Over on the K.I. Facebook page, Zoe posted, "The whole phenomenon of 'eating for your blood type'. Hype?"
Yup, definitely hype. There’s not a single scientific study in existence that supports the claims of the Blood Type Diet. In case some readers are wondering, the Blood Type Diet (popularized by a book called “Eat Right For Your Type” by Peter D’Adamo, published in 1996), suggests that in order to optimize our health and regulate our weight, we need to eat according to our blood types. By the way, the book was written by a naturopath who didn’t conduct a single study to support his claims. According to D’Adamo, people with Type B blood are the only ones who can tolerate dairy, and people with Type A blood should avoid meat and dairy, as well as kidney beans and lima beans. You get the idea.
The Blood Type Diet also suggests that our blood types dictate how susceptible we are to illness, and how we should exercise. None of this has been supported by research. In fact, it’s all been refuted.
One large-scale research study found that there are, indeed, health benefits to following some of the “blood type” diets. That should be obvious, because blood type diets all focus on eating unprocessed, healthy food (which is better than the majority of standard North American diets).
What this study also found, however, was that the health benefits had absolutely nothing to do with individuals’ blood types. Everyone benefited from a healthy diet equally; people with blood types matching their prescribed diets didn’t do any better than people whose blood types didn’t match.
See this article for more info.
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