Metabolic Typing

"I will never go back to the way I was eating before"

PG, 39 a year old night supervisor in a rehabilitation unit, had unsuccessfully tried various treatments for vertigo (dizziness) for the past couple of years. She had also suffered heavy, painful periods since a teenager and her GP had recommended hormone therapy to deal with her period problems. Within six weeks of eating the right foods for her Metabolic Type (to bring her acid blood into balance) she no longer suffers vertigo. Her periods are now light, short and pain-free for the first time in her life and she no longer needs hormone therapy. She says, "I have tons more energy than I had, I am at my ideal weight, and my periods are the best that they have ever been. Definitely, I will never, never go back to the way I was eating before. I feel so good now."

Eat right for your metabolic type

At the Society for Complementary Medicine in our persistent search for optimal nutritional solutions, we use Metabolic Typing with great success!

Metabolic Typing addresses people's individual differences and is a long way from a "one diet fits all" approach. It explains why some people seem to thrive on the Atkins and other high protein diets, whereas others keel over in the supermarket and are rushed to hospital dangerously ill. The Atkins diet serves the way some people metabolise (burn food to produce energy) but is positively unsafe for others as they require very different foods and different quantities of protein to function well. Traditional Eskimos are healthy on a very high protein and fat diet though people from India do well on high carbohydrate, low protein vegetarian foods.

Benefits

Some benefits to eating the right foods for you:

re-balance blood pH - vital for good health
weight loss - food is efficiently converted to energy and not stored as fat
reduced sugar cravings
digestive problems subside
sustained energy throughout the day
enhanced concentration
overcome anxiety, depression, and hyperactivity

We are convinced that eating right for your Metabolic Type, together with regular exercise, are the most important pillars of preventative healthcare.

Your metabolic type

Your Metabolic Type is the fundamental way in which your body produces and processes energy.

Metabolism

Metabolism is the process of burning food to produce energy. This is similar to a car's engine burning petrol to produce the energy to rotate the wheels. The cell's mitochondria acts as the car's engine, food acts as the petrol, and the energy we need to move and think is similar to the energy used to move the car.

Metabolic typing

Metabolic typing is a revolutionary system for optimizing whole body health based on the findings of over 20 years scientific research. It is an individually designed nutritional programme based on biochemical analysis. It treats the root cause of health problems, rather than the symptoms, by firstly identifying the unique metabolic type and then correcting specific biochemical imbalances.

Many foods and supplements can have completely different effects on different metabolisms depending on your Metabolic Type. If you know your type you can knowingly select the foods and nutritional supplements that are tailored to your specific metabolism.

Metabolic tests

By conducting a series of simple tests (either done in our office or at home with an easy-to-use Self-Test Kit) we can determine your Metabolic Type.

Blood pH

The principle of the tests is that the body needs a balanced blood pH (neither too acid nor too alkaline) to maintain optimum health. Venous blood pH is optimal at 7.46. Any deviation below or above 7.46 (acid or alkaline respectively) will interfere with the assimilation and utilisation of nutrients. The greater the deviation, the greater the imbalance, and the more disease processes are likely to occur. For example, if an individual's blood is running acid and they eat acid-forming foods, a myriad of disease processes can occur. To optimize their health they should be eating foods and taking supplements that will alkalize them and re-balance their blood pH. A particular food could acidify one person and alkalinise another.

The test takes about 2½ hours. It measures the pH levels of your blood, urine and saliva, firstly without food then after taking a glucose challenge drink.

Dysglycemia

The glucose challenge can also reveal sugar metabolism disfunctions (dysglycemia), like hypoglycemia, insulin resistance, glucose shock and pre-diabetes. Dysglycemia is a risk factor for heart disease and early treatment is beneficial.

Tests

Metabolism is regulated by a number of internal control mechanisms. The test also measures the balance in these systems:

Autonomic Nervous System - metabolism's master regulator
Carbo-Oxidative System - conversion of nutrients to energy
Acid/Alkaline Balance - pH
Lipo-Oxidative Processes - catabolic or anabolic
Electrolyte/Fluid Balance
ABO Blood Type

Oxidative or autonomic

The two main metabolic mechanisms in the body regulating blood pH are the first two above:

the rate of oxidation (the speed at which cells convert nutrients to energy)
the action of the autonomic nervous system.

Individuals have a dominance of one system over the other and are either Oxidative or Autonomic types.

Oxidative types

Oxidative Types are defined by their oxidation rate.

Autonomic types

Autonomic Types are defined by the relative dominance of the two divisions of the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system, the master regulator of metabolism.

Any given nutrient or food can have virtually opposite biochemical influences in different metabolic types (one man's food is another man's poison), depending on which system is dominant. Knowing and eating for your Metabolic Type to balance your pH can be a powerful preventative tool.

Further reading

The Nutrition Solution: A Guide to Your Metabolic Type by Harold J. Kristal

The Metabolic Typing Diet by William Wolcott

See also Dr Kristal's website: www.bloodph.com