Dr. James D’Adamo

Blood Types and Prevention

Introduction by Louise Hay

Two of the most memorable case histories in my years of treating patients involve two young boys. In the first case, the boy, Roger, suffered with attention deficit disorder (ADD). It’s fairly normal for boys of nine to be highly energetic and active, and Roger was no different—he was in a state of perpetual motion. However, there is a qualitative difference between being active and being frenetic. Like many children who have ADD, Roger couldn’t sit still or focus his mind for a prolonged period. At school, he was disruptive in the classroom, frequently shouting out during the teacher’s lesson or arguing with his classmates during recess, which often led to fights.

Roger had been treated by medical doctors and received the typical battery of medications, such as Ritalin, but with limited results. His parents brought him to me in my Toronto clinic as a last resort—many patients find their way into my office after they’ve gone the route of conventional medicine without finding much success. And conventional medicine had failed Roger big-time—his mother grew hysterical as she explained that he had set their house on fire.

I had no easy answer for the parents when they asked, “Why did our son burn down the house?” There could have been any number of reasons for Roger’s emotional and psychological state and his extreme actions, but I didn’t want to speculate. But this I knew implicitly: many conditions, including ADD, are a result of an imbalance in the body’s biochemistry and can be treated nutritionally and through vitamin supplementation. I explained that I work from the inside out and try to restore order to the body using nutrition, based on a person’s blood type. If they were willing to trust me and follow my recommendations—in Roger’s case to the maximum—we might be able to normalize his behavior.

Roger’s father said he’d read about the correlation of blood type and genetics in the Pulitzer prize–winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond, an evolutionary scientist and professor of geography and physiology at UCLA. He later brought in the book and shared the following quotation which describes a person’s resistance to disease based on blood groups:

. . . the differential mortality from epidemic diseases in traditional European societies had little to do with intelligence, and instead involved genetic resistance dependent on details of body chemistry. For example, people with blood group B or O have a greater resistance to smallpox than do people with blood group A.

The fact that he had read something pertaining to blood types and disease probably reduced his skepticism that ADD could be treated by adjusting his son’s diet according to his type of blood. His wife was less given to intellectualizing about whether my approach was scientifically based. I am known in Toronto for having success with a number of conditions through nutrition and various supplements—ADD is one of them—and she went full steam ahead with the program.

ADD: An Inner Tsunami

Roger was a Type O. I will more fully explain the O’s physical and emotional qualities and dietary needs later but, generally speaking, the O has a robust and active nature and needs daily helpings of animal protein. I recommended that Roger follow a high-protein diet, starting with a protein shake upon rising before breakfast; and then eating an assortment of seven small servings of fish, meat, turkey, buffalo, and/or lamb at two-hour intervals throughout the day.

I also greatly reduced his intake of carbohydrates—breads, pasta, and mashed potatoes, all of which, when digested, break down into glucose; and I immediately eliminated all sources of sugar from his diet including honey, candy bars, soft drinks, fruit juices, maple syrup (which Roger used in generous helpings on his pancakes on a daily basis), and any foods sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (which also breaks down into pure glucose when digested).

It is now common knowledge—you can even see advertisements for high-energy drinks on television that refer to this—that sugar in any form, including fruit sugars, jolts the body with a wave of energy. To a boy with ADD or a disposition to hyperactivity, the ongoing jolts produce a chaotic, surging force. I liken it to a stormy internal sea. Imagine watching waves crashing into a shoreline or rocky coast. Sugar agitates and stirs the bloodstream with that same kind of wild energy. The forces raging inside Roger must have had the power of an inner tsunami in order to provoke him to set fire to his family home.

Although it might not seem so, a body that is subjected to ongoing surges and is in constant motion is actually very tired and depleted. The constant intake of protein would supply slowly digested nourishment that, with the reduction of carbohydrates and sugar, would help even out Roger’s blood-sugar level, restore and rebuild his strength, and allow his body to find its inherent energy. A daily regimen of B vitamins, of doses specific to his condition and blood type, were also vital to nourishing and soothing his nervous system.

Roger responded to the diet fairly quickly and gained enough control over his emotional and psychological states so that within several months he was able to return to school where, for the first time, he started to excel.

Asthma and Diet

The second boy, Ivan, is an example of the impact of irresponsible parenting on a child’s health. Ivan suffered with severe asthma and frequently visited the ER, wheezing, coughing, and gasping for air. He had Type A blood. A’s are highly sensitive to dairy products—a small glass of milk, a slice of cheese, or a scoop of ice cream is like poison to their bodies. Ivan’s body reacted by producing an excessive amount of mucous plugs that clogged his airways.

I immediately eliminated all dairy foods, then wheat products, which are far too acidic for an A, and placed him on a strict vegetarian diet. The A is the only blood type that should be 100 percent vegetarian, although in some cases there may be traits of other blood types that can modify an A’s needs.

Within weeks of following my recommendations, Ivan’s lungs cleared of the congestion, and he was able to stop using his steroid inhalator. He resumed a normal life, which included daily sports activities at school.

About two months later, however, Ivan was back in my office wheezing wildly. I suspected that he had gone off his diet and was again eating dairy products. Ivan’s mother confided in me that he often watched TV and ate ice cream and cookies at night when his father came home from work.

I rarely lose my temper with a patient, but I took Ivan’s father into the hall outside my office and read him the riot act. I told him that if he wanted to eat ice cream and cookies that was his business, but why destroy his son’s chance at a healthy life? Ivan’s mother made sure there were no more desserts in front of the TV set. Ivan’s asthmatic reactions again receded.

Prevention Tips?

I often think of Roger and Ivan and how their lives dramatically changed upon following the appropriate diet for their blood types. I had them—and many other patients—in mind a lot during the 2008 political campaign because downtown Portsmouth, where my institute is located, was one of the first stops on the primary trail and all through the presidential campaign, candidates of every stripe flocked here trying to sell their programs.

Health care again emerged as a major issue, and though some politicians like to refer to the United States’ health-care system as the “best in the world,” it was rated last or next to last in terms of quality by the prestigious Commonwealth Fund when compared with Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

While I support universal health insurance, I also fervently believe that even if we modify our approach to health care, many millions of Americans will still suffer needlessly. We’re ignoring the most important part of health care: prevention.

Our health-care system is backward. We try to treat a condition once it’s firmly established in the body, but we spend little time or money in educating the public about the importance of the food they put into their bodies and how to prevent conditions from developing in the first place.

In a recent report by the Partnership for Prevention, a nonprofit health-policy group, health experts including doctors for the CDC, said that increased use of just five preventive services would save more than 100,000 lives every year in the United States. “This shows so dramatically the potential impact of prevention,” said Dr. Kathleen Toomey of the CDC, which helped fund the study. “Our nation has never truly invested in prevention.”

The catch, even in this report, are the five recommended prevention tips. Let me review them for you:

1. Take a low-dose aspirin every day to prevent heart disease.
2. Have regular screenings for colorectal cancer.
3. Have regular breast-cancer screenings.
4. Quit smoking.
5. Get annual flu shots if you are over 50.

Of course, people shouldn’t smoke and should have regular screenings for cancer, but the basis of prevention—the importance of our daily foods—is absent from this list. If we’re referring to food-associated diseases, how can we have a health-care system that fails to stress the impact of the food that we put into our bodies?

Scientists have long had ample evidence about the correlation between certain foods and chronic disease. The National Research Council, for example, cited massive evidence in a report called “Diet, Nutrition and Cancer” in 1982, linking dietary factors to breast cancer.

Even the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) provide science-based advice to promote health and reduce risk for chronic diseases through diet and physical activity in the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans:

Good nutrition is vital to good health and is absolutely essential for the healthy growth and development of children and adolescents. . . . Specific diseases and conditions linked to poor diet include cardiovascular disease, hypertension, dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes, overweight and obesity, osteoporosis, constipation, diverticular disease, iron deficiency anemia, oral disease, malnutrition, and some cancers.

Understanding Food

Today, modern medical doctors are gradually finding their way back to what Hippocrates proclaimed 2,500 years ago: “Let thy foods be thy medicine and thy medicine thy food.” They increasingly offer what they think are sound nutritional ideas in magazine articles or postings on Websites. But what are these mainstream practitioners recommending?

Eat beets, they say, because beets are a good source of folate and betaine, two nutrients that help lower blood levels of homocysteine, a compound that can damage arteries and increase your risk of heart disease. Or drink pomegranate juice because taken over a year it can reduce blood pressure. Or eat tomatoes because they contain lycopene, which fights cancer.

Yet these recommendations and many others are general comments. Beets and pomegranate juice—and carrot juice, another popular health drink—also have high levels of glucose (sugar), which, if you have hypoglycemia or low blood sugar, would only further stress your pancreas and adrenal glands and heighten your fatigue. If Roger had been drinking carrot or pomegranate juice on a regular basis, he would never have come to grips with ADD and his frenetic behavior.

And those poor people who are trying to get the protective benefits of lycopene from tomatoes, tomato sauce, or ketchup would have to eat a couple hundred tomatoes per week! Even if they have the time and wherewithal to eat so many tomatoes, that amount would be far too acidic for most people, especially for those with gastric conditions or Type B blood.

The heart of my belief and practice, as I’ve said—although it can never be said too often—is that every individual is a unique creation composed of two different sets of genetic traits that come together only once in this universe, and never again. I believe there are no human stereotypes, no carbon copies, no perfect replications—similarities, yes, relatedness, definitely; but even members of the same family have vast differences among them. And subsequently, no two people can eat the same two foods.

Early in my career, my studies in blood pathology led me to explore the possibility of a link between an individual’s blood quality and the body’s characteristics, including the person’s dietary needs. Further, my observation about blood types and sub–blood groups and the importance of eating wisely, with the knowledge of which foods give strength to the individual body (and not according to the iron rule of your taste buds) has healed the infirm; but perhaps just as significant, it has also prevented chronic illness in many.

The same way in which a medical doctor writes prescriptions for drugs to fight symptoms, I write menus, recommending (as needed) particular fruits, vegetables, animal proteins, and grains specific to an individual’s blood type, sub–blood type, and the current physical condition of his or her body. The same way in which most people take a drug to relieve them of a symptom, my patients use food to strengthen and balance their bodies and help protect them from losing their natural vitality; and in the case of a disease, heal the root cause of the problem. So yes, I might recommend beets, pomegranate, or carrot juice; or okra, brown rice, or any number of foods, but it’s according to the patient’s individual needs.

Avoiding Disease

Not long ago, I read an article in The Boston Globe about a former patient of mine who was running in the Boston Marathon. I was gratified because only three years ago, this woman was struggling with breast cancer. While I’m always excited about being able to help patients regain their health, as I was with this woman, I also know that if she had only understood which foods she needed to eat before her body was compromised, before she developed the cancer, it could have been prevented.

The cancer victim, the diabetic, the infertile woman, the child with ADD, the depressed teenager, the prematurely crippled arthritic . . . all of the many beautiful lovers of life who hunger for health, the many who are cut down before they should have been, not by war or because they were impoverished and couldn’t afford a bag of groceries, but because of a bag filled with the absolutely wrong food for their blood types—none of them should have ever suffered so.

While politicians try to find a cure for the ailing health-care system in the United States, you and your family can quietly partake in a real health-care revolution by treating yourself as individuals and preventing the chronic illnesses that continue to strike so many.