Your Blood Type: Nature's Blueprint To Health And Vitality

Human individuality is a field of growing research in the medical community. Scientists are constantly looking for genetic traits that make us different from other people. In medicine, this can be applied to spotting increased risks to diseases or finding medicines that will respond to certain individuals better than others. It is becoming much more evident that the “one size fits all” approach to medicine is not the best route to follow. The problem lies in the fact that genetic testing is extremely expensive and cost prohibitive. One genetic test, however, is very inexpensive and can provide a host of vital information about our bodies. This genetic test is a simple blood type test. It can provide information on our risks for different types of cancers, our risk for heart disease, how we deal with stress and even our genetic predisposition towards eating certain foods and against others. Medical researchers have been finding a correlation between risks for certain diseases and our blood type since the 1930’s. They have discovered that blood type O’s have an increased risk for different autoimmune diseases and ulcers. Type A’s, on the other hand, have an increased risk for most types of cancers and heart disease.

When it comes to the food we eat, blood type individuality becomes very important in maintaining our health. The main function of blood type is to identify foreign invaders of our body. In the blood, this is important in recognizing if the individual has received a blood transfusion of the wrong blood type. Blood type antibodies can identify the blood type marker on incompatible blood cells as foreign. Our digestive tracts also have blood type antibodies that can react to certain foods with proteins on them that resemble other blood types. These proteins are called lectins. Some of these lectins can have deadly effects, as in certain poisons like ricin. Ricin is a lectin that is found in the beans of the castor plant. It is one of the most feared forms of biological warfare. Lectins in the foods we eat do not affect us as strongly as ricin, but they do affect our bodies in very profound ways.

To take a very simplistic point of view, you can consider blood type food incompatibilities as a type of allergic reaction or more appropriately a food sensitivity. It takes approximately 4-5 days for our bodies to stop reacting after a food that we are sensitive to has been eaten. If you are eating a food once or twice a week, you are always reacting to it. This is why it is so hard to identify foods we are sensitive to. After strictly following a diet appropriate for your blood type for approximately 3-4 weeks, most people notice that when they eat certain foods not on their diet, a reaction will be noticed. This reaction is often in the form of an upset stomach, a runny nose, a headache, or an existing health problem’s symptoms may be worse.

Have you ever wondered why there are so many different fad diets and why they work for some people and not others? The answer to this mystery is held in the blood type. Type O’s, the most prominent blood type, tend to be very good meat eaters, and have a great amount of trouble with grains. It is no wonder that so many people find benefit in the Atkins and South Beach Diets. Although these diets don’t fully suit the type O’s, they do assist in losing weight. On the other end of the spectrum, type A’s have trouble digesting meat, but thrive on a high complex carbohydrate diet. They are much better suited for vegetarian diets or other low fat and protein diets. I find many type A’s that have tried the Atkins diet and didn’t lose weight or actually gained weight. Blood types B and AB tend to fall between types A and O as far as their diets.

Eating right for your blood type is a great way to improve your overall health. Many people find that they have more energy, fewer allergy symptoms, healthy weight loss, a reduced risk of health problems in the future, as well as healing from their specific health problems.