Diet Success
To Succeed
at Any Diet, You Must Know Your Metabolic Type
By William
Wolcott,
Founder, The Healthexcel System of Metabolic Typing
Author,
The Metabolic Typing Diet (Doubleday)
Reprinted
with kind permission from Mr. Wolcott
As a
reader of this web site, it is likely that you've reached the
point where you think or even know that nutrition is important
if you ever want to get well and stay well. It's just common
sense, right?
But
you may also have come to feel that the field of nutrition is
quite baffling. And that even though there is more information
available today than ever before, that it's also become harder
to find what's really right for you or to decide just what you
should do.
In a
very real sense, the information explosion over the last 10
years has quite possibly brought more confusion than clarity to
your quest for health. As a result, you may have found yourself
asking questions like:
-
Why is it that my best
friend's nutritional supplements work absolute miracles, but
make me feel lousy?
-
How can one best selling book
say one thing about nutrition and the other bestseller say
just the opposite?
-
Why will a certain diet give
my friend energy and help to lose weight but make me tired
and gain weight?
-
Why can't I get rid of my
Candida overgrowth problem, even though I've followed an
"anti-Candida" diet?
-
How can someone eat the best
organic foods, take the finest nutritional supplements that
money can buy, get plenty of rest, exercise regularly... and
still not feel well?
Or
maybe your concern is with more serious issues like...
-
Why are two thirds of
Americans overweight?
-
How can so many people be
obese when people are more diet-, health- and
exercise-conscious than ever before?
-
Why is degenerative disease
skyrocketing?
-
Why are younger and younger
people falling prey to diseases of the aged?
-
Why are cancer, heart disease
and diabetes increasing each year?
And if
you’re a health professional working with nutrition, you may
also be baffled by questions such as...
-
Why does a low fat, low
protein, high complex carbohydrate diet raise cholesterol in
some people instead of lower it like it does in other
people?
-
Why does taking a nutritional
product or protocol help one person with a problem but not
another with the same problem?
-
If nutrition is so important,
why doesn’t it work for so many people?
Everywhere you look, there are contradictions. Your friend tells
you one thing. You read about just the opposite in a health
magazine. And a hot new bestseller at your local book store says
something quite different altogether. In fact, that’s another
problem -- wall-to-wall books on health and nutrition, most of
which just contradict each other.
And,
maybe you've learned from your own experience that what works
for one person, doesn't help a second and can actually make a
third person worse! Don’t worry, it’s not you. Even scientific
researchers are confused by their findings because most studies
on nutrients conclude that while helpful to a certain percentage
of people with a certain condition, the studied nutrients don’t
help or even worsen the same condition in other test subjects.
So how
can there be so much confusion and contradiction about something
that is supposed to be so good for you?
The
unfortunate reason is that the majority of the people talking
about nutrition know just enough to be dangerous. They know that
nutrition can be the answer, but they don't know how to use it
properly. And, yes, it is a two-edged sword: If you use it
properly, it can help make you well. But, make no mistake. If
you use it improperly, it can help make you sick or keep you
that way.
You
know. Take this nutrient for that condition. A magic bullet. One
standard nutritional remedy for each problem or a universal diet
that is supposed to work for everyone.
But,
your own experience and all the contradictory books and articles
that you've ever read, aside from making the field of nutrition
confusing, frustrating and sometimes downright baffling, have
already shown you that this approach doesn't work. And your
common sense agrees. You know that you are unique! You know one
shoe size doesn't fit all. You know that everyone is as unique
as their fingerprints. So, why would anyone ever think that one
diet is right for everyone? Or, that what works nutritionally
for one person would work for another as well?
The
fact is, you really can eat the best organic foods, exercise
regularly, drink plenty of fluids, get sufficient rest, take the
finest supplements that money can buy... and still not feel
well, or even start feeling worse than before!
So,
what is the answer? The answer is to find out what is right for
you!
Not
what some book says. Not what a friend says. Not what the latest
fad says is right. You need to find out exactly what is right
for YOU! A nutritional program that is tailored specifically for
your kind of metabolism and that will meet the special and
unique nutritional needs of the one and only you.
Bottom
line? Unless you match your nutrition to your metabolism, you'll
only be wasting your time and money!
So why
is it so hard to find right answers? How do you know who to
believe or who to trust?
The
answer is to this universal dilemma is that for decades, the
wrong questions have been asked. Ask wrong questions and you’re
bound to get wrong answers to your needs.
The
problem is that the quest for the "holy grail" in nutrition has
been to find that "right diet," that "healthy diet" that is
right for all people. And the quest has been to find the one
right nutritional protocol for each condition.
But
what has been missed is the undeniable fact that on a
biochemical level each of us is as unique as we are in our
fingerprints. Actually our uniqueness extends far beyond just
our fingerprints and encompasses virtually every aspect of
ourselves -- personality, behavior, temperament, external
physical traits, internal size, shape, placement and efficiency
of all of our organs and glands, and rates of our cellular
metabolism. Simply put, our DNA is unique.
Standardized nutritional approaches fail to recognize that, for
genetic reasons, people are all very different from one another
on a biochemical or metabolic level. Due to widely varying
hereditary influences, we all process or utilize foods and
nutrients very differently. Thus, the very same nutritional
protocol that enables one person to lead a long healthy life
full of robust health can cause serious illness in someone else.
As the ancient Roman philosopher Lucretius once said, "One man’s
food is another’s poison." It turns out, his statement is quite
literally true.
What
accounts for all this metabolic individuality?
At any
given point in time, there are a number of factors that
determine peoples’ unique nutritional requirements, but none is
more significant than a person’s ancestral heritage. It’s a
matter of classic Darwinian principles of evolution and
adaptation, natural selection, genetic mutation and survival of
the fittest. Over thousands of years of evolutionary history,
people in different parts of the world developed very specific
dietary needs as an adaptation mechanism, in response to many
unique aspects of their habitats and lifestyles -- including
climate, geography, vegetation, and naturally occurring food
supplies.
As an
example, people from cold northern regions of the world have
historically relied very heavily on animal protein, simply
because that’s the primary food source available in wintry
climates. Thus they have radically different nutritional needs
than people from tropical regions, where the environment is rich
in vegetative diversity year round.
In the
early part of the 20th century, a brilliant scientist by the
name of
Weston Price, DDS, demonstrated this
in no uncertain terms. He traveled all over the world and sought
out all the indigenous populations to study their diet and their
health. His discoveries were remarkable and extremely important.
What he discovered was that:
-
The diets of all the
indigenous peoples were tremendously varied (being dependent
on geography, climate and the food stuffs naturally
available)
-
Yet those indigenous people
who followed their ancestral diets were robustly healthy.
-
But those who moved away or
for other reasons strayed from their ancestral diet
developed degenerative processes.
What can
we learn from this?
-
First and foremost, there is
no one diet that is right for everyone, i.e., there never
has been and there never will be a universally healthy diet.
-
Second, the only healthy diet
is the one that meets one’s genetically-based requirements
-- not what some book or diet expert says is right. Eat a
diet that is right for your metabolic type and not only can
you stay healthy but you can reverse degenerative conditions
as well.
-
Third, there are no good
foods and there are no bad foods, except in terms of foods
that are right or wrong for your genetic makeup. Think meat
is bad for you? Then how do you explain the Inuit (Eskimo)
who eats up to 10 pounds of meat a day, yet there isn’t even
a word in their language for cancer or heart disease. Think
a high carb diet is bad for you? Then how do you explain the
Quetchus of South America or the East Indians who have lived
for countless generations on a near vegetarian diet? Think
dairy is bad for you? Then how do you explain the Swiss
whose ancestral diet was largely based on dairy and rye?
Your
body is designed to be healthy. Good health is your birthright.
The ability to experience radiant health is part of the genetic
code built into every cell in your body. What you need to do in
order to reclaim your birthright is to understand what your body
needs as opposed to someone else's, in order to function the way
it was intended it to. In short, you need to eat right for your
metabolic type.
In a
previous era, before the age of modern transportation, cultures
were isolated and peoples’ metabolic makeup and corresponding
dietary needs were very clear. But in today’s day and age, due
to extensive intermingling of cultures, we’ve become a true
"genetic melting pot." In the U.S. in particular, most of us
have many different ethnic and hereditary influences. As a
result, few of us have a distinct ancestral heritage or readily
identifiable dietary needs.
Fortunately, however, through the research that has been done
over the past 25 years, there is available a systematic,
testable, repeatable and verifiable advanced nutritional
technology that enables people to discover their own unique
dietary needs with a very high degree of precision. This
technology is known as Metabolic Typing. Through metabolic
typing those often mysterious, seemingly unanswerable questions
become perfectly clear and answerable indeed.
Once
you know your metabolic type and you know what foods are right
for you and what foods are wrong for you, then you need a simple
to follow, step-by-step plan to help you transition into a
healthy lifestyle that you can follow for the rest of your life.
It is
important to realize that the idea of metabolic typing is not
new. The roots of the concept of metabolic individuality can be
traced to antiquity. The 5,000 year old East Indian system of
medicine known as
Ayurveda was based on the interaction
of the 5 elements and the 7 energy centers in the individual and
primary treatment addressed one’s dosha (one's metabolic type)
before it addressed the symptom or disease.
Similarly, the ancient system of Chinese medicine recognized 5
elemental, constitutional types. Diagnosis and treatment in
ancient Egyptian medicine was based on the 7 organ systems in
the body. Greek physicians were concerned, as Hippocrates
stated, with the patient who has the disease instead of the
disease that has the patient, and evaluated the 4 humors
(liver-bile metabolic types). The ancient Roman philosopher
Lucretius is attributed with the saying, "One man’s meat is
another man’s poison."
The
modern background of metabolic typing
In
modern times, there have been some well-known and many not so
well-known medical researchers who recognized the value of
addressing biochemical individuality. In 1919, Frances Pottenger,
M.D., published his Symptoms Of Visceral Disease, where he
established the autonomic nervous system as the basis of
metabolic individuality and correlated the influence of various
nutrients on the autonomic nervous system.
Dr.
W.H. Sheldon, in the '40's, published his famous Varieties Of
Human Physique, providing photographic illustrations of his
somatotypes (ectomorph, endomorph and mesomorph metabolic
types). In the '50's, Dr. Melvin Page and Dr. Henry Bieler
concurrently developed concepts of endocrine types and their
relationship to various foods. Dr. George Watson, also in the
'50's, in his astounding book, Nutrition And The Mind, published
his research on the variable influences of oxidation (glycolysis,
beta oxidation, citric acid cycle) in different individuals he
classified as fast, mixed or slow oxidizers.
In
1956, the noted biochemist, Dr. Roger Williams, published his
genetotrophic theory on biochemical individuality, based on his
research which suggested that every human being has, because of
his genetic makeup, distinctive nutritional needs that must be
met in order to achieve optimum health and well-being. Dr. Royal
Lee's extensive writings in the 50's and 60's correlated
nutritional influences of the autonomic and endocrine systems.
Dr.
Emanuel Revici, in the ‘60’s, recognized the critical necessity
to address biochemical individuality and devoted his life's work
to the development of an entirely new system of medicine based
upon the variances between individuals in their catabolic and
anabolic influences.
Dr.
James D'Adamo, in the '70's, put forth a system of individual
classification based upon ABO blood types. In the mid '70's, Dr.
William D. Kelley met Dr. Roger William’s call for "metabolic
profiling" by becoming the first to apply William's concept of
nutritional individuality to computer science in identifying the
autonomic types, sympathetic, balanced and parasympathetic.
Further efforts to address metabolic individuality can be seen
in current works of numerous other pioneers. Among the more
recent who have joined the ranks are Dr. Elliot Abravanel, Dr.
Paul Eck, Dr. David Watts, Dr. Rudolph Wiley, and the insightful
founder of Nutri-Spec, Dr. Guy Schenker, to name a few.
What
exactly is metabolic typing and why is it important?
Metabolic typing is a systematic, testable, repeatable, and
verifiable methodology based on research and extensive clinical
experience over the last 25 years that combines the wisdom of
the ancient systems of medicine with our modern scientific
understanding of physiology and biochemistry.
Metabolic typing analyzes, evaluates, and interprets objective
physiological and biochemical indicators along with
symptomatology in order to define one’s metabolic type -- the
specific, individualized, genetically-based patterns of
biochemical metabolic individuality that dictate one’s
physiological and neurological "design limits" and requirements
for nutritional substances.
The
food that we eat is intended as the "fuel" for our body’s cells,
our engines of metabolism. Our cells in turn convert the fuel to
energy to be used in all the life-supporting processes of
metabolism that keep us alive and healthy. But like any engine,
our body needs a certain kind of fuel to function optimally. A
gasoline engine requires gasoline for fuel. A diesel engine is
designed to run on diesel for fuel. But try to run a gas engine
on diesel or a diesel engine on gas and not only will the energy
output be deficient, but using the wrong fuel for the engine
will cause real problems for the engine itself.
Similarly, our bodies have genetically-based requirements for
specific kinds of foods and balances of nutrients in order to
produce optimal energy and function in a state of optimal
health. If we meet these "design requirements," we can expect to
be healthy, energetic, fit and trim.
Failure to obtain on a regular basis the kinds of foods our
body’s are designed to utilize will initially produce
sub-clinical health complaints such as fatigue, aches and pains,
headaches, indigestion, weight gain, constipation, rashes, dry
skin, low blood sugar, etc.
But
long-term deficiency of the right foods for the metabolic type
will lead to degenerative conditions like asthma, cardiovascular
disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, etc. In other words, it’s
not just that the Eskimos can eat up to 10 pounds of meat and
huge amounts of fat and almost no carbohydrate, they need to eat
that way in order to be healthy because that’s what their
metabolisms are genetically programmed to utilize as fuel.
Similarly, each of us has very specific requirements for
nutrients that must be met in order to obtain and maintain good
health, energy and well-being for a lifetime.
Without metabolic typing, there is no way to discern one’s
"medicine" from one’s "poison." Without metabolic typing, there
is no way to know how nutrients behave in one person as opposed
to another. In essence, without metabolic typing, no rational
basis exists from which to select proper diet and nutritional
supplementation because one’s metabolic type dictates individual
responses to nutrients.
This
gets to the heart of some core premises of metabolic typing that
have not only great significance for each individual in
identification of a proper diet, but also have profound
implications for scientific research. Let’s look at two of these
core premises of our system of metabolic typing. Here’s the
first one:
-
ANY
NUTRIENT
AND ANY
FOOD CAN HAVE VIRTUALLY OPPOSITE BIOCHEMICAL INFLUENCES IN
DIFFERENT METABOLIC TYPES.
The
metabolic type defines the way in which the body reacts to
nutrients. Different metabolic types react differently to the
same nutrient. For example, in one metabolic type 100 milligrams
of potassium or eating, say, an orange (also high in potassium),
will cause the body’s pH to shift alkaline and produce a
sedating effect. But in a different metabolic type, the same
amount of potassium or an orange will produce an acid shift and
a stimulating response. This has been observed tens of thousands
of times through both objective metabolic type testing as well
as through changes in symptomatology.
Now
the second core premise:
-
ANY ADVERSE
SYMPTOM OR DEGENERATIVE CONDITION CAN ARISE DUE TO VIRTUALLY
OPPOSITE BIOCHEMICAL IMBALANCES.
This
same principle applies to any adverse health complaint, from
simple to complex, from cramps to cardiovascular disease (CVD),
from rashes to rheumatoid arthritis. For example, we have seen
just as many cases of high cholesterol and CVD resolve through a
high carbohydrate, low fat, low protein diet as we have seen
resolve through the opposite low carb, high protein, high fat
diet. Match the diet to the metabolic type and any degenerative
condition has a chance to reverse. But eat the wrong foods for
the metabolic type, even high quality, organic foods, and
degenerative processes will only worsen.
The
implications of these premises are staggering.
If
they are true, then allopathic nutrition has no rational basis.
Seeking a common therapy for all people for every condition is a
wild goose chase and is doomed to failure. Any success with that
approach has been and will continue to be by chance -- not
systematic, reliable predictability.
If any
nutrient or food can have totally opposite influences,
biochemically speaking, in different people, how can there be a
treatment, for any condition, that can work for all people?
The
answer is that there can’t be only one treatment. This is
precisely why what works for one person can worsen the same
condition in another person. This is why what makes your friend
thin can make you fat. This is why what improves energy and
performance for one person can worsen it in another. As it turns
out, metabolic typing explains why Lucretius’ adage, "One man’s
food is another man’s poison," is literally true.
And,
if it is true that two people with the same degenerative disease
can have virtually opposite biochemical imbalances, and that
when two opposite biochemical protocols are administered the
problem resolves, then this clearly means that it’s not the
diseases that should be treated but the underlying metabolic
type imbalances that have caused the diseases that need be
addressed.
From
this viewpoint, the diseases are not the problems; they are the
symptoms, the manifestations, the expressions of the underlying,
foundational imbalances.
The reality of metabolic individuality demands that the person
who has the disease -- not the disease that has the person -- be
treated!
These
premises of metabolic typing also explain why scientific
research on nutrition is usually so inconclusive and produces
such inconsistent results. For example, researchers have been
confounded why calcium can lower blood pressure in some but
raise it in others. Similar findings occurred with the effect of
potassium. Until research on the effect of a given nutrient on a
given condition is performed on a like metabolic type subject
population, you will always see variable results.
In
summary:
-
Biochemical individuality is
responsible for the fact that nutrients behave differently
in different metabolic types
-
The variable influences of
nutrients on different metabolisms along with the same
condition arising from totally different biochemical
imbalances make it impossible to treat conditions with a
standardized treatment protocol
-
Successful, predictable,
reliable therapy can only be chosen once you know the
metabolic type because only then will you know how nutrients
behave in that person’s metabolism.
Degenerative conditions account for well over 80% of all of the
adverse conditions that afflict the peoples of our country. This
means that only a little over 1 out of every 10 people that go
to doctors has crises or infectious conditions that require and
respond to allopathic treatments.
More
and more people every year fall prey to degenerative conditions
and, sadly, at younger and younger ages. Diseases once viewed as
accompaniments to old age are now commonplace in our children.
Yet, currently, there is no orthodox cure for nearly any
degenerative disease.
So-called alternative practitioners, as a group, fare little
better. Even those who meet with "success" often find that when
the therapy is stopped, the condition returns and no real,
lasting healing has taken place. Or they are baffled by the
universal phenomena of failing to help the next patient with the
same condition with the very same protocol that worked so well
for the former patient.
We
find ourselves, practitioners and lay people alike, trying
futilely to absorb the avalanche of information and research in
nutrition that has descended upon us and only promises to gain
speed with ever-increasing volume. We’re bombarded with
seemingly endless newspaper and magazine articles, health books,
interviews on radio and television, internet sites, all touting
opposing points of view. What are we to do with the
blessing/curse of this information explosion?
The
problem is that there hasn’t been a reference point or a
framework in which to organize and understand the thousands upon
thousands of research findings, many of which are outright
contradictory in nature. It’s like an enormous jigsaw puzzle
that arrives without the picture on the box. How do the pieces
fit together? How can we possibly make sense and make use of
this research? A PDR (Physician’s Desk Reference) of nutrition?
Even
if it was possible to know the effects of every single vitamin,
mineral, fatty acid, herb, etc., and then to organize them item
by item, of what practical use would that be? How would we be
any further along? We would still have 100’s or even 1000’s of
choices to make for each nutrient. And every day more and more
effects are being found for every nutrient known to us.
Even
so, it is every practitioner’s experience that what works for
one patient does not work for another with the same condition.
The total body of scientific research is one gigantic pool of
randomized information that is only growing in complexity. And
yet, this is precisely the path that researchers and
practitioners are following. The wrong path was chosen and it is
leading us deeper and deeper into the dark forest of confusion.
The more that research uncovers, the less clear the picture
becomes.
The
wrong questions have been and are still being asked. Instead of
seeking answers to the effects of biochemical substances on
diseases, we need to turn our attention to understanding how
nutrients effect individual metabolisms. Instead of thinking in
terms of treating disease, we must learn to think in terms of
building health and meeting and optimizing genetic functional
capacity by addressing the needs of each individual’s metabolic
type.
The
adverse influences in the environment will continue to increase
in the years ahead. In order to survive and live a full,
productive life in the current millennium, especially if one
wants to live a healthy life, it is becoming increasingly
important that each individual take responsibility for his own
health and address the inescapable requirements of his
biochemical individuality, for it is only in so doing that the
body will adapt and maintain its defenses against the
adversities of the environment and that the joy and exuberance
of true good health can be known. |
