Re: Eat for your blood type?

From: Max M (maxmcorp@worldonline.dk)
Date: Wed Mar 26 2003 - 06:48:35 MST

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    Amara Graps wrote:

    > (blood type AB)
    > http://www.ez-weightloss.com/ez-weightloss/articletypeabbloodtype.html
    >
    > Is this for real? According to this page I should be a vegetarian!
    > [I am, almost (eating meat only a few times a month).]

    No ... it is nonsense.

    http://www.ntskeptics.org/1999/1999april/april1999.htm

    Healthy skepticism
    IGNORANCE AND ARROGANCE
    By Tim Gorski MD

    In “A Lesson In Chemistry and Chicanery” [The Skeptic, March 1999] well
    over a thousand words were devoted to a very superficial discussion of
    chemistry in order to support a much more succinct dismissal of a
    “nutritional supplement” product as being a preposterous fraud. But
    absurd claims remain absurd claims whether or not the ignorant
    understand why. The task of skeptics is to help themselves and others
    overcome ignorance, of course, but some people will always insist on
    believing weird things.

    Not long ago, for example, I briefly dealt with a popular diet book by
    “naturopathic physician” Peter J. D’Adamo entitled Eat Right 4 Your Type
    in which it was claimed that one’s blood type determines how one should
    eat. When I first heard about this book, I had a good laugh and moved
    on to other things since it seemed headed for the remainder houses.
    Then, when it was picked up by the Book of the Month Club as an
    alternate selection, I mentioned it in my monthly column directed to my
    medical colleagues in The Tarrant County Physician as follows:

         And if he can succeed with this awesome nonsense, “Dr.” D’Adamo can
    get to work on sequels that might explain how people can “eat right” for
    their Rh factors and the rest of their red cell antigens, not to mention
    their HLA types, hemoglobin electrophoresis profiles, and maybe even
    their genotypes and the residual vibrations of their ancestors’
    genotypes even if they didn’t get them by heredity! The sober
    conclusion to be drawn, though, is that many people remain woefully
    uninformed about the most elementary facts relating to their lives and
    health. People who would scoff at a proposal that a car’s paint color
    determines what sort of gasoline or oil should be used for the vehicle
    or that a home’s exterior brickwork determines how the furniture inside
    should be arranged are nevertheless apparently willing to consider this
    particular delusion.

    These remarks reflected the fact that blood types, of which there are
    far more than the ABO group, merely reflect the sort of immunologic
    identifying molecules, or antigens, that happen to be on the outsides of
    people’s cells. HLA types amount to the same thing. And genotypes –
    the exact genetic heritage one possesses – may or may not be reflected
    in one’s phenotype of expressed genes. So, for example, a brown-eyed
    person may have a recessive gene for blue eyes. But there is no reason
    for supposing that one’s diet should be dictated by such things, any
    more than that people should eat differently depending on the shape of
    their fingernails or the size of their parents’ noses. To anyone who
    understands the facts concerning blood groups, in other words, D’Adamo’s
    claims are plainly nonsensical.

    But it seems that many people don’t understand these facts, which
    accounts for the following email that I received by someone who was
    incensed by my dismissal of D’Adamo’s book:

         “I think your analogy with the car is incorrect (about the blood
    type diet). Instead of saying that every person would know that the
    colour of the car does not determine the gasoline or oil to be used, you
    should say that the type of engine determines the type of fuel to be
    used. Because the food we eat is the fuel by which we move. I think it
    is also presumptuous to shoot down a book by using some wishy washy
    analogy instead of scientific evidence. If you were to give some proof
    instead of some arrogant sarcastic commentary I might have been
    interested in what you had to say.”

    Of course, it is true that a vehicle’s fuel needs are not determined by
    its paint color. That was the whole point of my use of the analogy in
    illustrating what D’Adamo’s advice amounts to. Of course a person’s
    diet should be determined by the needs and characteristics of their
    “engine,” which is to say, their metabolic needs (as well as their
    metabolic idiosyncrasies). Thus, phenylketonurics should avoid certain
    foods and/or additives rich in the amino acid phenylalanine, diabetics
    need to follow special diets, and people with certain intestinal
    disorders need to include or avoid various dietary constituents. But
    none of these things have anything to do with people’s blood types! Nor
    are individual human beings so different from each other in terms of
    their ordinary (not associated with any medical disorders) dietary needs
    as they are from, say, koala bears who subsist solely on eucalyptus leaves.

    In all fairness, D’Adamo does his best to make is argument subtle, if
    not plausible. The essence of his claim is that the ABO blood groups
    are a sort of marker for underlying metabolic differences between
    people. But this hardly helps matters because, if it were so, then
    every other sort of seemingly irrelevant genetic trait should be at
    least as good a marker as well: the aforementioned other blood types,
    HLA types, hair color, eye color, complexion, and so on. Most
    importantly, there simply is no evidence for D’Adamo’s ideas, which is a
    good part of what makes them so absurd.

    All such considerations, of course, are “wishy-washy” to true
    believerss. For them, only a meticulous, exhaustive, and point-by-point
    refutation of each and every speculative notion that someone as creative
    as D’Adamo can imagine is sufficient to demonstrate fairness. But it is
    rare that even this will be sufficient enough to persuade them of their
    errors. For they are only “interested in” showing their unswerving
    devotion to their chosen nonsense in the face of “arrogant” and
    “sarcastic” criticism. Indeed no amount of facts and reason will
    dissuade true believers, because their beliefs are acts of faith and not
    conclusions of facts and reason.

    This, in the final analysis, is the nature of the divide between people
    who believe weird things and those who are not satisfied unless they
    have sufficient facts and reason. The believers are certain that they
    have the truth, and consider all who doubt and scorn their truth to be
    arrogant fault-finders if not members of the relevant conspiracy.
    Skeptics, on the other hand, know only too well the tentative and
    fragile nature of human understanding, and how easy it is to be fooled.
      That is why they insist on protecting valid knowledge, especially the
    most valuable and well-established of it, from both groundless attack
    and unworthy pretenders. For the worst sort of arrogance is ignorance.

    -- 
    hilsen/regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark
    http://www.futureport.dk/
    Fremtiden, videnskab, skeptiscisme og transhumanisme
    


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