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  • "Blood Type Diet Debunked"

  • It was Adolf Hitler who coined a propaganda technique he called, “The Big Lie,”

  • arguing that people may be more likely to believe colossal untruths,

  • because they would not believe that others would have the impudence

  • to distort the truth so infamously.

  • So in the "big lie" there is always a certain force of credibility.

  • The book "Eat Right for Your Type" makes the astounding claim

  • that people with different blood types should eat different foods.

  • Type O's are supposed to be like the hunter and eat a lot of meat,

  • whereas people with type A blood are supposed to eat less.

  • In one of the world's most prestigious nutrition journals,

  • a systematic review of the evidence supporting blood type diets was published.

  • They didn't find any!

  • Diets based on the ABO blood group system have been promoted over the past decade,

  • but the evidence to support the effectiveness of such diets

  • had evidently not been previously assessed in the scientific literature.

  • Actually, in the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association

  • there were a number of papers that came out of a day-long scientific seminar

  • held by the Norwegian Society for Nutrition.

  • Hard to believe they even take the time,

  • but evidently 40,000 copies of the book had been sold in Norway, and so good for them.

  • They sought to determineBlood type diets: Visionary Science or Nonsense?"

  • And they concludednonsense!

  • What was so outrageous is that the blood type diet is promoted

  • and justified in the book by supposed scientific arguments,

  • yet the author takes no pains to prove his ideas,

  • just presenting them simply as facts, taking advantage of people's ignorance of biology.

  • His arguments sound scientific and he uses lots of big words,

  • but displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the science,

  • describing the book's understanding of some basic tenants of blood type biology as absurd.

  • There should be no doubt that had the author practiced in Norway,

  • as opposed to Connecticut, he would be in violation of the so-called Quack Law.

  • The book cites the work of blood type biochemists,

  • but if you actually ask the actual experts,

  • as scientists they say, obviously you have to keep an open mind,

  • but not so open your brains fall out.

  • "...it must be stated that anopen mindshould not extend to some of the non-scientific literature"

  • "where there are books on the ABO blood type system of pure fantasy."

  • The most recent and incredulous of these claims -

  • individuals of each ABO blood type must subscribe to a particular diet.

  • I don't know how researchers have the patience to read these popular press books,

  • but it can lead to an appreciation of the ridiculous aspects

  • of the many ignorant and preposterous claims.

  • So, what should the overall assessment of this work be?

  • The nicest thing you can say about the book is:

  • He does have a good imagination!”

  • Is it any worse than people who believe their fate is determined by the stars, though?

  • Well, yes, because astrologists aren't telling a third of the population

  • to go out and eat organ meats.

  • The diet is not as bad as some.

  • Positive results reported by some individuals may well be due to

  • a general improvement in health, diet and lifestyle:

  • less fat and sugar, more fruits and vegetables, less smoking, more exercise.

  • Look, anything that gets people to eat fewer doughnuts.

  • But though this may get lost a bit in translation,

  • a professor of laboratory medicine at the Norwegian University of Science's analysis

  • concluded that the author's "learning must be considered junk and without scientific foundation.”

  • What did the new review find?

  • They sifted through over a thousand papers that might shed some light on the issue.

  • None of the studies showed an association

  • between blood type diets and health-related outcomes.

  • They conclude that there is currently no evidence

  • that an adherence to blood type diets will provide health benefits,

  • despite the substantial presence and perseverance of blood type diets within the health industry.

  • The author responded to the review on his website,

  • saying that there's good science behind the blood type diet

  • just like there was good science behind Einstein’s mathematical calculations,

  • and that if blood type diets were just tested in the right way,

  • just like Einstein's E=mc2, he would be vindicated.

  • complaining that "you don’t see any studies on blood types and nutrition"

  • because of little interest and available money.

  • He's sold over 7 million books!

  • Why doesn't he fund his own studies? That's what the Atkins Corporation did.

  • And the answer is he has!

  • In 1996, he wrote, "I am beginning the eighth year of a ten year trial

  • on reproductive cancers, using the Blood Type Diets."

  • "By the time I release the results in another 2 years,

  • I expect to make it scientifically demonstrable that the Blood Type Diet

  • plays a role in cancer remission."

  • OK, so that would be 1998, and the results?

  • Still not released 16 years later.

  • Clever tactic, though, saying you're just about to publish,

  • banking that nobody would actually follow up,

  • so in his sequel he said he was currently conducting

  • a 12-week randomized, double-blind, controlled trial

  • implementing the Blood Type Diet to determine its effects

  • on the outcomes of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

  • That was 10 years ago.

  • As my Norwegian colleagues bemoaned,

  • "it is difficult not to perceive the whole thing as a crass fraud."

"Blood Type Diet Debunked"

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