Author says blood key to health
By Heather Milo
Acorn Staff Writer

LISA ADAMS/T.O.A. OPTIMIZING YOUR HEALTH-Author and Physician Dr. Peter D'Adamo discusses his latest book "Eat Right 4 Your Baby" during a Meet the Author book signing at Barnes and Noble in the Promenade.

"What do you do besides sleep (and work) most of the time? Eat," said Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo to men and women of all different ages gathered to hear his recent lecture at the Westlake Village Barnes and Noble. He was there to promote, "Eat Right 4 Your Baby: The Individualized Guide to Fertility and Maximum Health During Pregnancy, Nursing and Your Baby’s First Year," his fourth book in the series.

The Eat Right 4 Your Type series was first introduced in 1996 with D’Adamo’s conclusions that different foods can positively or negatively affect people with different blood types. He theorizes that eating according to blood type will optimize health and improve existing health challenges.

D’Adamo said that the baby book is one he should have written long ago. However, he said, it was only after the success of his previous books that he could get any interest from his publisher.

However, his talk was more on blood types than about the baby book, though it offered an opportunity for listeners to ask questions on both subjects.

He said, "Most people don’t realize your blood type is just a sugar molecule found on the outside of your cells…That sugar is to be found in the world, not just on humans." Any place a person interacts with the environment, his blood type creates an environment for activity and interaction, the doctor said.

D’Adamo said it was amazing how little blood groups are understood in the medical profession. Having one type is like inviting certain kinds of bacteria and viruses. An analogy D’Adamo offered is that it is like filling a birdfeeder with a specific kind of birdseed to attract certain birds.

Before antibiotics, a number of diseases such as plague, smallpox, cholera, typhoid and dysentery, laid waste to world populations, and all had a preference for a certain kind of blood type, he said. Cholera went after Type O, while Type A is resistant. Type A, however, is particularly vulnerable to smallpox.

According to D’Adamo, every diet book out there has a "macronutrient view of the universe," which means that each variation simply juggles the concentrations of food one eats, promising weight loss. For example, some diet books prescribe high protein, low-carbohydrate meal plans, while others prescribe low fat, high-carbohydrate plans.

The Eat Right 4 Your Type plan, in contrast, is a series of individual foods that may or may not provoke a reaction in people. Rather than saying, "More meat, less bread," a user may have to cut out meat or bread entirely, depending on his type.

However, D’Adamo emphasized that the blood type diet tells a person what they can eat, rather than just taking away everything. Diet books also don’t change much about a user’s immune system. The blood type diet offers "a better and bigger promise," saying that any disease is addressable in that causes of diseases are locked up in the immune system.

Eating according to blood type spares the immune system unnecessary "wheel turning," as D’Adamo phrases it, which results in a "net savings" of functioning levels.