Dear Heidi, Love your column!



I am 47 and an "O" secretor. When I was 19 I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease and had a little over half of the thyroid removed. Have never taken meds for this as tests show I don't need them. Last Oct had a complete hysterectomy also taking ovaries.(I had fibroids). In Dec last year found out I had breast cancer and had major surgery in Jan. Cancer was very early stages so no further meds,treatments or hormones.



Now I am once again getting a lump on my remaining thyroid and am somewhat blue,out of energy and unable to sleep. The Dr. has started me on Lexapro for depression, Klonopin (for restless legs) and Adavin to sleep. None of which works very well!



I have spent a lot of time reading Live Right, have the Encyclopedia and am perhaps 50% compliant. We have 3 teenage boys so our food bill is very high! We believe that all of us are O and one B which is good. We plan to buy a grass fed beef from a friend but please advise - what can give me a jump start to sleeping and energy? Thank you for your help! Kathy



Hi, Kathy! The difference between 50% compliance and, say, 80% makes an enormous huge difference in anyone's health. Going from 80% to 100% is what many BTDers say gave them the edge over a serious disease when nothing else seemed at all effective. Since you've been through multiple occurrences of severe conditions, the absolutely #1 thing to do is use the O secretor diet at a high level of compliance.



Second, your doctor is doing drug medicine on you. None of your conditions are drug-deficiency diseases. None of the drugs he is giving you will resolve the causes of your troubles. The fact that none of them do the job is LUCKY for you -- unlike many people who just resign themselves to taking endless drugs because they seem to work, your own body is telling you this is not the way.

;-)



Your situation is a complex one which I feel is beyond my ability to assist with. If there is no BTD-skilled practitioner in your locale, I urge you to arrange a telephone consultation with Doc Bron at the D'Adamo Clinic. Click on the link to his column, and look at the bottom of the page where the phone number is given. I want to hear that you've come through this with a renewed vigor and greater health! This is the way to go.



Please do keep in touch -- I want to know how you're doing! :-)

Type A+ nonnie. Hi Heidi - thanks soo much for the quick response.



You recommended eating oatmeal for breakfast but, I've noticed I cannot tolerate any carbs during the day - if I have a carb breakfast (such as oatmeal) I am literally starving all day - cannot stop eating and basically want to eat everything in sight. So, I've discovered that the only thing I can handle is some egg or fruit.



Then for lunch I have a salad. Hmmm... interesting thing about chicken I've discovere is that I cannot have too much of it - maybe once a week (can you tell I've expremented quite a bit on my own!)... if I eat it I break out with the herpes cold sores which completely wears my body down. Other thing I've discovered I cannot have any spelt, sprouted wheat or any other grain other than rice. With fish (although I love it) I am conspitated terribly - even on the highly beneficial kind such as salmon.



Again I want to thank you for you wonderful insight. This diet has given me a new life and improved the lives of everyone else I have recommended it to as well. Thanks so much for your wonderful insight. Oh, and I'll start with the lemon water in the morning. Ritoo



Hi again, Ritoo! Well, thanks for the update -- did you try adding the fat to the morning oatmeal? or having just a bit at the end of the day? Often, type As will try to self-medicate for hypoglycemia by avoiding all beneficial grains (although fruit in the morning works for you, another interesting item) and if they truly give it a go, their symptoms will normalize within three weeks on the A nonnie diet.



Just one thing struck me, that perhaps you are an AB with a weak B reaction? If you obtained your full serotype panel, or ABO-tested via the home kit more than once, AND if the chicken you eat is always healthy, organically-fed and unmedicated, then your chicken reaction indicates impaired viral immunity. Do you use echinacea or any of the other immune system boosters recommended in the Encyclopedia?



If you have tried small amounts of fish with lots of veg & fat ONLY (no grain) and any kind of fish eaten in this fashion, no matter how it is cooked, still constipates you, I am completely amazed. Fish is used very successfully in alleviating constipation in all types; fish oils have been prescribed for bowel health in the past two centuries; and whitefish peptides are an eminently effective therapeutic treatment for IBS.



Go through the suggestions I gave the last time, and let me know whether you tried them out *as written* before your latest message, above. And let me know how the lemon water is working! Best wishes to you, Ritoo ~ we'll get to the bottom of all this, if we both keep working on it! :-)

Hi Heidi, Would you mind elaborating, or “yakking on” as you described it, on a couple of statements you made recently? ;-)



In a response to K you wrote about conjugated linoleic acid ("CLA") in grass fed red meats and how you thought it “should be labeled ESSENTIAL TO TYPE O HEALTH”. I have found some sources for naturally raised meats and buy those frequently, but I doubt they are from entirely grass fed sources. Therefore, I have been concerned about what I am not getting from my meats, such as CLA, Omega 3, and other things that I may not even be aware of. If I can’t find a source of grass fed meats, that I can afford, should I consider supplementing with CLA and/or anything else, maybe even just for a test period?



In the same response to K you also mentioned lamb as a fine choice, which reminded me of a question I have had for a quite some time. And that is the issue of food variety in my diet. You also touched on this topic in your fairly recent response to Bcha when you said “The key to a balanced approach for Os is to include meats, fish, oils, seeds, nuts, seaweeds, sea salt, and all kinds of vegetables - both raw and cooked. Dark leafy veg (cooked) contains elements not found in artichokes and onions and broccoli, which contain elements not found in root veg like turnips and carrots, which contain elements not found in salad greens... and so on!” I try to incorporate as much variety as I can primarily focusing on the beneficial choices, but I wonder about the foods that I have not yet included in my diet or that I don’t use very often. As you said different foods contain different elements. Therefore, even though I use most, but not all, of the beneficial foods at least every few months should I really strive to include all beneficial foods on a more regular basis?



To be more specific do you think it is more important to get as wide as possible a variety of vegetables then the foods in the other categories such as meats, fish, or fruits for a type O, or maybe any type.



Case in point, I have not yet included liver in my diet because I am concerned about the source of the liver in the store. Knowing that liver is a great source of B vitamins and that they are important to type Os am I missing an important element in my diet? I supplement with a B vitamin complex tablet and use nutritional yeast on my daily salad, but even so would I be advised to go ahead and use the store bought liver that is available?



For example on the vegetable side, I use a selection of cooked and salad greens on a regular basis, but there are a few beneficial greens which I have not included in my diet. Am I missing important elements in my diet because I am not consuming the other beneficial greens, such as beet greens, chicory, escarole, kohlrabi, or swiss chard? It’s not that I don’t want to eat them. It is mainly because I haven’t found them in the stores when I have looked for them.



Without Dr. D’Adamo’s knowledge of why the different foods are listed as beneficial for my type it is difficult to know if my diet may be missing some of the important foods for my particular health situation. I appreciate your thoughts on these questions. Don (DSJ)



Hello, hon! ;-) Happy New Year!



My perennial urging to include as much variety as possible is made to counterbalance the common tendency to want to get the food planning upheaval settled back into a mechanistic framework. People have too many other important things to do! Embarking upon the BTD has already meant committing so much more time & energy to comestibles, that the impulse to model the new diet upon the "old reliables" model is very strong: breakfast is always *this,* dinner is always *this,* and so on. After all, it took one heck of a lot of work just to determine, then FIND those foods that would work in a given meal. We may feel we're reinventing the wheel and spinning it off into the unknown weekly if we pursue variety on top of the achievement of finally getting a handle on the diet itself.



Approach the variety issue with a sense of play. I hope no one will break the bank or spend every waking moment sourcing new veggies. Long-term success is far more likely if we start from where we are and confidently enjoy the lookout for new treats!



Now to your questions: Including most of the bennies, as you do, in a three-month period is great -- more than adequate. The seasons naturally present different foods at different times, so for that reason alone I wouldn't expect anyone to hit all the items in a week or a month.



About CLA: I've been hesitant to suggest CLA supps, generally. Even the less expensive protein sources like ranged turkey and highest-quality eggs have significant amounts of CLA. However, in your situation I think I would supplement it occasionally if grassfed red meat isn't on the menu at least three times weekly. I believe it will make a noticeable difference for you. Try it for a week at least, and let me know what your findings are.



Certainly, eat the liver. Organ meats undergo very strict quality testing, and are the best bet for both nutrition and price among the regular old meat counter's offerings.



On the the vegetables: Nutritionally, chicory and escarole are basically identical, as are beet greens and chards; kohlrabi is much like turnips. You're already getting lots of different kinds of veg, so if you can expand it a bit here in the winter season that's fine; otherwise, await the spring and summer to seek out more options... with a light heart!



I hope this makes sense and helps put things in a balanced perspective! Write again if I can do more! Warm wishes in this chilliest season, dear ~~ :-D