The gal at the health-food store (a fellow A non-secretor) swears by Dr. D’Adamo’s Deflect ‘A’ supplement. (Click on "The Blood Type Store" at the left side of this site's home page to read about Deflect for your blood type.) I finally decided to give it a try. Following advice that Dr. D has given on this site, I started with just two capsules per day and gradually increased the number. There was no obvious immediate effect of any sort, so I wasn’t sure how many I actually needed to take.

Most of my supplement amounts are determined by one of two methods: trial and error, or my nutritionist’s advice. Trial and error was apparently going to take a while in this case, so I gave my nutritionist a few Deflect capsules to test me with. (I’ll describe her method in a Note below for those who are interested.)

Before she went over the other results with me, she told me that I tested for four Deflect capsules per day, and asked whether I intended to take them. It turns out that this had a very noticeable effect on my other results! I didn’t ask what all of the differences were, but as she was giving me her recommendations for other supplements, she would occasionally stop and correct herself, saying that with the Deflect I didn’t need that many. She did this enough times to give me the impression that the Deflect was decreasing my need for quite a variety of supplements (including, as I recall, both Calcium and B-12).

This has two implications, the more obvious one being that Deflect is either helping me so that I don’t need as many other supplements, and/or helping my other supplements to work more efficiently. The second implication is financial: The money that I’m spending on Deflect is saving me the money that I would otherwise have spent on buying additional Calcium capsules, B-12 tablets, etc., etc.

Bottom line: I’ll keep taking Deflect!

Note: My nutritionist uses muscle testing (more formally known as Applied Kinesiology). Some people swear by this technique, while others scoff at it. I had previously been muscle tested by a number of practitioners, none of whom had been any help whatsoever, so I was tentatively among the scoffers. Then about fifteen years ago, a friend suggested that I try her nutritionist (I should point out that my friend is chronically skeptical – so I assign a fair amount of weight to her recommendations) – and this one is utterly amazing. I have concluded that muscle testing is an art, not a science. That is to say, its accuracy (unlike that of a laboratory test) depends entirely on the skill of the practitioner. In particular, the practitioner needs to be able to observe results rather than expect them.

Here’s my nutritionist’s basic technique: The client holds one arm straight out to the side. The practitioner presses down gently on that arm, and the client has no trouble keeping it horizontal. The practitioner then places a supplement in the client’s other hand, and again presses down gently on the extended arm. If that particular supplement isn’t good for the client, he or she will be unable to keep the arm horizontal. The practitioner tries a different supplement. If the client needs this one, there will be no trouble keeping the arm horizontal. The practitioner adds more of that supplement until the client is unable to keep the arm horizontal – too much of a good thing is not good! Back off to the point where the arm tests strong again, and that’s the recommended amount.