The last week has been quite hot and humid over here at D'Adamo World Headquarters. We've finally put in a ‘deer-proof' fence around a bit of the property, so for the first time since we've moved here (perhaps a decade or so) I can plunk in a few plants and not be forced to view a scene of desolation and carnage the next morning. Apparently from a low of 27 in 1939, the number of deer in Connecticut has now risen to somewhere between one and two million, which is not surprising considering that their natural predator, the wolf, is long gone and the state is full of yummy suburban yards full of tasty treats.

We've put in a variety of things, which I hope to add to over the season. One plant I always try to use is Baptisia tinctoralis (Wild Indigo) which grows well, if slowly in these parts. Baptisia has always interested me in a medical manner, having many immuno-stimulatory polysaccharides, and a few fascinating alkaloids as well. It is one of the few natural products that are known to stimulate the anti-T (Thomsen-Freidenreich) antibody, which may help explain its long use in traditional medicine for the treatment of cancer.

Interestingly, Georg Springer's anti-T vaccine was partly composed of the typhoid vaccine; he felt that it amplified the effect of the other components. Baptisia has a long history of use by many cultures for treating typhoid fever.

The British Naturopathic Association had an editorial on the Blood Type Diet Theory. You can read it here, including an afterpiece by Tom Greenfield. The article is pretty flaccid and tries to be humorous, but I wonder about the appropriateness of editorializing about ‘things' in a medical journal. Typically, medical journals editorialize about the results of research included in that issue, and often only to speculate on what further conclusions may be drawn from it. The major gripe the author seems to have is that Red Clover, another plant I'm going to plunk in my garden, is an ‘avoid' for everyone. But that is only to keep it out of the hands of people who don't know how to use it. Hey guys! Knock! Knock!

However, I do think that the British naturopaths (by-and-large) ‘get it' when it comes to the essence of what all this ‘polymorphism stuff' means to the practitioner. A lot of the US naturopaths are still incredulous that one of their number could possibly come up with a discovery --the significance of which, if correct-- would have wide and far-reaching implications. Others think everyone should just be vegan and that would solve everything.

Typically when it arrives, like all medical folk, they then trip over themselves so as to not be ‘the last.'

As I wrote on the Forums, a lot of ND's have the opposite of the ‘not invented here syndrome,' which is the ‘I can't believe it was invented here syndrome.'

In both cases, considering the enormous amount of woo-hoo, mumbo-jumbo fantasy that masquerades for ‘cutting edge' alternative treatments and devices (if my office mail slot is to be believed) it certainly can't be the lack of science that is holding them back. If ideas, as Schopenhauer observed, do go through three phases (ridicule, rejection, acceptance) then we've still got some time. Unfortunately, often by the time you get to the ‘acceptance' stage, all the fun has been sucked out of things.

Research-wise, this has been a busy week.

Traded emails with Dr. Linda Kim, whose with the Southwest College Research Department over the last two weeks. The microbial adhesion study and the clinical trial of blood type and endothelial dysfunction are on schedule and within budget. Enrollment will be completed for the clinical trial by 7/31 and experiments completed for the adhesion study by 9/30.

Had a wonderful meeting with Dr. Carlo Calabrese and Dr. Heather Zwickey over at the Helfgott Research Institute, which is associated with the National College of Naturopathic Medicine. We're hoping to develop a series of studies that can test the BTD across a variety of conditions and parameters. What is great about working with Carlo --whom I've know for decades-- is that he attracts the very best thinkers, and so much of the work with blood groups (which are really genes when you think of it) is high level math and statistics, and area in which I am not all that muscular.

Someone wrote me that the BTD was discussed in a book called "The Chemistry of Joy�. I've not heard of it, but it's got a heck of a title.

Unless you happen to be named Joy.