Defining one’s metabolic type is based on the holistic approach to each individual. By using the vast scope of information included in the science of medicine, biology, biochemistry, psychology or genetics a holistic systemic outline can be developed for each individual. Such individual approach is much more important that the disease name or the set of symptoms. It is not a new approach; however, with the development of science it can become an increasingly more precise tool.

Already in the 4th century BC Hippocrates divided patients into particular types. As the father of medicine he would say that “It was much more crucial to know the particular patient type suffering from a disease, rather than to know the particular disease of such patient”. The Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, homeopathy or healers of various cultures have always referred to dividing people into individual types, as a means of adjusting an appropriate diet and selecting an effective therapy.

Even though over 30 years ago The World Health Organization concluded that each disease starts at the cell level, we keep treating our bodies as if we were built from pieces of metal or wood connected with screws …

While all our individual features have their patterns in the biochemistry of the human body. Each living organism tries to keep the balance, which is why our condition is the final outcome of significantly individualized homeostasis status.

The heritage from our ancestors includes weaknesses or strengths that diversify our autonomic nervous system, the oxidation speed, the balance of catabolic and anabolic processes and the endocrine system. The autonomic nervous system controls all the reflective functions of the body; it determines the heartbeat, respiration, digestion, reproductive functions and immunological reactions. The oxidation and catabolic – anabolic processes determine the quality and quantity of the energy generated, while the endocrine system influences our metabolism, controlling the tissue and cell activity. By evaluating the performance of these systems, specialists are able to determine dysfunctions resulting in the body imbalance.

According to the principles of biology, nutrition is a process of supplying all the substances necessary for life. If just one of the essential nutrients is systematically omitted or not supplied in adequate quantity, then the body does not fully absorb the others. As an effect, due to the shortage of the necessary feedstock and energy, and due to the excess of toxins, our cells cease to operate properly. Most often the common symptoms of tiredness appear, such as headaches, nervousness, insomnia, feeling generally unwell.

In such situation, in order to help ourselves, we increase the intake of various medicines that temporarily eliminate the upsetting symptoms. As a result, despite the momentary improvement of our condition, the core cause of the health problems, i.e. the malnourishment, remains unsolved. After some time the adverse symptoms reoccur in an intensified way. And then, step by step, the system immunity decreases, resulting in infections, allergies, hypertension, weight increase, depressive disposition, and the whole range of other commonly known ailments. Then the symptoms recede again for some time, but the disease keeps developing. After some time the tired and unhappy cells rebel, making as aware of a crisis – such as heart attack, brain stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis, rheumatism, degeneration, tumours, etc. With malnutrition, sooner or later, everyone starts to get ill.

Our predecessors used to have simple and modest, yet healthy eating profile. They would eat natural food originating from the place of their residence, based on intuition, habits and tradition. It is hardly conceivable that an Eskimo would eat rootlets and the greens, while an equatorial zone inhabitant would be fed with seal meat and fish oil. At that time most probably the metabolic types used to align with the blood group determined diet.

Nowadays, as a result of ages of people migration, these dependences have been “blended”. More and more often you can see persons with the blood group suggesting e.g. vegetarian diet and with the metabolic type for an Eskimo, or the other way round.

With time the old good habits got completely blurred and food became readily available at any time of the day and the year. We have started to eat new, pretty, colourful, artificial but unhealthy food. As a result we eat a lot of highly processed, artificially preserved, coloured food, canned or ready-made dishes and heated in microwave ovens. Additionally we eat massive quantities of white bread, sweets, salt, soya, powder milk and eggs and the bad fat, bombarding our body with gluten, sugar and TRANS fatty acids. We drink too much of various junk beverages, not only deprived of any nutritional value, but also containing significant quantities of glucose-fructose syrup, chemical colorants,  flavour and fragrance additives, and food preservatives.

We are getting more and more lost amid the endorsed diet theories – vegetarian, high carb, high protein, low calories, slimming, anti-aging, high calories diet…. etc., forgetting completely that food is not meant to junk the body and that it needs to be individually selected, depending on our current health condition and genetic disposition.

In order to purify and regenerate our bodies we need to use the same nutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and fats) that our ancestors did, rather than highly processed products with similar names, but often mere approximates of the natural ones. Natural food additives and diversified organic supplements are meant to help us in the regeneration, but they cannot replace normal food. As a result of years of going astray, with bad nutrition, many of us live below our genuine, genetically determined health capacity. The signals sent out by our body are very frequently the call for „the right fuel for your engine type”.

There is no one miracle diet for everyone. Based on the research each of us is a specific metabolic individual. What we eat determines our condition, both in the mental and physical aspect. The food, depending on the metabolism type, impacts our life attitude, aggression, calmness, cheerfulness, good night rest, etc. That is why conscious change of one’s diet results in eliminating adverse symptoms, overcoming various ailments, boosting one’s energy and effective weight control.

TO FIND OUT YOUR APPROXIMATE METABOLIC TYPE, DO THE TEST

Author: Grażyna Pająk, PhD