Eat Right 4 Your Type by Dr. Peter J. DAdamo :: Health Diet Essays

Eat Right 4 Your Type by Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo Eat Right 4 Your Type, by Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo, was one of many diet books that hit the bookstores in 1996. This diet program uses the four blood types as a premise for what foods one should eat, what type of exercise one should do, and to what diseases one is susceptible. After careful review of the scientific literature, I was unable to find any studies that evaluated the validity of the book’s claims. There are numerous scientific studies that examine the roles of certain foods on health and diet, and there are plenty of studies that focus on the correlation between blood type and disease. However, there seem to be no studies devoted to the entire D’Adamo program itself. Dr. Peter D’Adamo and his father, Dr. James D’Adamo, worked in the field of blood type analysis. His father noticed that many patients from European Spas who were on strict vegetarian diets or low-fat diets did not lose weight. Some patients actually worsened. Dr. James D’Adamo eventually suspected that blood type might be the cause. Since blood is the fundamental source of nourishment to the body, perhaps some aspect of the blood could help identify the differing results. The study was successful in that blood type was correlated with the patients’ successes or failures on specific diets. Type A did poorly on high-protein diets, but did very well on vegetable proteins such as tofu and soy. Type A benefited from lighter forms of exercise, such as yoga. On the other hand, Type O did well on high-protein diets and benefited from intense physical activity. This led Dr. Peter D’Adamo to expand upon his father’s findings. The result was Eat Right 4 Your Type: The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer, and Achieving Your Ideal Weight (D’Adamo XIV). Eat Right 4 Your Type begins by explaining why blood type is important to a person’s diet. The human body has unique chemical markers called antigens that can identify foreign substances that enter the body. One of the most powerful antigens in the body is the one that determines blood type. The different blood type antigens are so sensitive that they are the immune system’s best defense. A person’s blood type is named for the blood type antigen that he/she possesses on the red blood cells (D’Adamo 18).