QUESTION: Are you an advocate of "food combining" for a type A with Crohn's disease?

ANSWER: I am aware that many practitioners use food combining as part of their dietary recommendations. I do not, simply because the blood type diets do specifically what food combining attempts to do non-specifically.

Proponents of food combining claim that correct food combinations are important for proper digestion, utilization, and assimilation of the nutrients our body needs to sustain life. Different foods require different digestive enzymes to aid in the digestive process - some acid, some alkaline. When acid and alkaline foods come in contact, they neutralize each other and retard digestion. If the food we eat is not properly digested, it will pass through the intestinal tract without being completely broken down, getting stuck between the crevices located in the intestinal track - thereby causing the toxic wastes to ferment and putrefy.

Critics claim that there's no evidence to support such contentions. Nearly all foods are themselves combinations. If you eat beans, for example, you're getting carbohydrates (sugars and starches), protein and fiber, among other things. Bread combines protein, carbohydrates, a little fat and many other things. A simple dish like macaroni and cheese, a peanut butter sandwich, or oatmeal with milk contains sugars, starches, protein and fat. Our digestive system handles food combinations very efficiently. The process begins in the mouth as we chew food and saliva acts upon it, beginning the breakdown of starches into sugars. Other enzymes come into play along the line, resulting in almost complete digestion and absorption of nutrients, no matter how they are combined.

One recent study showed that there was no difference in weight loss between two groups studied, one group doing food combining, the other not. (1)

I have seen some people use food combining with benefit, especially in the early stages of adapting to the blood type diets (particularly when the changes differ drastically from their prior diet). Beyond that, any additional benefits would be provided de facto by the ER4YT principles.

This is especially true of the lectin avoidance and polyaminelowering functions of the blood type diet with regard to Crohn's Disease.



Golay A, Allaz AF, Ybarra J, Bianchi P, Saraiva S, Mensi N, Gomis R, de Tonnac N. Similar weight loss with low-energy food combining or balanced diets. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 2000 Apr;24(4):492-6

STUDY: Targeted delivery of drugs to the gastrointestinal tract.

JOURNAL: Crit Rev Ther Drug Carrier Syst 2001;18(4):341-86

AUTHORS: Lavelle EC.

ABSTRACT: The oral route is attractive for drug administration because it is associated with patient acceptability, less stringent production conditions, and lower costs. However, gastrointestinal destruction of labile molecules and low levels of absorption generally render oral delivery of peptides and proteins ineffective. Several strategies have the potential to enhance the efficacy of orally administered drugs. Bioadhesion is an approach for increasing interaction between drugs and the mucosae. Bioadhesive systems can be nonspecific, achieving adhesion via mechanical processes or specific systems that recognize receptors on epithelial cells. Lectins are one group of specific bioadhesives with many suitable properties for targeting of cells in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). This review assesses the potential of lectins in the delivery of drugs and vaccines to the GIT.

COMMENTARY: Targeted drug delivery by binding the drug to any number of different lectins is a 'hot' area in pharmacology these days, since many lectins are 'endocytosed' (actively transported into the intestinal cells), which makes them able to carry the drugs they are bound to along in with them.

Good thing this researcher has never read any of the criticisms of my work by the American Dietetic Association, Dr. Andrew Weil and the Weston Price folks, since all three have at one time or another asserted that food lectins don't penetrate the digestive tract!