What Is The Blood Type Diet?

Personalized diet plans have always been popular, especially among people who have spent years trying plans with wide appeal and having little success. Most dieters like to feel like there are elements of their diet plan that are designed, if not for them specifically, at least for a small group of which they are a part.

This is why plans like over-40 diets, women- or men-only diets, hot-weather and cold climate diets succeed. At last count, there are plans for just about everything but weight loss based on your hair color, although that is doubtless on someone's drawing board.

Into this arena comes the Blood Type Diet, an invention of Dr. Peter D'Adamo, author of "Eat Right For Your Type" and other books. He states that your blood type is critical in determining why you gain weight, what you should eat to lose it, how you should exercise and even what the health effects of overweight on you will be.

D'Adamo's plan recommends the following eating plans for the various blood types:

Type O: High protein, meat-heavy diet, avoiding wheat, corn and a variety of vegetables.
Type A: Vegetarian, completely eschewing meat, dairy, wheat and some legumes.
Type B: "Balanced omnivore," allowing meat (but no chicken), avoiding corn, peanuts, wheat and a variety of other foods.
Type AB: "Mixed diet in moderation," allowing meat (but no red meat), and avoiding seeds, corn and buckwheat.

Each plan also offers foods which supposedly aid in weight loss, and you Type O folks will be happy to know that liver is one of them.

The overarching concept is that lectins, proteins in the body, "agglutinating" blood cells and causing damage to various organs and body systems depending on what you eat and what your blood type is. That's the dietary link, as different foods produce different lectins in different people, according to D'Adamo.

The science behind the diet has some large holes, however. For instance, D'Adamo states that hypothyroidism, or low-performing thyroid gland, is caused by the body's inability to manufacture iodine in Type O people. The fact is that the body, whatever its blood type, doesn't manufacture iodine. It must come from dietary sources.

Judge for yourself, but the science behind the Blood Type Diet is questionable, at best.

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