Find Your GlycoProfile

Every cell in your body is coated in sugar chains called glycans, and your blood type is one of them.

Your GlycoProfile combines your blood type, whether you secrete those blood type sugars into your gut, and what your glycation and glycocalyx markers say.

Every recipe in this book has a GlycoProfile row, so you can see at a glance which dishes fit you best.

Step 1: Your Blood Type Is a Sugar

The A, B and O blood types differ by a single sugar at the tip of the same chain. R

• Type O keeps the base "H" sugar (fucose) with nothing added.
• Type A adds N-acetylgalactosamine on top.
• Type B adds galactose on top.
• Type AB carries both.

Some food lectins stick to one of these sugars and not the others, which is how blood banks have typed blood for decades. R

Dr. Peter D'Adamo has spent decades cataloging these lectins and their sugar targets, and his Lecster database was one of our starting points for the lectin data in this book. R

Step 2: Are You a Secretor?

About 4 in 5 people are secretors: a gene called FUT2 puts their blood type sugars into saliva and the mucus lining the gut, where gut bacteria feed on them and attach to them. R

In a study of almost 9,000 people, blood type shaped the gut microbiome, and the effect showed up mainly in secretors. R

Non-secretors tend to carry fewer bifidobacteria, so the recipes that feed them (resistant starch, prebiotic fiber and cultured foods) matter more for you. R

How to find out:

• Raw DNA file (23andMe or Ancestry): look up rs601338. AA means non-secretor; GA or GG means secretor. If you have East Asian ancestry, also check rs1047781.
• Saliva test: a secretor status test from a lab service.
• Don't know? Read the book as a secretor. That's the most common result.

Step 3: Your Glyco Markers

These come from your labs or from the Glycome Profile on mybiohack.com.

• Glycation: HbA1c, fructosamine or skin autofluorescence above optimal. Sugar is sticking to your proteins and forming AGEs.
• Glycocalyx: a high GlycoCheck PBR, or high syndecan-1, hyaluronan or heparan sulfate. The protective gel on your blood vessel walls is thinning.

If you haven't tested, treat both as "possibly high" and favor the recipes marked best for each.

How to Read the GlycoProfile Row

• Green check: best pick for that profile
• Grey: good, fits the profile
• Amber: limit it, or use a swap

Blood type ratings combine two things. The first is the food lectins that bind your type's sugar, and whether the recipe's cooking destroys them. The second is the health patterns that each blood type is known for:

• Type O: a higher risk of stomach ulcers, so gentle, stomach-soothing recipes (ginger, glycine, cultured foods) rate higher, and hot spices rate lower. R
• Types A and AB: a higher risk of stomach cancer, so cured and smoked foods rate lower, and sulforaphane, quercetin and anthocyanin foods rate higher. R
• Types A, B and AB (non-O): higher clotting factor levels and higher cardiovascular risk, so omega-3, nitrate, olive polyphenol, cocoa and anthocyanin foods rate higher. R R

The ratings on each recipe assume you are a secretor. If you are a non-secretor, the blood type ratings matter about half as much for you, and the Non-secretor column matters more.

The strict base of this book already removes the grains and legumes that carry most blood-type-specific lectins. So in practice, most of the blood type differences you'll see come from the health patterns above, and from the swaps that bring those foods back.

What the Research Does and Doesn't Say

Blood type diets have not been proven to improve health on their own.

A systematic review found no trials supporting them, and in a study of 1,455 adults, people who followed the "type A" diet saw benefits whatever their actual blood type was. R R

How firm is each piece?

• Well established: blood type sugars, and the secretor gene that decides whether you release them into saliva and gut mucus.
• Observed in studies: blood type and secretor status are linked with differences in the gut microbiome.
• Measured in the lab: glycation (HbA1c, fructosamine) and glycocalyx markers.
• This book's framework: how I connect those pieces to specific foods and to the "best" ratings. This is reasoning and personal experience, not tested in trials.

That's why your GlycoProfile is a tie-breaker, not a rulebook.

The Autoimmunity and Steady Energy Scores come first. When two recipes score the same, pick the one that is best for your GlycoProfile.

Find Your Picks Online

Set your GlycoProfile once on mybiohack.com/cookbook/glycoprofile (free with an account), and the recipe list filters itself to your best picks.

If you log your HbA1c or GlycoCheck results in the Glycome Profile, your picks update automatically.

At the back of the book, Best Picks by GlycoProfile lists the best recipes for every profile, so you can plan a week from one list.