Hi, and welcome to the latest instalment on the Optima
blog. As anyone who has worked with me at Optima will know, I use
the system of Metabolic Typing® to help my clients lose weight and
improve their energy levels. Essentially, Metabolic Typing® serves
to help us work what out what ratios of proteins, fats and
carbohydrates are optimal for each individual. The science of
Metabolic Typing® has been around for over 70 years. This great
article, which I came across recently, gives a little more
insight into what it's all about. It was written by Dr. Rohsmann MD
and was originally published in the Positive Health magazine
in October 2006.
Metabolic Typing: A Highly
Individualized, Fine-Tuned Nutritional
Guideline
Why is it that you can eat high quality 'healthy' foods,
take the recommended supplements, drink plenty of fluids, exercise,
get plenty of sleep and yet still not feel fit? How can a
low-cholesterol diet actually RAISE cholesterol levels in some
people? Why does the Atkins diet, so rich in fatty foods, lead to
weight loss for my partner but makes me tired and put on weight?
Every day we hear experts telling us about the latest wonder diet.
One day we read that a diet high in protein and fat and low in
carbohydrate will help us shed excess weight, increase our vitality
and address disease, and the next day we hear another expert saying
that a low fat, high carbohydrate diet will prevent heart disease,
and help us to lose weight! Just consider the proven positive
results both Dr Dean Ornish and Dr Atkins achieved in reversing
Coronary heart disease (CHD) using two absolutely opposite
nutritional plans: Ornish with an extremely low fat/ high
carbohydrate regime and Atkins with his famous high fat/low
carbohydrate diet! How can that compute?
Is there such a thing as Biochemical
Individuality?
When confronted with nutritional influences on illness,
physicians often tend to downplay its role and limit their comments
to: "Your cholesterol level is high: best to avoid eggs, reduce the
amount of fat and red meat in your diet. Or: just try to eat a
'healthy balanced diet'." And that's pretty much it. Once you know
how little information concerning the correlation between nutrition
and the autonomic nervous system, or the hormonal system, is
absorbed into mainstream medicine, you understand why your doctor
might not be the ideal person to discuss this topic with.
My Own Story
During my medical studies I was generally led to believe
that the body is basically a chemical reactor. Coming from this
point of view, it is only logical that once you increase the intake
of e.g. cholesterol, you will also find more of it in the blood.
Suffering from high cholesterol levels myself, I was following my
own advice, and increased my carbohydrate intake, while drastically
reducing lipoproteins such as eggs, meats and cheeses due to their
cholesterol content. But this 'healthy' diet did me no good. I
suffered from increasing irritability, sugar cravings, hunger
attacks, bloating and chronic diarrhoea. Additionally, my
cholesterol level did not drop but threatened to go through the
roof.
Dr Peter D´Adamo's Blood Type
Theory
At this point the work of Peter D´Adamo ND came to my
attention: The Blood Type Diet, popularized by his best-selling
book Eat Right For Your Type. It is based on the theory that people
with different blood types respond differently to specific foods.
Dr D'Adamo's ideas are rooted in evolutionary history, and
specifically, the observation that different blood types (Type O,
Type A, Type B, and Type AB) emerged as the environmental
conditions and eating styles of our ancestors changed. Between
50,000 BC and 25,000 BC, all humans shared the same blood type -
Type O. These early humans were skilled hunters, and thrived on a
meat-based diet. The Type A blood type emerged between 25,000 BC
and 15,000 BC, a necessary adaptation to a more agrarian lifestyle.
Climatic changes in the western Himalayan mountains led to the
appearance of Type B, and the blending of Type A and Type B blood
types in modern civilization resulted in the appearance of the AB
bloodtype. Dr D'Adamo believes that our ancestors' successful
adaptation to environmental changes hinged on the relationship
between diet and blood type. As a result, he believes that the key
to optimal health is to eat as our ancestors with the same blood
type ate. For example, he recommends that people with Type O blood
eat a diet rich in meat, fats and protein and people with Type A
blood follow a grain-based, low-fat, even vegetarian diet. DÀdamo´s
basic blood type categories can be described as follows:
Type O: The solitary hunter and collector -
should eat a 'caveman' diet;
Type B: The 'Hun' - does well with lamb and
milk products;
Type A: The socially organized farmer -
does well with wheat.
My First Successful Guinea Pig was
Myself
According to The Blood Type Diet, being a blood type O, I
was to avoid wheat and sugar at all costs and eat as much meat
(including pork) as I pleased. Since my 'healthy' diet did not work
(as it turn ed out to be a 'Type A' diet), and I was already
feeling miserable, I figured that I didn't have much to lose and
decided to try the 'Type O' diet. I noticed an immediate
improvement. After only a week I had lost five kilos and my
bloating and irritability were almost gone. A blood test that was
performed after two weeks showed a significantly lower cholesterol
level, even though I ate generous portions of meat and eggs. This
was such a revelation to me that I promptly ordered 100 blood-type
test kits in order to lose no time in putting my patients on their
'genetically based' diet. The results with many patients were
remarkable, and I was invited to speak on German television about
this new blood type diet from the USA.
…But it didn't Work for Everybody
After working with the diet for six months, I had realized
that about 30% of my patients did not profit from their blood type
diet. Some of them found that their 'genetically fitting diet' was
actually causing more problems. This was the case particularly
among women with blood Type O. They could not tolerate a diet rich
in proteins and fats, even if that was what they should be eating,
according to the book. But women with blood Type A, and men with
blood Type O and B, were generally doing better on this diet. How
can this be? Did the role that these women had to play in society
change their nutritional needs? Did other unknown factors play a
role?
Wolcott´s Metabolic Typing
I began researching the subject further, and came upon the
work of William Wolcott and his nutritional analysis that he termed
'Metabolic Typing'. This approach was the result of many years of
research focusing on biochemical individuality. His research built
on the unique individual discoveries of Roger Williams PhD, Dr
Frances Pottenger, William Kelley DDS, George Watson PhD and Dr
Peter D'Adamo. Each of these men contributed an important aspect of
the metabolic individuality that Wolcott then co-coordinated to
create a clinical system that is able to identify each person's
'metabolic fingerprint'. The typing is quite complex, including
such factors as body build, qualities of skin, hair and nails,
certain personality traits, work habits, temperament, food
preferences and their felt effects, blood type, etc. These factors
are evaluated and resulted in a programme of nutritional guidelines
for each type to achieve health, reverse and prevent disease.
William Kelly's story is fascinating in that he cured himself of
pancreatic cancer and metastases in the liver and intestines using
a similar specific nutritional methodology.
Considering the Oxidation Rate 'Slow Burners vs
Fast Burners'
I convinced some of my patients who did not improve on their
blood type diet to do a metabolic typing. The outcome was that most
of these women with blood Type O were not supposed to eat a lot of
lipoproteins (proteins and fats) at all because they were 'slow
burners'. Slow burners have a low metabolic turnover rate, and
therefore, foods rich in protein and fats were slowing down their
metabolism even more. Adapting to their 'metabolic type' diet, most
of the 'non reactors' of the blood type diet improved drastically.
But why were these women 'slow burners'? How did these two types of
diets correlate?
It showed that both diets correlate well
when:
• A blood Type O person is typically a fast burner with a
dominant parasympathetic regulation;
• A blood Type A person is typically tested as a slow burner
with a dominant sympathetic regulation.
This also seems to be the case in over 60% of those I
tested. As soon as the metabolic burning rate is atypical to the
blood group, the burning rate becomes the dominant factor.
Some characteristic features of a fast burner
are:
• Goal oriented;
• Not fond of being instructed;
• Performs tasks quickly but sloppily;
• Prefers to work alone;
• Needs food before exercise;
• Feels great after intensive exercise;
• Sleeps better with a full stomach.
Some characteristic features of a slow burner
are:
• Likes to work in a team;
• Likes clear instructions and limited
responsibility;
• Can be a detail fanatic;
• Often does a job slowly but thoroughly;
• Can exercise on an empty stomach;
• Feels depleted after vigorous exercise;
• Does not sleep well on a full stomach.
So the more characteristics you have of a 'fast burner' -
independent of your blood type - the more you should eat a diet
rich in proteins and fats and low in carbohydrates, since
carbohydrates accelerate your metabolism even more.
Considering the Autonomic Nervous System
(Sympathicotonic vs Parasypathotonic)
But metabolic typing is much more complex than just that. In
addition to the burning rate, the autonomic nervous system and
hormonal regulation are taken into consideration. People with an
imbalanced autonomic nervous system have great difficulties
adapting to any sort of stress. This will lead to sluggishness,
cold feet, sensitivity to weather changes, fatigue, inability to
exercise on the one hand or irritability, restlessness, and high
blood pressure on the other. In the approximately 150 metabolic
typing tests that I oversaw in my medical practice, all of those
tested presented with at least one weak hormonal gland
(reproductive glands, adrenals, thyroid or pituitary). A common
observation was that women with a slow metabolism and a high
carbohydrate intake were developing a 'weak' thyroid gland. Since
the thyroid supplies us with the energy for the everyday, repeated,
tedious types of work (e.g. housework), these women were showing
signs of an exhausted thyroid. An increased intake of sugar and
carbohydrates can boost the 'thyroid energy' on a short-term basis,
but over a longer period of time the thyroid will eventually become
exhausted.
The extensive questionnaire that metabolic typing is based
upon will unveil this weakness, and the nutritional plan will
include the recommendation to have a hard boiled egg with breakfast
(together with other adaptations like avoiding caffeine and sugar)
in order to strengthen the thyroid and balance total hormonal
regulation.
What's in it for You?
Your evaluation will point out your individual metabolic
needs, as well as any potentially unbalanced situations within
these systems in your body. Your 'diet' will instruct you as to
what kind of proteins, fats and carbohydrates you need, why, and
what ratios you need them in. In 1983 William Wolcott discovered
that each of us is dominant in one of these systems, and he called
this "the dominance factor". This discovery essentially explains
that any food and any nutrient can have opposite biochemical
effects in different individuals, or different metabolic types. In
its complete form, the metabolic typing programmes consist of nine
such regulatory control systems. Wolcott also meticulously
specified precise vitamins and minerals to balance each type. You
really don't need to understand all of the science behind metabolic
typing in order to reap the health benefits for yourself. These
include an increase in energy and mental clarity, freedom from
cravings and hunger between meals, improved digestion and immunity,
improved performance in sports, a decrease in fatigue, anxiety and
even depression. Ideal weight can be achieved without a struggle,
and you can prevent and reverse many degenerative
conditions.