Researchers from the University of Toronto (U of T) have discovered that the theory behind the popular blood type diet - claiming an individual's nutritional needs vary by blood type - has been debunked.
Senior author Dr. Ahmed El-Sohemy, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Nutrigenomics at the U of T, said that based on the data of 1,455 study participants, they found no evidence to support the 'blood-type' diet theory.
Researchers found that the associations they observed between each of the four blood-type (A, B, AB, O) diets and the markers of health are independent of the person's blood type.
The 'blood-type' diet was popularized in the book 'Eat Right for Your Type,' written by naturopath Peter D'Adamo.
The theory behind the diet is that the ABO blood type should match the dietary habits of our ancestors and people with different blood types process food differently.
According to the theory, individuals adhering to a diet specific to one's blood type can improve health and decrease risk of chronic illness such as cardiovascular disease.
The U of T researchers took an existing population of mostly young and healthy adults who provided detailed information about their usual diets and provided fasting blood that was used to isolate DNA to determine their ABO blood type and the level of cardiometabolic risk factors, such as insulin, cholesterol and triglycerides.
Diet scores were calculated based on the food items listed in Eat Right for Your Type to determine relative adherence to each of the four 'blood-type' diets.
The study has been published in journal PLoS One.
