or negative effect. For instance the science is just beginning to come through as to why some antidepressives take 5 or 6 weeks to start working - because that is how long it takes to grow extra cells in the brain!
It is true that D'Adamo could have overstated the case for the connection between blood type and character - though it is easy to see how the Japanese might have made the connection - people suited to the same diet - with the same blood type - are very probably going to get on better together than people not suited to the same diet. People normally equate getting along together, with character.
The blood type distribution across the planet is an interesting question - as far as I know Aborigines and Eskimos are very largely Blood Type O (95%+?) - who knows why? Both aborigines and eskimos struggle with a modern diet - more than 50% are obese and they are full of diabetes and arthritis - but both do very well on their "natural" diets. An intolerance of wheat is highly probable - neither people has any history of eating it. My O Type ancestors have been eating wheat for 5000 years - so I am likely to be more tolerant.
Ancient cities, that ate wheat, are predominantly Blood Type A. Type A is said to be more resistant to the Plague. Who knows whether wheat resistance, or plague resistance has anything to do with the high level of Type A. Probably both.
American Indians, in Mexico, started growing maize about 1500 years ago. There is a site somewhere, a ruined village near the sea, where the graveyard predates agriculture, as the indians lived on seafood - mussels I think, as well as hunting. Pre agriculture the skeletons are 5ft 7 or 8. Post agriculture 5ft. Preagriculture 1 or 2 missing teeth. Post agriculture less than half the teeth left. Preagriculture average age, after surviving to 5, about 65. Post agriculture 35 or 40. Preagriculture no arthritis, diabetes etc. Post agriculture lots of arthritis and diabetes.
Somnething similar applies to the ancient egyptians - except that we only have post agriculture remains - about a million were mummified over a 2500 year period. They ate a completely organic food diet! But they are full of arthritis and diabetes, with rotten teeth. This time they were eating wheat.
Japanese women, who do not drink milk, hardly get any breast cancer. When they move to the US, and eat an american diet, their breast cancer rates rise to the US average.
Diet has quite a lot to do with modern illnesses. Stress does not help. Pollution and pesticides have some effect. Lack of exercise. Lack of sleep. But diet, in the US anyway, is most probably 80% of the problem!
Over to you Alteripse. I am not asking you to accept D'Adamo's system, but for you to think for yourself - and not blindly believe easy but over simple criticism thrown at D'Adamo. You have taken upon yourself to control the entry on "The Blood Type Diet" on Wikipedia.
You wrote "There is no evidence that ... selecting a diet based on ABO blood type can improve one's health."
That is untrue, a lie, a falsehood. You need to do your own research - who are you to write something as bald as that? Is that in the Wikipedia spirit? Shame on you - it is poorly written, and not worthy of Wikipedia. Do your own research - please do not put such oversimple criticism to a theory that has a great deal of merit - and a lot of supporting evidence.
Note - any figures, statistics, "facts" etc quoted above are from my memory - and not 100% reliable! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grimwoodtaylor (talk • contribs) 2006-03-15 00:15:21 (UTC)

For me and most English-speaking persons, to "lie" is to knowingly make a false claim with intent to deceive. I am refraining from feeling offended at your accusation because you seem to have trouble with the basic meanings of a number of important words and concepts. For example, I am not "blindly believing" in this theory; I am skeptical and waiting for convincing evidence-- it is someone who believes without evidence who is doing it blindly. And perhaps I will modify my claim that there is no evidence to more precisely assert that there no evidence except the absolute weakest and least trustworthy: testimonial messages sponsored by the seller of a product. Incredible poisons were sold to people with this type of "evidence" for several centuries. The Pure Food and Drug Laws and the FDA were established in the US to try to reduce this. Drugs and treatment devices cannot be sold in the US based on evidence this poor and potentially mistaken or corrupt. If you consider this valid evidence it tells us much more about your epistemologic standards than about the value of this diet. I am amazed that you seem to think it is some else's responsibility to do the research to prove this ridiculous diet.

For example, suppose I publish a book claiming your health and energy will be better if you walk counterclockwise around the table or bed three times before you eat or sleep. I make up a plausible story complete with scientific words, like how the dynein molecules that drive our cilia always turn counterclockwise and we can "pattern" them to do so more effectively by doing so ourselves. This will enhance digestion and clear mucus from the system and even improve fertility. I can cite 15,000 scientific papers about dynein and cilia that say counterclockwise is the proper direction. I can call this "evidence" and it will be EXACTLY as relevant as all those scientific papers about blood groups. I can find people who will feel better if I can persuade them to adopt my recommendations and I can quote them on my website. I can ignore those who don't get better, who will not have the interest, energy, or forum to describe it (no one likes to admit being a sucker). I will then have EXACTLY the same quality of evidence that DAdamo provides. Will you then complain for me that the big pharmaceutical companies wont fund the research to prove my concept because they can't patent it? Real physicians and real scientists and real rational, intelligent human beings will realize that the only kind of evidence that would really prove my claim would be a blinded trial of the counterclockwise walking against a similar control behavior, like jumping up and down three times, or even walking clockwise. The only difference between my method and DAdamo's is that I would be absolutely ashamed to put my name on this.

Bottom line, while I support your exhortations to look at evidence and not blindly believe claims, it is you who cannot seem to understand how much misleading flimflam all those citations are, how untrustworthy sponsored testimonials can be, and who bears the responsibility to sponsor trials to prove the efficacy of a treatment being offered for sale. alteripse 01:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The writer above - alteripse - is fond of criticizing - and not doing his own research.
I have done a lot of research - it will soon be 10 years worth - but as I have said above it is not strictly "scientific". I know what scientific means. My father was a scientist, and a director of the United Nations Nuclear Research Lab in Vienna some years ago. My first girlfriend at University became Professor of Microbiology at Oxford University. A neighbour of mine works on basic cancer research at the Cancer Research Institute in London. A number of my friends at school have gone places - one is a Professor of Physics at Cambridge, another is a Pediatric Neurologist, another designed the IT system for the British Spy listening centre at Gloucester! This village is full of scientists. The JET (Joint European Torus) project is in the next village, Culham - that is the planets most successful Nuclear Fusion project to date, that is the most likely answer to the planets energy problems - the next project has just got the go ahead in France.
The blood type antigens do play a role in cancer - an important role. Go to Medline. Look it up. They play a front line immune system role - look it up. There are 764672 references to "antigen". Every week new research, not blood type specific in itself - comes up with new blood type related information - a side effect. They play a very important role in the life of the developing foetus. Look it up. They pop up in dozens of unexpected places.
Their role is a lot more important than in "Blood Type" - they are found all over the place, taking part in all sorts of reactions. Look it up.
Buy or get hold of D'Adamo's fathers book - I forget what it is called - see where he got his ideas from, and the experiments he made.
I have studied as best "I" can. I have spent the best part of $3000. I cannot do anything else. D'Adamo has done something similar - but probably 1000 times as much - as well as he could. He invites people to do extra studies. He has put a good part of his research up on the web. Go and look at it. Go to Amazon. Read the reviews - they are not rubbish - but mostly written by people with problems who have tried the diet. Like me.
Your stuff on dynein and cilia does not lead either of us anywhere. You need to DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.. Nothing is stopping you. Get on with it. Do not just say that The Blood Type Diet is unresearched - the science behind is HAS BEEN, and is being, researched. D'Adamo is clearly keen on being recognised as the discoverer of this idea - and the way he pushes it may put a lot of people off. But that is not the point.
I have done all the experiments and research that I am able to, and to date I have not found anyone that the diet has damaged. Nobody. Not one. Not yet, anyway! I cannot say that of any other diet I have looked at. Other than the Hay diet - I am talking "extra damage" here.
All the dietary "knowledge" that I respect fits into the blood type diet ideas - and all the problems with standard diets are explained. Not by D'Adamo. But by the scientific ideas he presents - which can be looked up, or tested.
I look forward to seeing how you behave when you are 50, or 60, or 70 - and start having your first serious health problems. Where will you start - with your doctor? What will you do when you begin to be prescribed ever increasing quantities of drugs? I am 52 - and have already been offered a number of drugs - for problems which have now gone away - by changing what I eat - in what at first appears a bizarre way - for I was already eating the diet recommended by the American FDA. I still am - but I have cut a particularly odd selection of things from my diet - wheat, milk, pork, most nuts, avocados, oranges, coffee, beer, blackberries, nearly all cheese, kiwi fruit, most oils except olive oil, and so on and so on. Other friends of mine, with a different blood type, have cut a completely different selection of foods out, and feel better too. WHY? WHY? WHY? What has the FDA got to say about it? Nothing. It would be very very difficult for them to say anything - there is a huge food manufacturing lobby in the USA. Wheat receives massive subsidies. The livestock industry would not be happy. The milk and cheese industry. The beer industry. The advertising industry - that appear to control what newspapers and TV stations will or will not say - which control the politicians. Money talks, controls nearly everything in the USA. The selfish interest of the most powerful, as always..
It is fashionable to critize a lot of the diets floating around. It is easy to do - a lot of them are hard to defend. But the blood type diet does have a lot of science behind it - the problem is that the science has been done for other reasons, and not collated and investigated for dietary purposes. It needs a scientific institute somewhere to put some serious resources into this. Most of the necessary science is already there - what is needed are large scale trials with people with particular health problems that the (4/8)diet(s) might improve. Rather simple really. A bit like drug trials, only much safer and simpler.
Somebody needs to write a balanced piece about the blood type diet for Wikipedia, that includes what people like me think with what people like you think.
I am very sorry that I used the word "lie" in my previous piece, about something you had written. I apologise, and it is clear that I was wrong, as to lie means to say something untruthful on purpose, which you clearly did not do. Sorry.
nordentoft 22:15, 29 March 2006
Yes, writing a balanced article is an important goal, but that does not make it an appropriate place for original research, so if you have already done ten years and thousands of dollars of research on the blood type diet, submit the results of that research to a peer-reviewed journal so that it can be cited in this article. Likewise, if you know of scientific research on antigens that validates the blood type diet without the need for original research, please cite those specific studies. The Rod (☎ Smith) 23:32, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
apers0n 30 March 2006
Perhaps someone should take into account the following research projects at the Institute for Human Individuality: http://www.dadamo.com/ifhi/research.htm and also the current research into blood groups that is happening at the Southwestern College of Naturopathic Medicine http://Www.scnm.edu before dismissing this entire subject out of hand. Apers0n 11:54, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
And when they publish something convincing in the way of evidence, we will include it in the article. We will also be watching pigs fly. That sort of claim of "proposed research" is cheap and never turns into anything real: find us just a single example of a sequence from (1) a public description of ongoing research by an "alt med" doctor or institution to (2) a published study that effectively excludes the major biases inherent in clinical trials, that (3) either changed treatment of a disease or has been confirmed by other researchers and I will humbly retract my skepticism. alteripse 12:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing humble about the way Alteripse writes! I hope he does see pigs flying one day - maybe he will eat one. His criticism is itself too cheap and easy.

He has been uninterested in checking for himself. In the next six months maybe I will sit down for a week and get some references together - if that is what is needed. For myself, I have, as I have said, done about 200 tests - I have tested more or less everyone I know - basically to find out for myself, and to check my own skepticism - and I have to date - after 5 years of thinking and reading around the subject - still to find any evidence that contradicts the half dozen simple (biochemical and genetic) ideas at the heart of the blood type diet. More than a dozen people have, as a direct result of my private interest, got substantially healthier without taking drugs. And nobody got worse - unlike most diets I have read about.

Most people who get better as a result of changing their diet in this way do not tell their doctors - because - to be frank - their doctors are not interested - they have no framework to hang this kind of knowledge or experience on. They give you a puzzled look, as though you are some kind of loony - and after an experience or two or this kind, with the disease "experts" - one just gives up.

A decent balanced piece about the diet still needs to be written.

nordentoft 12.30am, 11 April 2006
As you say, criticism is cheap, whichever direction it comes from. However, unlike you true believers, I have repeatedly offered something very simple: all it would take to make me substantially modify my opinion on this diet would be a well-controlled trial, with adequate prospective picking of objective benefits to be measured and adequate blinding of subjects and evaluators. I don't need 1300 irrelevant literature citations, nor dozens of testimonials, nor claims that some some institute is "researching" it, simply the same level of evidence that any honest, self-respecting physician or clinical scientist is expected to provide to convince people of his claims of treatment efficacy. Why doesn't D'Adamo meet this basic request-- he would become famous, well-respected, and taken seriously by intelligent people. Instead, we get flimflam, 1300 citations that do not satisfy this basic requirement, demands that I disprove his claims, and lots of abuse and insults that I am close-minded and blind to new ideas. Instead of the insults, how about just ONE citation of a good study? That is what separates quackery from science, and what the quacks and those of you who support them never, ever provide. alteripse 01:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
You people should put some of this energy you're spending on arguing into improving the article. You don't have to agree with D'Adamo to state what he claims. We're aiming for something along the lines of Bates method or Chelation therapy. —Keenan Pepper 03:41, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I will have to look at the Bates method and Chelation theory - whatever they are!

On Alteripse's request that I get a good study done. Last weekend, at a 5 year old's birthday party I met a chap resposible for male cancers in Cardiff, Wales - a rather intellectual chap - who knew quite a lot about his field - a lot more than me - as one would hope! He said the same as Alteripse - we need a good study. He went on to say, that to be worthwhile it would cost between £200 million and £300 million. That is between $300 million and $500 million. I am afraid that I have not got the money! And to be quite frank, I do not know anyone who has. So I will have a look at the Bates method and the Chelation therapy articles. Thank you Keenan Pepper for the suggestion.

The doctor I met did not contradict the idea that the intestines are lined with blood type antigens. Nor the idea that there are four different intestinal floras - sets of bacteria. He did not contradict the idea that different foods might irritate the gut of the four different blood types.

Nor did he contradict the idea that Blood Type A have low stomach acid, while blood type O have high stomach acid. Indeed mentioning low stomach acid, and its association with some kinds of cancer got him going. He told me that some of the drugs produced by the big drug companies for people with stomach acid problems completely stop the production of stomach acid - and that there has been a great (unreported) increase of cancer as a result. He said it was a scandal - but that nothing was being done as these drugs provide a substantial percentage of the big drug companies income.

It was interesting to me that this cancer specialist - a doctor with a huge amount of detailed study behind him - had more or less no knowledge of plants. He objected to me saying that plants had developed immune systems of their own. He had to accept that they must have developed ways of defending themselves against bacteria. It is extremely obvious that some plants have developed methods of defending themselves against being eaten by animals.

You see my problem - I have had five years of these kinds of exchanges - none of them has contradicted the ideas behind the blood type diet - and I continue to build supporting evidence - but not of the $400 million dollar kind. - nordentoft 11.10am, 2nd May 2006

That said, you got some stuff flat-out WRONG, nordentoft and/or were VERY misleading (and that's not even counting the fact that you aren't even naming your direct source, which is unbefitting an encyclopedia):
"...rotten teeth. This time they were eating wheat."
The Ancient Egyptians also, many of them, lived in an area with a lot of SAND. The reason their teeth were so worn down I have never seen explained in any other way than (along with perhaps poorer dental hygiene - by the way, as someone who once as a kid stopped brushing her teeth for six months or so, I can REALLY attest to the fact that you don't clean them, YES, they WILL get "rotten"! I had like eight huge cavities where there previously had been none, and vowed never to not brush again. That's what HAPPENS when you don't clean them properly!) the fact that there was a lot of sand in pretty much everything they ate, which wore away a lot of enamel and such.
Also, they didn't just have "wheat", they also had barley (IIRC, they invented beer), cattle, fowl, and (part of year, at least) fish from the Nile River. A diet they had lived on for thousands of years, remember! Note that you also pointed out YOURSELF that they did not have corpses from before the time they had grain! What the hell does your anecdotal "evidence" prove?


"Japanese women, who do not drink milk, hardly get any breast cancer. When they move to the US, and eat an american diet, their breast cancer rates rise to the US average."
Like hell that's evidence.
First: That has - quite obviously, too! - NOTHING to do with blood type, and if you so much as LOOKED at the statistics of blood types in Japan, you would KNOW it was bullshit. The distribution of blood type is ROUGHLY EQUAL THROUGHOUT JAPAN, for ALL FOUR BLOOD TYPES! This is one of the reasons given as to why blood type astrology is still popular there, despite having little to no scientific evidence to back it up (and, funnily enough, this page seems to follow at least one of the various "blood type astrology" charts, by associating blood type with personality!).
Second: Asian people (apparently) are statistically more likely to be lactose intolerant. Again - this doesn't appear to be related to blood type, but rather to other factors, such as racial makeup.
Third: Japanese women "don't drink milk"? And then they "move to the US... [and] their breast cancer rates rish to the US average"? Explain to me, then, the popularity of ice cream and milk chocolate (both of which have prominent dairy ingredients) in modern Japan. Explain to me then why a slightly more Westernized diet in modern Japan hasn't (allegedly; since you say these women "moved to the US", after all!) led to a higher breast cancer rate. Explain to me then how lack of milk is somehow going to magically prevent more breast cancer but say, the non-lack of rice wine (sake), which is fairly hard to find in the U.S. but not in Japan, might not also magically have a connection to it (especially considering bigtime wine-consuming countries such as France and Italy are said to have lower cancer rates as well)? Explain to me how lower levels of pollution in Japan might not also affect it, or the fact that many Japanese moved to California, which has nuclear power plants. Explain to me what it is about dairy and Japanese women's blood types (and by all means cite an actual study that makes that exact connection and prove me bloody wrong) that will somehow magically affect badly-mutated cells (cancer), and why you are also ignoring the fact that - especially up until the past few years - tea (which, when not decaffeinated, at least, has antioxidants, which have been linked to fighting free radicals which themselves are linked to a higher rate of cancerous cells in the body) is more common and more ingrained into the culture in Japan and select other parts of Eurasia than it is in the US. Or the fact that any number of other major dietary factors can affect health that you didn't list, but which may differ between the U.S. and Japan. You see, I can pull a whole lot of random stuff that could ALSO affect it, too, it doesn't make any one theory magically true without verifiable studies to back it up (the tea thing I saw like a year or two ago in Reader's Digest, so it ain't exactly going to be hard to find that info. Since it's late, though, and YOU'RE so "oh, somebody else look it up so I don't have to"? Right backatcha! Google it yourself. )
I don't doubt that you've found this diet works for you, and I don't particularly doubt that blood type can in some way affect health... however, your anecdotes suck as far as proving your little pet diet effective, and you are not helping it at ALL by either snapping at other users (and snapping at them for snapping at you in return. Well, what the hell else did you expect!? You're citing personal anecdotes and out of context, uncited historical references as if they prove anything at all, when they simply DON'T. And then you have the gall to get mad at people for saying you should cite better sources if you expect to support it convincingly? And then you further have the gall to attack these people when they get annoyed at you for, instead of either giving up or citing EXPLICIT sources, you instead start attacking them and listing more unverifiable anecdotes and barely-related studies and pretending as if they were evidence! My God, how the hell did you expect people to react to that kind of behavior here on Wikipedia, which prides itsef on being a community effort striving towards among other things verifiable accuracy in what it describes?) saying that an unnamed "cancer doctor" simply "didn't contradict" a bunch of things in a conversation with you, because 1.) how are we to know how good your memory is? 2.) How are we to know what was REALLY brought up in this discussion, if it even ever happened (look, don't snap at me like you keep doing to everyone else; we DON'T know what you talked about, and have no proof but your own word - word from a semi-anonymous person from over the internet who continously sings the praises of a not-neutrally-tested diet about which the article concerns itself - that this conversation, with an unknown, unnamed doctor whose speciality isn't even blood, even happened, much less what was discussed, proven or disproven during it. So don't bloody well cite it as if it were evidence, because it's NOT; true evidence is verifiable, and that very clearly isn't)? 3.) How are we to know how reputable this doctor is, or if he even knows anything about blood types? Answer: We DON'T, because other than NOT having a verifiable record of your little conversation, you ALSO did not give us a name, let alone location for this doctor! Therefore, I cry "straw man". Stop pretending like your words alone are evidence, and please for the love of God stop pretending that studies that don't even TEST the diet itself's effects and claims prove anything except what they did test. Thank you and good night. 63.21.58.85 04:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
~Stands and applauds with gusto~ --Jquarry 00:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

- Apologies for not knowing how to use WIKIPEDIA properly.

To answer Jquarry above, all I can do is repeat what I said many times - I am not an expert, nor am I claiming to be one. Jquarry can say all he likes about Japanese women - he is quite right to criticize me for bringing up milk, alone - there are a lot of dietary differences - but the fact is that there are a number of studies that show very different cancer levels in a variety of different cancers between Japanese women living in Japan, and Japanese women living in the USA. It could be US television that is giving them breast cancer, or American plastic seats. But diet is certainly a front runner. Wheat and milk and maize are probably negatives, while green tea, some fish, some seaweed and soya are probably positives.

To discuss the ancient egyptians. Forget the sand, that is a red herring - and a mistake for me to have brought up - as Jquarry is right about the sand - it is even mentioned in the bible! However Jquarry should note that preagricultural people had very few rotten teeth. Eqyptian mummies are riddled with arthritis and diabetes, in spite of eating "organic food". I find that interesting. Burials of preagricultural peoples are rare and far between, because they wandered. However the few studies that I have read of such burials, and studies of preagricultural peoples before civilisation destroyed them - of Red Indians, Eskimos, Aborigines etc - show that they lived by and large without these diseases.

I am sorry Jquarry for upsetting you. I am 53 and have been a careful student of humanity all my life. Until I came across the "blood type diet" book by D'Adamo - not a particularly brilliant book - with a lot wrong in it - like the dating of the blood groups - which is in any case irrelevant to the science of whether ones blood type makes any difference - I was faced with a sea of contradictory data. All the "science" about food that I read in my twenties - the proper "peer reviewed" stuff - and there was a lot of it - has mostly turned out to be wrong - because very often the chemical reactions done in a test tube turn out differently in a body - it is very complicated - there are very many interactions - and multiple genes involved.

What I am interested in is whether ANYTHING sensible can be said about food apart from saying obvious things like eat green vegetables and drink green tea because they have antioxidants, or avoid saturated fat and refined food and stuff with lots of sugar or salt. The people I have watched who eat carefully STILL get the modern diseases - but about 10 years later than otherwise. If eating wheat and potato is giving you arthritis, it probably will not help to eat organic brown bread, or potatoes with their skins on. It could make it worse - and I have read of studies that have shown that organic food can exacerbate problems. Exercise will help, and stuff like omega 3, antioxidants and vitamins. Avoiding the food is the solution. Any version of it - particularly organic, wholesome, potent versions of the poison!

IN MY OPINION - based on all the private experiments I could manage - and a lot of listening to people and watching what they eat and what illnesses they get - I have come to the conclusion that D'Adamo IS on to something. I think you can avoid diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and a number of other illnesses if you avoid a few extra foods, in addition to doing the sensible stuff. And those foods depend on your blood type. This is for a wide variety of reasons, including gene linkage (several genes are linked to blood type), blood type specific bacteria in the gut (up to 50% of the bacteria are now thought to be blood type specific - because they feed off the lining of the gut - which is blood type specific), the fact that it is now thought that 60% of immune system function is linked to the gut - it is known that some foods get the immune system going unnecessarily, the blood type specificity of the lectins in certain foods, the importance of blood type to certain cancers - and so on and so on.

I have seen about 20 people benefit from the diet - who were already eating sensibly - and suffering a variety of ailments that modern medicine could not cure - only alleviate with a variety of drugs with unpleasant side effects. The benefit came from avoiding half a dozen foods - and cost nothing. The doctors were not interested. And I doubt that Jquarry will be interested - he will probably be offended, because I am not being precise - or quoting "studies". I have done my own - and I suggest that the reader of this does the same. If you suffer from any problem that could cause you to need to take drugs for the rest of your life - I suggest you give the blood type diet a try - it could save your health, and save you and society a lot of money. If it does benefit you, the medical industry and the drug industry, and the politicians and the media they support, will suffer. And you will disappear from the group that the medical "scientists" study - as they will not know that you got better, because they will not be studying you. Recently I have twice been offered the chance of being in long term clinical trials - and after a number of tests on me and my body was turned down - because I did not suffer from the problems that they were looking for - although 10 years ago I did! Grimwoodtaylor 23:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clinical Trials of Blood Type Diet

D'Adamo ran a clinical trial himself of the effects of his diet on reproductive cancers. He talks about it in Eat Right For Your Type, pg. 307:

I am beginning the eighth year of a ten year trial on reproductive cancers, using the Blood Type Diets. My results are encouraging. So far, the women in my trial have double the survival rate published by the American Cancer Society. By the time I release the results in another 2 years, I expect to make it scientifically demonstrable that the Blood Type Diet plays a role in cancer remission.

Eat Right 4 Your Type was published in 1996. Therefore the trial should have ended in 1998. But D'Adamo has never published the results of this trial.

There was also the proposed clinical trial of Blood Type Diet and Rheumatoid Arthritis. In 2001, this appeared in http://www.dadamo.com/ifhi/research.htm (now gone):

Clinical Research A preliminary design of a study to assess the effects of diet self-help course based on blood type in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis is included in Appendix A. We hypothesize that a 6-week diet self-help course and 6-week post diet self-help course (12 weeks of total diet intervention based on blood type) may reduce symptoms and inflammation, improve the quality of life and activity impairment associated with rheumatoid arthritis, when compared to the baseline results and to the control group in a 12-week randomized, double-blind, controlled clinical trial.

In 2001, SCMN also released a press article which talked about IFHI and this impending clinical trial.. also not available on the net now. But it is in a webarchive: http://web.archive.org/web/20011023054339/http:/www.scnm.edu/currentevents/announcements/press/press_release_text.html

However, I did find some old references to this proposed, but never published, study, in another publication: http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2001/06/25/newscolumn2.html?page=2 and http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2001/06/25/newscolumn2.html?page=3:

The Business Journal of Phoenix - June 22, 2001 The Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Tempe has created the Institute for Human Individuality, or IFHI, to highlight the importance of individuality in healing and health. Peter D'Adamo, a naturopathic physician and author, is donating $50,000 to endow the new institute and has committed to helping raise an additional $150,000. His book Eat Right 4 Your Type has sold 2 million copies and has been translated into more than 40 languages. The institute will advance the scientific basis and clinical application of individuality in healing and health through medical education, outreach, research and patient care. It will be an interdisciplinary center at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine. The college already is working on its first National Institutes of Health grant proposal for IFHI to conduct a study on the link between blood type and rheumatoid arthritis.

so, to summarize, there was a 10 year blood type diet and reproductive cancer trial that started in 1988, should have ended in 1998 - results never published; and an announcement of a 12 week blood type diet and rheumatoid arthritis study in 2001 - results never published.

Stmrlbs 19:29, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


Thank you. I expected nothing more. alteripse 22:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lost results

For the record, critics will be pleased to hear that Peter D'Adamo said about the clinical trial on the effects of his diet on reproductive cancers mentioned in Eat Right 4 Your Type:

" A lot of the raw data did not survive the office move from Greenwich to Stamford in 1998, which was done while I was on author tour in Europe."

The serological data is lost, but something may yet come as a result of the original study:

"On a case-control basis there is some pretty good data, which I should tease out and do something with."

On the arthritis trial: it would be interesting to hear how many proposed trials never make it through the process to actually being published as a result of not having enough participants etc. There are however currently several other clinical trials [1] at SWCNM relating to diet and individuality. It takes some some time for clinical trials to be completed and published, but it's great that there is so much active interest in this subject. apers0n 12:14, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

    • Have you heard the aphorism, "hypocrisy is the tribute evil pays to virtue"? I propose a new one: Imaginary, promised, intended, pretended, and "lost" trials are the tribute quackery pays to medical science. Pigs will fly before this guy publishes a controlled and reproducible clinical trial. alteripse 11:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


I agree, alteripse, totally with your assessment. Pigs will fly before D’Adamo publishes a controlled and reproducible clinical trial. I would like to note, though, that the 12 week arthritis trial lasted long enough (3+years) for the following statement to make it into D’Adamo’s book “Arthritis, Fight it with the Blood type diet”, pg 300), right under a heading “Nutrition Research”:
"IFHI is currently conducting a twelve-week randomized, double-blind, controlled trial implementing the Blood Type Diet, to determine its effects on the outcomes of patients with rheumatoid arthritis."
Notice it says “currently conducting”, not proposing. The arthritis trial must have met its demise after publication of the arthritis book… perhaps the dog was hungry again?
There is a movement under way by medical journals to only publish studies that have been registered A Statement from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The reason? Medical journals to require clinical trial registration :
"These registries would describe the size, design and purpose of each trial at its beginning. The policy's aim is to prevent companies from only reporting positive results, or spinning data to suppress inconclusive or unflattering conclusions about their treatments, says Catherine De Angelis, editor-in-chief of JAMA."
I realize this requirement is aimed more at the pharmaceutical companies. However, if readers started asking doctors that refer to these clinical trials in their books if the trial is registered, then perhaps it would cut down on these “proposed trials” that are used to sell books, but mysteriously disappear after publication.
Stmrlbs 20:32, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pov tag

The article does more than justice to those who take this seriously. A "drive by" pov tag without any explanation does not belong here. alteripse 19:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

Here you have another POV tag. It looks like a bit more balance between critics and proponents would be in place. A quick google for the title will yield plenty of criticism on the first result page, which suggests that there is more criticism than what is suggested by the phrase "some critics claim that":

Han-Kwang 16:01, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] August 17 clean-up tag.

I added the clean-up tag to the article. Reading through the article I noticed that some of the references were little numbers leading to a footnote using the "<" ref ">" style references, others were just an external link to a website that look like this: [2], and still others interrupted the flow of the text with full bibliography style book citations. The article should use a consistent style for its citations.

Its a small thing, and I'd do it myself but I'm really bad at getting the "<" ref ">" thing to work right, so I thought I'd tag it and leave it for someone else. ONUnicorn 20:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 4

How about we add the criticism that by using 4 as for, he's helping to destroy the english language.

did anyone mention there were 4 bloodtypes? now think about that—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.107.169.165 (talk • contribs).
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