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