Why Blood Type Diets Don’t Work: Understanding The Science Behind Polymorphism
Blood type diets have been in vogue for several years now and have generated significant incomes for many a “nutritionist”, however, as much as some may want to believe that eating for your blood type could be a cure-all that miraculously delivers them from the ravages of allergies, weight gain and metabolic disease, the reality is that regardless of how many celebrities endorse the blood type diet, or how many big names in the “nutrition field” declare the importance of eating for your blood type, there is no science behind any of the claims. No peer reviewed or evidence-based research supports the effectiveness of blood type diets for weight management or improving human health, and the theory behind blood type diets would make anyone with an understanding of polymorphism and evolutionary biology shake their heads in despair. Polymorphism is in essence, the development of genetic variations due to environmental factors, and in terms of blood types, there is conclusive and unshakable evidence that human dietary patterns had no bearing on the development of our blood types. Yet, even all these years since the blood type diet was popularized, people still cling to it as a possible ray of hope that can help them with their weight and health problems. Sadly, it is nothing more than quackery and profiting off the hopes and desperation of so many trusting men and women trying to better themselves, just one more low point in the history of commercially driven weight management nutrition. Advocates of the blood type diet are no different from the travelling hucksters of days gone by, preying on the innocent by promoting and profiting from false and unproven health schemes under the guise of “alternative medicine”. True science is absent or cherry picked in all the literature promoting blood type diets, and one of the greatest downfalls of our profit driven world is that it has become very difficult for the average person to differentiate between scientific fact and product promotion. However, by understanding the science of how our different blood types came to be, you can’t help but be amazed at how misleading the idea of eating for your blood type really is.
Why Blood Type Diets Don’t Work: The Flawed Premise Behind Eating For Your Blood Type
The founder of the blood type diet, Dr. Peter D’Adamo, proposed that blood type is directly related to how our bodies react to certain foods, and as such you should eat a diet specific to your blood type for optimum health and weight maintenance. The premise behind blood type diets is that blood types somehow evolved as we did as a species. Dr. D’Adamo’s hypothesis is that the universal blood Type O first evolved due to our hunter gatherer lifestyle. As such, individuals with Type O blood type should gravitate towards eating a high protein, “Paleolithic” diet. As humans switched from their hunter gatherer practices to more agrarian lifestyle around 15,000 BC, the switch to a more agriculture based diet “created” Type A blood type, and as such people with Type A blood types should eat a primarily vegetarian diet. Blood Type B supposedly came into existence at 10,000 BC, when some groups of humans added grains to their diet and Dr. D’Adamo’s recommendation is that they should eat a diet high in grains. Finally, within the past thousand years, blood Type AB surfaced as a result of people eating a wide variety of food and those with this blood type can eat a more varied diet, whereas those with other blood types need to eat for their type, else risk weight gain and other health problems. According to blood type diet advocates, there is “research” showing that a specific set of proteins called lectins interact with the different ABO blood types. The idea is that these lectins can be incompatible and even harmful to people with certain blood types, thus people with different blood types should eat different foods.
It sounds rather scientific, but only if you don’t understand basic biology. It is an accepted fact that polymorphism, (the creation of different ABO Blood Types), discovered and categorized by Karl Landsteiner in 1900, occurred millions of years ago, not thousands of years ago. This isn’t an esoteric piece of information, but an established fact of human evolutionary history and is one of the foundations of true scientific research into our ancestral origins. To fully explain why blood type diets don’t work I have to take something that has been presented rather simplistically, (so it will sell), and briefly explain the complexities that reveal it to be an impossibility. Scientific terminology can often seem a bit intimidating, but I can assure you that it isn’t as complicated as it seems and taking the time to stay abreast scientific findings make it really hard to believe in the pseudoscience so often found in weight loss advertising. Here is a breakdown of how blood types evolved and why a blood type diet can’t work:
Why Blood Type Diets Don’t Work: Blood Types Evolved Long Before Homo Sapiens
The type of blood you have in your body is determined by alleles at a single locus (fixed position) at chromosome 9.[1] These alleles encode for different amino acids called glycotransferases.
In blood type A, cytosine at nucleotide site 793 translates to leucine 265 and guanine at nucleotide site 800 translates to glycine 267.
In blood type B, the cytosine at 793 translates to methionone 265 and the guanine at 800 to alanine 267.[1]
Blood type AB occurs when both changes occur.
Blood type O is caused when an inactive or nonfunctional protein is coded.
Studies have shown that polymorphism exists in other primates as well as all anthropoid primates [2]. Given the similarities found between human blood and that of several primates, scientists are able to use what they know based on the average mutation rate that must have occurred for there to be a divergence of A and B blood types. Using those estimates, some scientists conclude that A and B types diverged at least 13 million years ago.[3, 3.2, 3.3] These concrete findings contradict the blood type diet conjecture about blood types being fairly recent occurrences, as polymorphism seems to have occurred at least eight million years before the first ape-like creature began walking on two legs. Other studies estimate that the blood groups would have diverged 4.5 to 6 million years ago, but in spite of the differences in estimation all accounts point to polymorphism being an occurrence that predates modern man. So the blood type diet’s theory rests that a transition from a hunter gatherer lifestyle to an agriculture based existence had something to do with our blood type development is incorrect and easily proven to be untrue.
Why Blood Type Diets Don’t Work: Type O Blood Didn’t Come First
There is strong evidence that blood type A and blood type B may have been the original blood types and not Type O as the blood type diet theory claims. Type O seems to be an abnormal mutation as a result of a defective gene, and so was never a universal blood type. Normal genes such as A and B cannot evolve from abnormal ones and so they must have predated blood Type O.[4,5,6,7,8, 9, 10, 11] Although blood Type O is commonly found in all populations around the world [12], there is no evidence that the O gene represents the ancestral gene at the ABO locus. Nor is it reasonable to suppose that a defective gene would arise spontaneously and then evolve into normal genes.
Blood Type Diets Don’t Work: Disease Determined Blood Types Not Diet
Another flaw in the blood type diet theory is the idea that specific foods are responsible for our blood type variations. The truth is that diversity of blood types among specific populations can be traced directly to an evolutionary defense against bacteria and viruses and not foods that were eaten. People have either blood group A, B, AB, or O, with each type occurring at different frequencies in populations around the world. Robert Seymour and his colleagues at University College in London used mathematical models to show that this diversity is caused by natural selection pressures imposed on human populations by viral and bacterial infections. [13] Their model reveals that if viral infections were common in a population, blood type O will be most common, whereas if bacterial infections are more common in a population, then A and B blood types will be more frequent. Dietary differences have nothing to do with the blood type you or your ancestors developed and so another aspect of the blood type diet is proven to be incorrect.
Blood Type Diets Don’t Work: Race Has Nothing To Do With Blood Type
The notion that race has anything to do with blood type or the type of foods we should eat is not an idea supported by human biology. Race in and of itself is not a biological reality. A race is a biological subspecies or variety of a species, consisting of a more or less distinct population with anatomical traits that distinguish it clearly from other races. This biological definition does not line up with human genetic variation as human beings are extremely homogeneous. In fact, each human on the planet is 99.9% genetically identical to every other human, with most of the differences stemming from gender and individual personality traits. Such homogeneity is not commonplace among other animals, even among some of our closest biological relatives; chimpanzees have 2-3 times more genetic variation than humans, while orangutans have 8-10 times more variation. (See my article: Does Race Affect Your Ability To Lose Weight)
In almost 30 years of helping people from all over the world lose weight, I have observed few differences in the dietary recommendations required to help someone lose weight or get into better health. Differences abound in terms of preferences, which are due to conditioned and cultural influences, such as veganism, vegetarianism, and conscious dislike of certain foods. Occasionally, people may require different dietary recommendations because of food allergies or intolerance, such as nut allergies and lactose intolerance, but none of the variations in what would constitute an ideal diet for some one to lose weight has anything to do with their blood type. At the end of the day, anyone following a diet comprised of only naturally occurring foods in amounts proportional to their activity level can lose weight and get into fantastic shape while eating a wide range of foods. Avoiding processed foods and alcohol in addition to getting regular intense exercise will always be the main factor in how successful your weight loss will be, as success will not come from choosing foods based on an invented blood type diet. As popular as this diet was, we would expect time to bear out its effectiveness. Yet, there has been revolutionary weight loss among the millions who have followed it, and so it is no different from the dozens of fad diets before and the dozens that are likely to come as long as people can become wealthy literally overnight because of them. Sadly at the expense of those seeking viable solutions to their weight loss problems. I have personally seen a fair share of men and women on the blood type diet and they all stopped following it organically after seeing a lack of results over time. Some lost weight initially because the recommendations may have encouraged them to eat better than they were, but not well enough for it to have been a long term weight loss solution. I wish losing weight and getting into better shape was as simple as just eating for your blood type, avoiding foods with gluten, eating zero carbohydrates, being vegan, or buying all your foods from the organic aisles in the supermarket, but simply isn’t that simple. Magic formulas, instant solutions and simple solutions don’t apply to complex issues like weight loss and changing our bodies requires us to first change our behaviors. And then follow through with patience, consistency and strong faith. Not faith in blood type diets, or whichever fad diet comes our way, but faith in our own ability to adopt and sustain healthy lifestyles. Thanks for reading.
High Intensity Bodyweight Training: Ballistic Pushups & Dips!
This was a tough one!
Starts out with ballistic push ups (like clap pushups but without the clap as my wrist is still not 100%) nonstop for 20 reps, then all out on dips for 10 reps.
To say it was painful would be an understatement, but you just have to push through and keep on going.
Still training, hope you are too and as always, Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#hometraining #homeworkout #homeworkout #highintensitytraining #naturalbodybuilder #naturalbodybuilding #fitover40 #naturalbodybuildingvideos #chestday #chesttraining #naturalbodybuildingtips #pushups #dips #bodyweighttraining #highintensitytrainingtips #drugfreebodybuilding #calesthenics
Kevin's Unconventional Biceps Training- 3-6 Minutes a Week!
In this video I go over my biceps training using the Naturally Intense High Intensity Training protocols that helped me go from having arms measuring 11.5 to 12 inches to 18 inches drug free!
It's an unconventional approach for certain, but it's one that's helped my arms grow and the hundreds of men and women I have trained over the past 30 plus years.
Now, my success isn't due to being genetically gifted, as it took me the better part of 11 years to get my arms up to those measurements.
Which is significant as it works and been been proven time and time again to work for the average man or woman trying to grow their arms without drugs.
It's my hope that these high intensity training protocols can help you as much as they helped me!
Click on my bio link to see the full video on my YouTube channel and thanks as always for taking the time to look at my work!!! Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#highintensitytraining #naturalbodybuilder #naturalbodybuilding #fitover40 #naturalbodybuildingvideos #armworkout #bicepsworkout #naturalbodybuildingtips #biceps #armtraining #highintensitytrainingtips #drugfreebodybuilding #barbellcurls
At the Lancaster Classic Day 2 Elimination Rounds Against European Champion, and World Record Holder Leo Pettersen @leo_barebow_archer
I don't talk much about it but I'm also a competitive barebow archer (surprise!) and last Saturday I had the honor of making it to Day 2 at the Lancaster Archery Classic in the Barebow Division, as I made the top 64 out of 267 competitors and had a chance to shoot with some of the greatest barebow shooters on the planet!
I didn't make it past Leo, but it was a real rush to be there and a huge thanks to my coach, Joe MyGlyn @prolinearchery for helping me get there.
Thanks as well to my good friend @sean_chan33 for all of his help from the very start, to my line buddy Aaron Shea for taking the shot and showing up to support!
My thanks as well to rob_kaufhold for putting on and promoting one of the best archery tournaments on earth!
Thanks also to to everyone who took the time to send a supporting word and I am looking forward to next year!!! #naturallyintense #barebow
#lancasterclassic #lancasterarcheryclassic2024 #lancasterarchery #archery #fitover40 #barebowrecurve #targetarchery
Dumbo, Brooklyn circa 2004
This shot was taken as part of the promotion for my Naturally Intense DVD and was about a year after my last bodybuilding competition.
It was a grueling photoshoot.
We started at about 10 am and finished around 4pm and I was completely spent, but the more we shot the sharper I looked, so we kept on going.
It's nice to look back from time to time and as tired as I was, we all had a blast!
My thanks to @stephanie_corne_artwork, @https://pulse.ly/itgnag2dec and @ftaz1 for taking the shots!!!
Thanks for watching and as always, Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#naturalbodybuilder #naturalbodybuilding #throwback #fifthavenuegym #5thavenuegym #drugfreebodybuilding #naturalbodybuildinglifestyle #gymlife #gymmotivation #naturalbodybuildingmotivation #bodybuilding #blackandwhite #instablackandwhite #bnw
Can You Build An Impressive Physique Training Only At Home?
Absolutely!
I stopped training in commercial gyms as of March 2020 and have been training at home ever since.
Initially I was admittedly worried that I might lose some of my gains or not make as much progress, but that certainly wasn't the case.
I've consistently continued to improve with my high intensity workouts and muscles have no idea where they are training.
As long as the criteria of adequate intensity and overload are met, there will be an adaptive response and your muscles will get bigger and stronger.
So don't worry at all about where you train, focus instead of what will be the best way for you to always be training!
Thanks for watching and as always, Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
Kevin's Three Day Training Spilt!
For the past 33 years I have trained three times a week with Naturally Intense High Intensity Training workouts lasting 10, 15 to 20 minutes max.
It's a training split tried and testes not only in it's helping me realize my goal of becoming a successful natural bodybuilder, but it's also helped hundreds of men and women over the past three decades.
I have tested just about every possible training split imaginable and for this particular style of high intensity training, this particular grouping consistently yields fantastic results.
I hope it helps you as much as it's helped me over the years and thanks so much for taking the time to look at my work.
Keep training hard and Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#trainingsplit #3daytrainingsplit #threedaytrainingsplit #naturalbodybuilding #naturalbodybuilder #naturalbodybuildingvideo #naturalbodybuildingmotivation #naturalbodybuildingtips #drugfreebodybuilding #bodybuilding #highintensitytraining #highintensitytrainingtips
405 Stiff Leg Deadlift for 7 Reps! High Intensity Training.
First leg workout of the year and already pushing it!
I haven't done a stiff leg deadlift over 315lbs for about 3 years at this point, and I did my last set with 315lbs and comfortably got to 10 reps and decided I had far too much gas left in the tank and that I should go up in weight.
So I did.
I figured I might get a solid 6 reps in, but I made it to 7 and I think I could have gone on to get a full 10 reps BUT that's when good judgement prevailed.
As a bodybuilder having not trained this heavy for so many years, the shock of this much weight would be more than enough to stimulate muscle growth, and doing more reps wouldn't yield any greater returns, only increase the likelihood of injury.
It's not about the numbers, it's about training to a point where you achieve your goal, and it's important to have a goal in mind as a bodybuilder based on increasing muscle mass rather than hitting a particular number.
Besides, if in my 20's I never did more than 405lbs on a stiff leg deadlift, it doesn't make any sense going heavier than when I am almost 50!
Could I deadlift more at this point?
Absolutely but just because you can doesn't mean you should!
So keep those weights in a good working range, keep it safe and as always Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#hometraining #homeworkout #homeworkout #roguerack #highintensitytraining #naturalbodybuilder #naturalbodybuilding #fitover40 #naturalbodybuildingvideos #backworkout #naturalbodybuildingtips #backtraining #highintensitytrainingtips #drugfreebodybuilding #fitoverforty #deadlift
Turning 50 in a few months...
Not much of a big deal for me as I still feel pretty much the same but I hope that my example helps show what can be done with a lifetime commitment to eating well and training consistently!
Thanks for coming along on the journey and as always, Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#naturalbodybuilder #naturalbodybuilding #healthylifestyle #fitover40 #drugfreebodybuilding #naturalbodybuildingmotivation #natty #fitness
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Featured everywhere from the Wall Street Journal to CBS News, Kevin Richardson’s Naturally Intense High Intensity Training have helped hundreds lose weight and transform their bodies with his 10 Minute Workouts. One of the top natural bodybuilders of his time, Kevin is also the international fitness consultant for UNICEF and one of the top personal trainers in New York City.
References for Blood Type Diets Don’t Work:
1. Martinko JM, Vincek V, Klein D and Klein J. Primate ABO glycotransferases: evidence for trans-species evolution. Immunogenetics 19993
2. Diamond, J. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton & Company.
3. Ségurel L, Gao Z, Przeworski M. Ancestry runs deeper than blood: the evolutionary history of ABO points to cryptic variation of functional importance. Bioessays. 2013
3.2. Leffler EM, Bullaughey K, Matute DR, Meyer WK, et al. Revisiting an old riddle: what determines genetic diversity levels within species. PLoS Biol. 2012
3.3. Socha WW, Moor-Jankowski J. Blood groups of anthropoid apes and their relationship to human blood groups. J Hum Evol. 1979
4. Yamamoto F, Clausen H, White T, Marken J, Hakomori S. Molecular genetic basis of the histo-blood group ABO system. Nature 1990
5. Yamamoto F, McNeill PD, Yamamoto M, Hakomori S, Bromilow IM, Duguid JKM. Molecular genetic analysis of the ABO blood group system: 4. Another type of O allele. Vox Sang 1993
6. Grunnet N, Steffensen R, Bennett EP et al. Evaluation of histo-blood group ABO genotyping in a Danish population: frequency of a novel O allele defined as O2. Vox Sang 1994
7. Olsson ML, Chester A. Frequent occurrence of a variant O1 gene at the blood group ABO locus. Vox Sang 1996
8. Mattos LC, Sanchez FE, Cintra JR et al. Genotipagem do locus ABO (9q34.1) em doadores de sangue da região noroeste do Estado de São Paulo. Rev Bras Hematol Hemoter 2001
9. Olsson ML, Chester A. Frequent occurrence of a variant O1 gene at the blood group ABO locus. Vox Sang 1996
10. Yamamoto F, McNeill PD, Yamamoto M, Hakomori S, Bromilow IM, Duguid JKM. Molecular genetic analysis of the ABO blood group system: 4. Another type of O allele. Vox Sang 1993
11. Grunnet N, Steffensen R, Bennett EP et al. Evaluation of histo-blood group ABO genotyping in a Danish population: frequency of a novel O allele defined as O2. Vox Sang 1994
12. Mourant AE, Kopec AC, Domaniewska-Sobczak K. The distribution of the human blood groups and others polymorphisms. London: Oxford University Press, 1976.
13. Seymour RM, Allan MJ, Pomiankowski A, Gustafsson K. Evolution of the human ABO polymorphism by two complementary selective pressures. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 2004
