The GenoType Diet: Complete Review

Im intrigued enough to want to read this yet, when reading the types above, think:

which one am I? would I be were I not working daily to be healthy and stay fit?

Kind of like the somatypes. People often tell me Im an ectomorph or mesomorph but, if I ate junk and sat on my arse more than I do now, Id be an endomorph.

or would I?

hard to know---but looks like something Id wanna read hard science behind or not.

THANKS FOR THE REVIEW as Id not even heard of the book.

This is a great review - I'd looked into the online diet but never seen the book version, so this sheds a lot of light on the principles of the Genotype Diet. Does D'Adamo state any of his own research as back-up for his plan? Sometimes I wonder where an author comes up with their ideas for a book and/or diet like this. If there really is no science to back it up, does that mean people are willing to buy the next-best-thing whether or not it's proven to work?

I've not read this book, but from a marketing point of view - people love new taxonomies that place someone into a somewhat flattering category. You get a new identity, and probably meaningless insight that gives an afterglow of understanding...

I never fit into any of the categories in these sorts of books, and I hate the idea that we all fit neatly into boxes. Even if there were those "genotypes" once, thousands of years of intermarriage make the idea that we all fit neatly into these categories ridiculous.

I find this very interesting. I did not know there was much of a relationship between nutrition and genetics, but it does make sense. It's incredible what studies have shown in terms of how our genetic makeup effects our health in terms of diseases. Hopefully, this type of thing can help improve overall nutrition and health in the future.

If he's not presenting his theories for other scientists to analyse and respond to, then it's not science. Science progresses via group effort.

Just because some multiple-choice test manages to sort people into x number of groups, doesn't mean that there are actually x groups to divide people among, or that these specific groups represent anything real.

What I am reading from Mike's review:
(1) pay Dr. Peter D'adamo money via buying his book.
(2) take test that he made up and no other scientist will vouch for.
(3) pay him money via his website to be able to put his ideas to use.

Sounds fishy to me (chinook or atlantic salmon, take your pick).

I am not a fan of any book that doesn't provide either research or actual exercises that you can try or work on that involves your health. The fact that you have to pay to get any of the information that you can use to apply the diet is ridiculous.

Are people just smoking pot, writing stream of conscious, and getting book deals?

How does this get published?

It sounds like complete junk. It doesn't even pass the smell test and is not worth further investigation.

As you rightly note, it appears at first to rest on a logical premise: that humans have evolved in ways that will make certain diets better or worse for them. It then makes a gigantic leap to making specific claims about what diets are better for certain supposed "genotypes." There is no science supporting these claims. If there were, we would already know about it.

This book sounds sort of fishy to me. The descriptions of the different "GenoTypes" are kind of vague...I could be in either the Teacher or the Explorer category while my husband is probably a Warrior. If this book is like the Blood Type book, there are lists of foods that you can and cannot eat, so that's mostly what's going to lead to any sort of weight loss. If you can't eat X, Y, Z and are allowed to eat Q, R, and S, of course you'll probably lose some weight.

I'm sort of curious to see what else is in this book, so I may have to check it out to see what foods I "should" be eating.

I'm betting the next book this guy publishes will be the Zodiac Diet...if you're a Virgo, you should eat fish and beans but if you're a Libra, you should eat beef and quinoa or whatever. I'm sure people would buy it.

I briefly skimmed through that book in the store around x'mas. It involves a LONG test to determine your type. I find this still a one size fits all approach. Not everyone fits into the type exactly, just like someone mentioned, sort of life sameotype(sp.).

Great review of the diet. I for one do not believe the hype of most diet books. I think regardless what your genetics are, if you choose a healthy diet and exercise regularly you can lose weight and be healthier. Books like the Geno Diet, really don't care about the health or weight of the "customers", they just care about the bottom line - the money in their pocketbook.

I find that the first sign that a so called ‘scientific’ theory has little actual scientific merit is when it does not use correct terminology. ‘Genotype’ is a real term but refers to the actual combination of genes that result in a specific phenotype. For example, the genotype for O blood type is (i,i). You won’t sell any books with that.

Genotype Diet is the good for health.I did not read the book but according to the action point of view Genotype diet is good diet that suits for the body.

I think it is an interesting notion but when you break it down I think it is a pretty crazy idea. We have not been hunter or gathers for thousands of years. If we all had these specific gean types they surely would have been cross bred so many times over the last few thousand years there would no longer be any distinct subsets. It sounds a bit far fetched and the fact there is no supporting evidence makes the claims very week.

Don't knock the book or its concepts til you've read and understand them...the science behind d'adamo's books is certainly there...unfortunately, those who've never read d'adamo's books pass his work off as rubbish because of their ignorance

The term, 'genotype,' is indeed used appropriately, as the premise of the book is how specific factors (e.g. nutrients, diet, and lifestyle) effect one's genes (genotype), thereby altering the expression of those genes (observably, phenotype). Naturally, different gene expressions (e.g. as a result of silencing, RNA interference, et cetera) and different genes themselves require different diets and lifestyles; d'adamo is simply trying to develop diets and lifestyles that promote the optimal expression of one's genes, which ultimately leads to better health.

It just feels like D'adamo is flogging a dead horse with the Genotype Diet, which is suffering the same negative press that his Blood Type Diet
received, and for all the same reasons.

If you go ahead and spend your hard earned money to gain access to the recipes and other tools for this diet (which is $4 a week, but you have to pay for 13 weeks, so actually it is a $52 investment, plus the cost of the book too) you find that the recipes are quite good. But again, if it is recipes you want then save some money and just buy a good low-carb, low-cal cook book and start cooking.

I have the book and like it alot. It said that we could go on the website to find a list of all the foods tested and newly discovered foods for our genotype to eat and to limit or avoid but I cant find this information. Can someone send me it please? Thankyou

Where do I find list of foods tested and new ones to eat and those to limit or avoid?Help!

The diet is brainwash!!! I was on it for 3 months and almost died of an omega 6 deficiency. Stay AWAY!!!

LOL, this is all interesting to read today, 12-31-2008. I find that it is worth a shot to try something else that may or may not work for me as I attempt yet another New Year's resolution to lose weight. No matter what your goal, it's all about "rational expectations." As a white guy, 36yrs old, and at 275#, well, I guess that puts me in the Endomorph category. I've been an avid beliver in the Atkins plan and anyone with good memory understands the politics he faced in the 1970's; the American medical establishment crucified the poor guy. Atkins worked for me when I was young. Today I just can't survive on 2 **grams** of carbs per day, and that's what it takes for me to lose weight. Nor can my body tolerate 2 hours of running per day (been there, done that).
Penn and Teller have a "BS" show on Showtime and they recently did an episode on the logical fallacy of big guys being unhealthy. I have run 5K and 10K races with respectable times for my age. So, I may have a big physique for the rest of my life. That doesn't mean unhealthy ...yet at the same time D'Adamo may be on to something that **might** help me now. It is a crapshoot, but from what I have read, I'm willing to roll the dice and see what happens. I don't fault the guy for trying to make a buck. Even Susan Powter bursted on to the scene in 1993 and she marketed her program as anti-establishment. Where is she today? The weight-loss biz is a BIZ first ...no different than the Catholic church. They are both selling hope in one form or another. I'm rational enough to not give D'Adamo all my money. Same goes for the Pope. Just be smart people!! ;-)
CvL

If you have read all the reference books on the resource pages 303-304 of this book, then you're qualified to slam the book...if not then try it out and let your experience decide. The worst that can happen is you get to try out foods you have never eaten before and figure out that they are good for you and bad for others

I have been following the Blood Type/Genotype Diet for about 5 years now and it has worked wonders! It does not matter how much it all costs......his theory is 100% right on. I went from a size 10 o 3. I feel amazing! This is the answer and would bet that it will work for anyone.

I am an O, Gatherer and while sometimes staying away from gluten and dairy is difficult-it is well worth it.

D'Adamo will change your life....I guarantee it.

Once again you’ve produced another post which busts through the nonsense that is out there around health and food.
More needs to be done to encourage people to eat healthily and knowledge is key because the companies selling packaged food are selling a product and not necessarily the truth.
Thanks for sharing such a wealth of knowledge with us. Keep on being controversial appropriately. We need more truth and less hype.

The diet is stupid on the face of it, but I did it because my sister did, and it WORKED on my fat ass.

Make of it what you will.

Well, I got the book for $2.99 (US) at a thrift store and don't plan on shelling out for recipes (I can cook just fine0 or supplements. I matched up with the Exporer genotype very well, and looking at his list of foods, almost every one of the "toxic" ones have been upsetting my body for years! I've already been staying away from many of them, at least much of the time. I live in Alaska so you'd better believe I have no acces to kudzu, ostrich, or anything too far out of the norm (however, all the wild salmon, reindeer, and moose I like, courtesy of my friends). It comes down to eating healthy foods in general and listening to your body. I'll just use his lists for Explorer to experiment and fine tune the list I already made for myself, see what happens. His research may or may not be well substantiated, but what he says about my type does match up with what I have discovered so far about my own body's preferred food, so there might be some nuggets of usefulness buried in there.

Jesphine

The impression I get from the latest edition of this book, retitled Change Your Genetic Destiny), is that D'Adamo's research springs from much prior research by others, including those references listed in the Resources section at the end of the book; and that this work is being continued today by the Human Genome Project, probably among others. I take the Resources list to serve, to at least some degree, as a reference list, as clearly the author has read all these works and presumably drawn information from them. Further, the website contains a huge array of related scientific literature that is so technical, exhaustive, and complex that I blanched just looking at one page, and I was hugely relieved that one could gain benefit from the concepts without having to slog through this veritable jungle of information! For those seeking a doctor's endorsement, the most obvious one is that expressed in the forward by Tom Greenfield, ND, DO, MIFI. He stands behind the science that went into this book and states that many doctors have successfully employed the precursor to the GenoType Diet, the Blood Type Diet, with their patients. Since the GenoType Diet is simply an expansion on the concepts of the former diet, it would seem to hold similar promise--but I don't think Greenfield should be expected to speak to this upon the presentation of this new (at the time) book to the public.

Incidentally, does not the publication of this book offer adequate opportunity for "other scientists to analyse and respond to" D'Adamo's theories? After all, popular works are just as available to scientists as works published in academic forums. Further, this popular work might well have been preceded by scholarly publications.

In his book, D’Adamo states, "I developed the concept of the GenoType and identified six GenoTypes by doing statistical analyses of how genes, disorders, and physical traits are known to cluster together. I based my work on the known associations between such traits as, say, fingerprint patterns and particular disorders, leg length and risk for prostate cancer, and tooth shoveling and ancestral diet." It doesn't appear that D'Adamo pulled his ideas out of the blue.

Most importantly, posters criticizing D'Adamo's concepts surrounding "genotypes" seem to be overlooking the author's explanation in the book about the specific word he coined, "GenoType," which has a much broader meaning than "genotype." The former is the term he most often uses. He explains: "Although in traditional scientific practice the word genotype is used only to describe a person's actual assortment of genes, I've chosen to use the term in a unique way because I believe that we've sold ourselves a bit short with this narrow, linear definition. The standard definition refers only to chromosomes, but my own use of the word genotype includes your relationship to the environment [epigenetics], the influence of your family history from very recent times, and effects of your fetal, or prenatal, history...words and concept come together to make something new and completely different: a Genetic Archetype--a GenoType...these GenoTypes [are] older than ethnicity and they don't necessarily line up with your family patterns." In the next book section, D’Adamo further clarifies, "There probably aren't only six GenoTypes. There are probably 7.5 billion--one for every human currently alive...[a]s it happens, the survival strategies we've worked out with our 30,000 genes, our common prenatal experience, and our 100,000 years on the planet have fallen into six basic patterns. I can't tell you why there are six any more than I can tell you why there are four blood types--it just happened that way."

D’Adamo makes clear that one can test "very strong," "strong," "positive," or weak for one's GenoType profile. However, one does not have to be a strong match to fit completely into that category or to successfully employ the guidelines for that category, because BASIC PATTERNS, as mentioned above, are the key words. As a case in point, I do not match most of the biometric characteristics associated with my GenoType, but almost all the descriptors in the other categories hit the nail on the head. And my experience strongly indicates that the recommended diet and exercise program hold validity for me.

Will this science evolve and refine itself? Undoubtedly. Will we find ways to fine-tune the guidelines further to more tightly suit each individual? I'm certain that, over time, we will. But does D'Adamo's work have a basis in fact, and does it have value just as it stands? I am convinced that it does, for both logical and experiential reasons.

I've been on the diet/exercise program for eighteen days and my former, often severe digestion problems, which for years have been almost daily events, have been virtually nonapparent during this whole time.

On another note, about complaints that D'Adamo is trying to rake in cash by selling needless supplements, both mainstream and naturopathic doctors widely agree that supplements have become vital components of complete health in our modern industrial society because we tend not to eat food in the fresh, non-chemical-ridden, and relatively unprocessed state that people did in the past. In addition, our entire environment has become much more toxic, taxing the body in new ways that cry out for more support. Also, some of the ingredients in the supplements may have been commonly available as food sources to our ancestors but are quite exotic to us today. As I see it, D'Adamo is simply offering a relatively few basic supplement alternatives to some of the multitudes offered in stores and on websites (products that everyday Americans spend thousands on yearly); D'Adamo offers two basic "multi's" that don't conflict with any particular body chemistry, as well as several products to address more particular needs and that suit each GenoType's specific body chemistry. I don't think D’Adamo is implicitly recommending that each person take all of the supplements offered for his/her GenoType; the website says to consult with one's health care provider before beginning to take any supplement. I think the idea is to take just that which you determine you need. If you really could somehow function optimally without any supplementation, I’m quite sure that D'Adamo would not recommend that you take these, or any, supplements.

Finally, about posters' complaints that you need to pay for meal plans, in theory it might be nice to have such plans included in the book; however, would that double the size and the cost of the book, and would some people prefer to pay less for the book and devise their own plans instead? Granted, the cost for the web info. that posters cite does sound over the top, and offering separate books with meal plans for each GenoType instead would probably be the ideal. But are many of us not creative enough that we can look at the foods recommended for our types and devise meal plans ourselves based on that information? I certainly have done fine without any meal plans.

For those posting concerns and skepticism, I think a closer look at the book and the website can actually answer to these objections pretty well.

I tried my warrior diet for a bit and found that without meat or dairy, my blood sugar would plummet. (I have hypoglycemia.) I tried the correct nuts and legumes to bring it back up on several occasions, especially after exercise, but it fell short. I am doubting that this is credible. Also, there is no such thing as Atlantic salmon!! It's a misnomer. Salmon comes from the Pacific, so no one should be eating "Atlantic" salmon. It's as much salmon as krab dip is king crab!

I have done both Blood Type O diet and Hunter Genotype with absolutely amazing results- for years. I only spent money on the book and the test kit for 10 bucks. I have tested many of my clients who have all had amazing results when they do it. Don't knock it til ya try it, for at least a month. and if it is not for u cool. it has worked for many. and science is not always right. it changes all the time. can't rely on that. personal experience is the only way to "know".

I've done this diet for 8 months now having seen fantastic results in friends. I have never been so helathy in my life, so I can't say enough good things about it. The science seems logical too. I don't need any 'scientist' to tell me anything. I've seen it work with my own eyes.