Eating For Your Blood Type: Does It Matter?

[Music] so [Music] [Music] welcome to the exam room live brought to you by the physicians committee hi i am the weight loss champion chuck carroll and this this is the healthiest half hour anywhere online today we appreciate you joining us right here on facebook and on youtube coming up kicking off the week in a big way talking about eating for your blood type this has been a popular idea for a long time some say that it is the key to a healthier future but is that true well dr neil barnard is here he has brand new research on this and we're going to reveal what his study is saying when we speak with him in just a little bit plus we're going to be opening up the doctor's mailbag he's going to be answering one of your questions so if you do in fact have something on your mind that you would like to ask dr barnard go ahead and post that in the chat box or the comment section you can also tweet that to us at pcrm carol wlc just make sure that you use that hashtag exam room live and then as if that weren't enough we're also going to take a trip over to the exam room news desk been some big things happening so your health headlines today we're going to be looking at a major milestone in the coronavirus pandemic also big time changes to the hospital food that is being served in new york there's a new law that went into effect this weekend having major ramifications plus new study also showing that plant-based diets may offer relief to those suffering from ulcerative colitis we're going to be telling you about that study as well that's coming up in just a little bit but let's start with the blood type and your diet for decades many have believed that your diet should in fact depend on what type of blood you have if you're type o you eat this if you're type a you eat that if you're type b maybe a mix of the two but a new study is putting that idea to the test and the man who is leading a group of researchers putting said study through the paces that idea to the test is dr neil barnard sir thank you very much for taking the time to join us on monday this is a really interesting study here and something that we've talked about in passing on the show in previous episodes but you really had an opportunity here with this research brand new research to dive down and find out what the truth is as far as eating for your blood type is there anything to this um you're right chuck that this is something that people talked about for decades now and we did have an opportunity uh that sort of fell out of the sky to put it to a really good test and the results were published in the journal of the academy of nutrition dietetics on friday so let me just share my screen with you i want to show you the background on this um when we look at blood cells they have different blood types that relate to proteins that are on the surface of the cell and so type o is sort of the basic type the most most common blood type but then there are certain antigens certain proteins that are on the surface that can make you a type a and there are other ones uh other antigens that can be on the surface of the cell they make you a type b and you can actually get both let's say your mom was type a your dad was type b then you're type a b or you could be so those are the different blood types or those are the really common ones and so the question is does it matter well it matters in one way and that is people with blood type a have in fact been shown to have a little bit increased risk of heart disease not huge about 14 it's not great but if you've got blood type a you're slightly more likely to have heart problems blood type o slightly less likely to have have uh heart problems okay fair enough and in fact this was confirmed by a combined study where the nurses health study which is a huge group of women who have been followed over decades they were combined with a professional health professionals follow-up study which is a large group of men who have been followed both at harvard uh huge huge studies and it turned out that the people who did not have blood typo you take everybody who is not blood typo 11 more likely to have heart disease the typos seem to win out a little bit okay so um then people started looking at covet covid um really affects people with cardiovascular disease and so researchers in china looked at almost or just over 2000 people and they found that the blood type a in the same way that they're more likely to have heart disease they're also more susceptible to the virus and if their blood group o in the same way that they have a little less heart disease they're also a little less susceptible to the virus not not a huge difference but but it's there okay so uh then researchers published uh in the new england journal a couple of months back those people who had blood group a had a fairly sizably increased risk of respiratory failure if they got infected and if they were blood group oh again they did better so all of these things seem to say if you're blind blood group o you got some protection if you're blood group a you got some vulnerability all right so here's what happened the man all is super controversial back in 1996 a well-meaning uh researcher named peter d'adamo said okay well why don't we do this if you're blood type a you ought to be vegetarian or sort of in a vegetarian direction plant-based diet more or less but if your blood type o according to him according to his book e-write for your type that's not going to work for you if you're blood type o you are a meat-eater you are kind of a caveman type who needs steak so the question is is it true type a more vegetarian type o well you need spam we have the opportunity to put this to the test and we reported last week that we just published in jama network open a very large study of 244 people who were put either on a vegan diet or stayed on the same kind of diet and we were able in 68 of these people to test the blood type diet 68 people came in every single one was blood type we know if you're an a or a b or an a b or an o and we put all of them on a vegan diet and now if a vegan diet turns out to be good for type a and bad for type o then the typos shouldn't have done very well they shouldn't have lost weight their ldl cholesterol shouldn't have gotten better but the type a should have been much better okay so we compared to the type a's to people who didn't have type a we compared those with o to people who didn't and may i have the envelope please here's what we found okay so uh with regard to weight loss again the people who are type a are supposed to do really well on a vegan diet and they did do really well on a vegan diet they dropped about 5.7 kilograms call that what uh maybe 12 pounds something like that but the people who did not have type a and supposedly wouldn't do well on a vegan diet they lost weight too the vegan diet was good for them too in fact they lost a little bit more weight about seven kilograms call that what uh maybe 16 pounds all right now how about the type o's well the type o's lost 7.1 kilograms people who didn't have typo lost 6.2 so in other words the type o people were supposed to be the ones who wouldn't do very well on a vegan diet but they did great they lost a lot of weight okay let's look at cholesterol levels though let's see all right type a you're supposed to do well and you do you put a person with type a on a vegan diet what happens their ldl cholesterol their bad cholesterol it falls it dropped 11 points that's great so the people who didn't have type a and are not supposed to do well on a vegan diet wait a minute they did great too in fact they lost 13.6 points off their cholesterol so both groups are doing great well how about the typos remember type o those are the ones who are supposed to need meat shouldn't be vegetarian shouldn't be vegan if you believed the old idea well no that's not what we found at all the people with blood type o their cholesterol levels fell just like everybody else not quite 13 points so what did we find we found that it's while it is true that people with blood type a are slightly more likely to get heart disease even more likely to get covet but people with type o less likely to get those things if you feed them a meaty diet they all do badly when you switch them to a vegan diet it doesn't matter which blood type they have they all do well so it looks like a plant-based diet is the diet to be on whether you're type a type o or anything else so there you have it [Music] oh am i frozen okay um i understand that we have technical difficulties that might have been brought to us by the spam manufacturers today all of whom may be blood type o and might be disappointed to discover that a vegan diet is not so hot for them um in any case i think chuck uh chuck's technology has failed for the moment um so let me just uh finish up and and summarize where we are we did a very large study it came out at the beginning of last week in 244 people and what we looked at in that study published in jama network open was what happens if you are following a plant-based diet and what happened was remarkable people lost weight that may not surprise you when people on a vegan diet they do really well and they lose weight but then what we looked at was why do you lose weight and what we found is when people go on a vegan diet and we look into their body with a special scanning device called magnetic resonance spectroscopy don't try this at home but we were able to do this because of our partnership with our colleagues in new haven connecticut at yale university at jerry shulman peterson uh people went vegan down here we put them in the amtrak train they went to new haven they got scanned and what we found was really astounding the amount of fat that builds up in their liver and their bloodstream in their liver and in their muscles starts to diminish that allows their mitochondria to start working again that allows their insulin sensitivity to improve that also allows their metabolism to be faster after each meal so why are vegans skinny the reason that vegans are skinnier is because their metabolism is faster than their non-vegan friends and of course they're eating a lot of high fiber foods that help keep you slim and then we took a subset of those patients and looked let's test the blood type diet and contrary to the myth contrary to the fad diet that says that type o's should eat meat and type a should be vegetarian we found that a plant-based diet is actually the best for everybody even the type o's who thought they needed spam when you get the meat out of their diet they lose weight their cholesterol is improved all those things get better at the same time so there you have it hey chuck you're welcome welcome back we missed you well there we go we had a little power surge so uh i went dark there for a minute uh glad to be back i i'm sorry that i missed a good uh portion of that conversation but i i do want to ask and maybe you address this forgive me if you have do we know what the specific mechanism is about the blood types that accounted for the varying degrees of weight loss and cholesterol among the groups um we really don't know um but the main thing that we well let me back up a little bit um the thing that is kind of remarkable with a prior research is that type a's are a little more vulnerable to heart disease and a little more vulnerable to covet type o less vulnerable to covet and less vulnerable to heart disease there we don't really know why that is but i'll tell you what i think when people have a genetic variant a genetic alteration what that means is a chromosome has a change in it your chromos you know you've seen pictures of chromosomes there's these funny little kind of serpentine shapes and they're just one gene after another after another after another after another you'll see a variant in some of them uh the thing that makes you a type a versus a typo is a difference in your chromosome and along with it right next door there can be other genes that can also be changed for example a gene that allows you to have a lower cholesterol level so it could be that the type o blood type is irrelevant but maybe right next to that gene for example could be something that allows you to process cholesterol a little more effectively so that's all for real but the real key point is to remember that blood type when it comes to your diet when it comes to your food choices blood type is irrelevant blood type doesn't do anything blood type means nothing if you're a type a you ought to be vegan if you are a type o you ought to be vegan if you type a b a b a b whatever it is you ought to be vegan it's um it's it's the they have the e and the converse is also true there is no one with any blood type who needs meat who needs to be eating cholesterol who needs animal fat that's a myth and i'm glad to have helped retire it well and it is such a widely held myth and i'm glad that this study is getting out there and that's kind of a great segue over to today's mailbag question it comes to us from katie um she writes can my cholesterol be too low here's why i like this for today show my former doctor didn't tell me my number he simply said that i needed to eat meat but all of my blood test results are always great so how do we get this information out there and to katie's question can cholesterol in fact be too low oh good heavens um well the short answer is is no um if you if you're a healthy person you get your cholesterol tested um it can be a little confusing because let's say um you look at your bad cholesterol result it'll it's called ldl c ldl cholesterol that's bad cholesterol you want it lower and so the the lab result might say well a healthy value is below a hundred and in some of the laboratories they might give a window and i'm going to make it up so like that it would be between 50 and 100. and let's say after you went vegan you dropped to 45 or 40. and looking at that you're going to think oh gee my my bad cholesterol needs to be hotter than that no no those norms are in some cases desirable levels like being below 100 is desirable in other cases they're just statistical norms showing where the population tends to be so when it comes to bad cholesterol the lower you are the better you are so if you're at 40 or 45 ldl no congratulate yourself you're doing great you do not need more cholesterol and you don't need me um so please do send your doctor our way we'd be more than happy to help him or her to learn more about how to use nutrition in a smart way absolutely and you can head over to pcrm.org and just search for blood type you're going to find a lot of information right there dr barnard appreciate all of the information that you've given us today and i'm also excited because this study that you have done with dr hanakaliova and the colleagues here at the physicians committee there's still more data to be extrapolated so it started with this metabolism study and now you've been able to extrapolate this for the blood type and there's still more interesting information to come there really is and it's very important that this information get out there by the way one last thing chuck i was thinking about the the um question that the person raised um some doctors say you should have meat uh let's say you're a little bit marginal in iron or the doctor is wondering if you're getting adequate protein it's really important for people to understand that there are healthier sources of iron and healthier sources of protein than meat so this 1950s idea that that i grew up with which was that you needed meat for this or that or the other thing we've discovered that um we're better off without it that's true regardless of who you are what your blood type is yeah and that reminds me of a note that we received from an exam room listener for the exam room podcast a while back it was um somebody who had adopted a plant-based diet and their cholesterol had plummeted uh absolutely just plummeted and they went to the doctor all excited expected to be taken off of their medication the doctor instead said well you need to eat meat to stay uh on your medication and that to me just seemed a little bit counterintuitive oh my goodness thanks um let me plug something that we have offered for a long time to help people with this uh we have a website called nutrition cme that stands for continuing medical education nutrition cme it offers continuing medical education for doctors nurses dietitians physician assistants it's approved by the ama and it's part of our partnership with the george washington university school of medicine so for all of those doctors who are feeling a little rusty on nutrition please do go to nutrition cme and see what you find there every year we have our international conference on nutrition and medicine also lots of continuing medical education there and our guide called the nutrition guide for clinicians it's a free download and that will really help you get a good sound basis uh in in the role of food and health um food is not a trivial thing it's an important basis for all for health of all kinds and it contributed to many many health uh challenges and so doctors are more and more eager to know about it but unfortunately not very well trained in it yet and we're trying to change that thanks jeff dr barnard appreciate your time and congratulations on the release of this study it's fantastic information thank you jeff all right if we didn't get to your question today maybe you can be tomorrow's katie and we'll pick your question for the doctor's mailbag go ahead keep on posting that in the comments or the chat again you can also tweet that to us using the hashtag exam room live send that on over to at pcrm or at chuck carroll wlc before we get out of here let's take a quick trip over to the exam room news desk get to check on health headlines for monday december 7 2020 and we do begin with the coronavirus where for the first time now covet 19 is outpacing heart disease to become the leading cause of death in the united states per the institute for health metrics and evaluation at the university of washington that is the same group who has been releasing widely cited models for predictions for where the pandemic is heading in the upcoming months as of now we are averaging 1688 deaths per day for covet 19 compared to 1532 per day for heart disease that is last week's numbers right now 282 000 people total have died during this pandemic more so there have been more than one million cases now reported during the first five days of december the u.s now averaging 200 000 cases every day rapidly approaching 15 million total since the beginning of the pandemic hospitalizations also continuing to rise up 25 percent over the last two weeks 101 000 people currently receiving around-the-clock care in the hospital for cove at 19 one out of every five in intensive care let's turn now to some brighter news though hospitals in new york are now required to offer plant-based meals to patients indeed that is the law of the land that went into effect yesterday and there are more than 1.5 million new yorkers with heart disease or diabetes accounting for 40 percent of all deaths in that state new york now joining california is just the second state to enact such a measure and it's one that is heavily favored by patients 83 percent of hospital patients in the washington dc area are in favor of banning processed meats from hospital menus due to the risk of cancer and if you want to learn more about this you can check out an interview i did with new york state senator brad hoyleman he's one of the sponsors of the bill one of the bill's authors spoke with him on the december 2nd episode of the exam room live and finally today more promising news a new pl new study finds that patients with severe colitis could benefit from a plant-based diet researchers found a 76 reduction in the rate for the condition when it was combined with medication more so no adverse effects for those who switched over to the plant-based diet this was a study that was conducted in japan and authors say dietary changes should be included now in the first line of treatment for the disease pretty promising information that's about all the time that we have for today's episode before we get out of here also a reminder if you would like to improve your health with any one of our doctors or dietitians get a keen eye on plant-based nutrition for your health you can schedule an appointment for a telemedicine visit at the barnard medical center all you need to do is head over to barnardmedical.org or pick up the phone and call 202-527-7500 to schedule that appointment and get a full list of states where services are available and yes indeed insurance is accepted barnardmedical.org 202-527-7500 is where you need to go tomorrow on the show we're going to be looking at how the pandemic affects our health behaviors dr hana kaliova will be here to talk with us about how this pandemic is shaping our health including packing on the pounds so that's tomorrow at noon eastern 9 a.m pacific right back here on facebook and on youtube i want to say thank you one more time to dr neil barnard for joining us and also to the crew behind the scenes for making the magic happen and to you my exam roomy thank you so very much for tuning in and raising your nutrition iq right alongside of us for everyone here at the physicians committee i am the weight loss champion chuck carroll thank you so very much for watching until tomorrow stay safe take a stand and keep it plant-based

Channel: Physicians Committee

Views: 235,663

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Id: NxLcNjjGPyo

Length: 23min 58sec (1438 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2020