There are no "combination types'--every type has its own unique logic.

If you're used to other systems for identifying types--Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, the system of somatotypes developed by William Sheldon, you may be used to thinking that there are broad categories and then many combinations. Ayurveda, for example, has three major types of people--Air, Fire, and Earth--and then four combinations (Air-Fire, Fire-Earth, Air-Earth, and a triple type that partakes of all three).

The GenoTypes don't work like that (though they do overlap with some of the types from other systems). Instead, they represent coherent wholes, six self-sustaining efforts to solve the problems of survival that our ancestors encountered.
I think of the GenoTypes as six different types of tractors, each designed to solve the challenge of a particular type of terrain. One tractor is built very high off the ground so that it rolls right over any stones or stumps it encounters. Its weakness, of course, is that it's not always so stable. Another tractor is build low and squat. You couldn't knock it over if you tried—but when it runs up against even a small stone, it's stuck. There's no one model you can invent that will encounter all difficulties equally well.

Likewise, you don't have an infinite number of solutions. Rather, there's a natural limit to the number of solutions and combinations you could come up with. Once you've given yourself a choice between big, small, and medium wheels, and between wide, narrow, and medium tread, you've pretty much exhausted the possibilities of wheel size—after that, the differences aren't so significant. And since you can't put giant wide-tread wheels on a small, agile tractor that's built for easy steering, or tiny little wheels on a huge, wide, bulldozer-like tractor, you've got a kind of natural limit to the ways the combinations can come out as well.

'The GenoType Diet" page 111

I think some readers may have difficulty with this idea, since it is almost impossible to have ALL the characteristics of one GenoType and NONE of the characteristics for any of the others, though perhaps our minds would like things to work that way, since we most often think in a bivariate (low number of variables) world, but inhabit a holistic, multivariate world.

The GenoTypes are actually clusters of data characteristics: Genes (like blood type), anthropometrics (like leg length or somatotype) and other traits, such as dermatoglyphics (fingerprints). These traits themselves overlap in their significance; blood types influence somatotype (some, like the A antigen, more than others); fingerprints, a measure of fetal-placental nutrient balance, are also a good indicator of asymmetry, another marker of developmental instability.

Clusters come in two flavors, ones where each datum is limited to one cluster (and one cluster only) and 'fuzzy' clusters in which the data can belong to more than one cluster. The key concept behind the latter is the idea of membership i.e what gets you into a particular cluster (or GenoType). Fuzzy logic allows partial membership in a cluster.

This is usually determined by distances between the data points and variations between the clusters with regard to membership criteria; the closer that two data points are the more likely it is that they will share the same cluster. Distances here can be measured in the normal (Euclidean) way; i.e "it's ten miles to town." or in something called the "Manhattan or Taxicab" method, which, if you've every lived in New York City, DOES qualify as its own unit of measurement.

You keep adding clusters until you hit what is euphemistically called the The Elbow Criterion: a point where adding another cluster doesn't add sufficient information or encompass any more variation. At that point you're done. Initially it looked like there were going to be a LOT of GenoTypes (like, 32!). But then it kept falling: to 16, then 8 and finally 6.

I was hoping for 7 (for good luck) but the elbow kicked in and that was that.

So, if despite the last last five minutes you are still left wondering why are there no combination types, let me give you the simple answer:

They already overlap each other!

Well, the cat's officially out of the bag. The GenoType Diet ships to all locations from here on in. I can't help wondering how it will be received. Like anything with beginnings an endings, you have to make see possibilities even in that which you compromise.

• The book had to be accurate and truthful, but you can't bury people with every single fact. Metaphors and parables can often be used to animate complex principles so they can be seen as the commonplace occurrences that they are.
• The book was written from a non-defensive standpoint. By that I mean, if it was important that something be said a certain way so as to make the point more intelligible by a larger audience, it was. Early on I decided to not write a book to please skeptics or critics of my earlier works. They would never be happy no matter what I would be willing to do, and besides, they wouldn't buy the book anyway.
• The book had to be helpful and prescriptive. It is not very useful to write a tome on how epigenetics interacts with the environment and not make it relevant to the reader in some simple way: perhaps the repurposing of a food or supplement, perhaps a whole new perspective on looking at their diet and lifestyle.
• The book had to be in sync with the past, but also unafraid to change as new facts and methods of analysis developed. Most long term readers will see a direct thread from GTD back to my earlier work with BTD. Others may be somewhat shaken by the difference that result from the new ways of analysis and classification. There are differences. Blood Type Dieting is a more 'idealizing model' and the GTD is a more 'abstracting model'. They get at their information from fundamentally different avenues of approach. Hopefully everyone who has an interest in this type of work will be able to find a spot along the continuum that is just right for them.

I think this is the most profound book I have authored, and it is the work I would like to be most remembered for. To take nothing away from the "Right For Your Type' books, I'm just a more mature author at this point in my life, and many things came together for this book that are dependent on being alive long enough to have a certain number of dreams. It was certainly the most difficult book I have every written. I felt from the beginning that this book had to be as perfect as I could get it, and I was lucky to have people around me who felt the same way. Whether any degree of perfection was actually achieved will have to wait for the test of time.

2.

Spent a pleasant morning yesterday with Mehmet Öz, his lovely wife Lisa and Michael Roizen. Mehmet has a radio show on XM that I was a guest on. I think it will air sometime mid January. Michael is the author of the 'Real Age' series of books, and together with Mehmet, they wrote a bestseller called YOU: On A Diet. Mehmet's wife Lisa was also part of the show. It was an interesting hour, and I was surprised by how much leeway I was given to go into some of the more technical aspects of the book. Both these guys are doctors and when their gears are turning you can see that they almost forget that they are doing a radio show.

3.

Christmas day dinner was delicious and made more pleasant by the return of our guests from last year. Jon Humberstone is the head of NAP customer service but in reality does incredibly much more than that. He does a lot of the back-end programming for the NAP e-store, and was critical in aligning the new NAP GenoType store with the genotypediet.com site. Keith McBride is our marketing wizard who made the liaison with Random House so breezy and effortless.

The guys gave me an unexpected but entirely welcome gift: Edward Tufte's Beautiful Evidence having read in a prior blog that I was especially fond of his earlier great work The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. I am so looking forward to curling up with this baby.

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The GenoType Dietâ„¢: Change Your Genetic Destiny
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Peter J. D'Adamo, ND

Author of Eat Right for Your Type & The GenoType Diet

What if you were handed the perfect diet, a diet literally programmed for your unique genetic makeup—a diet that will maximize your health and well-being? The GenoType Diet is that revolutionary step. Using inventories of key genetic information, family history, blood type and individualized diagnostic tools such as fingerprint analysis and measurement of jaw angle, finger length ratios and space between knees and feet, you will be able to determine your genetic makeup and design your own dietary, therapeutic and preventive strategies. The GenoType Diet shows which genes are turned on and which are turned off and gives you a plan of attack for changing the expression of your genes—you're not stuck with what you were born with. Whether you're 18 or 80, you can unlock the keys to your genotype, the previously hidden strengths and weaknesses that inform your destiny.

Note: The price of admission includes a copy of the book and guarantees you a signed copy. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged, as space is limited.

An Evening Talk, Q & A and Booksigning
Friday, February 15, 7:30pm
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Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo is a naturopathic physician, educator, researcher and author of The GenoType Diet: Change Your Genetic Destiny to Live the Longest, Fullest and Healthiest Life Possible. His first book, Eat Right 4 Your Type, is a New York Times bestseller translated into over 50 languages. He is the author of 13 other books in the "Blood Type Diet� series, including Cook Right 4 Your Type. Dr. D'Adamo is cofounder and academic dean of IHI, the Institute for Human Individuality.

http://www.dadamo.com www.genotypediet.com

Short film produced by Dr. Peter DAdamo on how to use the Home Blood Typing Kit to determine your ABO and Rh blood type. This information is important if you plan on following either The GenoType or Blood Type Diets. Click on either link to watch the video.

Part 5 of a filmed lecture by Dr. DAdamo at the Wilton Public Library (Wilton CT) discussing diet books, blood types, epigenetics and why he decided to write The GenoType Diet.