Journal de la nutrition et des sciences alimentaires
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Beyond modern and traditional medicine: A new diet for the holobiont

Marcello Menapace

Recent advances in glycobiology have described the inner workings of the much debated blood type diets (BTD). The confirmed presence of special sugars (glycans) in all foods explain how and why people of different blood type react differently to food. All women and men can be effectively divided into four blood groups: A, B, AB and O. The BTD has been devised empirically but can now be demonstrated theoretically, too. This characterization of humanity into distinct groups (or constitutions) is neither unique nor a recent discovery. Traditionally, all medicines have always helped humanity overcome diseases with its own special interventions based on a particular constitution of the individual: most of which focused on adjusting ones diet. It can be claimed that all non-Western (Eastern) medicines (from Unani, to traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, etc) and Western medicines of the past (especially, traditional Western medicine) acted in this way. While the number of somatotypes may according to tradition, the fundamental concepts remain the same. A new paradigm has emerged of late which have futher confirmed the already strong scientific backing to these medicines and traditions: the holobiont. Through the biological underpinnings of the microbiota-host interactions it is possible to attain a synthesis between the two biotypologies, which are not mutually exclusive. In this way, each individual can be described as a function of its genetic and physical characteristics. The result is a new nutritional system, which takes into account both the well-tested traditional suggestions (seasonal foods, etc) and the contemporary biological medicine.