Dr. Mercola's "Nutritional Types"

[Curtis2011]

Since Dr. Mercola is pretty much one of the world leaders on holistic health, I figure anything he says is true about healthiness is probably well-researched and good advice.


Well, he says that people fall into three different types of "nutritional types," which means three different types of diets that different people should eat:

Modify Your Diet So You Feel Terrific - articles - articles.mercola.com

High-Protein
High-Carb
Mixed

He basically says that if you are a protein type, then if you eat too many carbs, you will experience problems like not getting full while eating, not getting adequate nutrition, etc.

Also, if you are a carb type, you will have the same problem if you eat too much protein and not enough carbs.

If you are a mixed type, you fall somewhere in between.



This explains why there are so many different popular diets out there, and why some people say that one diet doesn't work for them while a completely different one does: different people need different nutrition.

[funchy]

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but I don't like Mercola.

There are so many different diets because the diet industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. Everyone wants to invent the next fad. And if each of us has a different palate, of course we're going to eat steaks if steaks taste good to us no matter if they're good for us or not. When I was a teenager I lived on the soda-and-pizza diet, and I enjoyed eating it (even know it was crap).

There is zero proof of such a thing as a "nutritional type" diet.

Red flags:
- site wants my email address to read the article without the big pop-up ad blocking most of it
- they supposedly trademarked the phrase "nutritional type". Real doctors don't trademark real medical terms.
- there are zero sources cited
- the only way to see what the diet is would be to buy the book. This web page is an advertisement.


Sorry to disagree.

[lovelyn]

I think the idea of nutritional typing is interesting. The problem is that I took Mercola's nutritional typing test and it seemed incomplete. How can you tell if someone is getting the nutrients they need from their food without giving them some sort of examination? How can you ask a question like, "What dinner would you prefer to eat?" and give a list of different types of food and think that you're determining anything about what's best for that person by what they chose. If you like steak, you'll chose steak regardless of whether it's good for you or not. I think that a lot of what Dr. Mercola says makes sense but this Nutritional Typing thing isn't one of them.

I agree about the different diets though. I know that there are a lot of people on this forum who seem to think that eating a raw vegan diet is the best way to go, but while it may be best for them it's not necessarily best for everyone. We're all different. The diet that works great for some people might not work great for others. That should be taken into consideration. Staying away from processed foods and junk is the most important thing when it comes to eating.

[Andrew Brunelle]

I like Dr. Mercola. I think he is on the cutting edge of health in today's world. But I don't completely buy into the whole nutritional typing thing. It could be true. It could be just a way to sell supplements. I don't know. Maybe different races from different areas evolved to eat certain foods, but if you're from the same ancestry, I can't see how you could have a different nutritional type than the rest of your family, unless there are mixed geneologies in there. I am no expert, but I think adopting a healthy diet is good enough. You don't need to buy into nutritional typing, but eat unprocessed foods.

[Parthon]

I totally believe in nutritional typing, but there's as many nutritional types as there are people on the planet. We are so unique and different, the only way we can know for sure is to go out there ourselves and find out what works for us and what doesn't.

You probably aren't going to find your perfect diet from some text written by some doctor, so get out there and look!

[sepiagal]

Mercola did not develop this type of diet(s). He is just taking metabolic typing and changing some labels and making it seem like its his creation.

How you feel about Mercola has nothing to do with believing this diet approach might work or not.

But metabolic typing has a long history. The very first components of it started with Pottenger of the Price Pottenger organization.

George Watson (author of Nutrition and the MInd) spent many years researching the effects glucose has on the brain.

Paul Eck continued Watson's research after his death (or retirement).

William Donald Kelley became an important advocate more recently.

There are some people who are naturally lean. They can also eat a huge amount of calories and never gain weight. Men with this fast metabolism may find it impossible to bulk up. This physique is distinctive. This type is a meat eater or protein type or a fast oxidizer, sugar burner, and some other labels.

They do better on a high fat diet. Fat is slow to digest and eating slow digesting foods help to slow down their fast metabolism.

There is no one diet right for every one.

There may not be any studies (or recent studies) on this approach but it has a number of things in common with other nutritional approaches. Fast oxidizers, for example, undermethylate, have high histamine levels and also have the SNP MTHFr.

So if you don't think this concept is valid you are disputing other theories/approaches such as the importance of methylation, orthomolecular medicine and testing and treating genetic mutations with nutrition.

[Curtis2011]

Thanks for the replies so far everyone, even though many of you disagree.


I wanted to say that I too have purchased Mercola's Take Control of Your Health and I thought it was a terrible book.

It contained a few strong health-related arguments, but I was sorely disappointed by the actual content within it, which I felt held little value. Clearly, Dr. Mercola is not meant to be a writer!

However, I still trust the free health advice that he gives on his website. If you get into the habit of reading the articles and his personal responses to them, you will realize he probably has more knowledge of proper nutrition than most human beings alive today!


A few more comments:

1) I also don't like the pop-up that requires your email address. It's very annoying.

2) Yes, Dr. Mercola does say that the idea of Nutritional Typing came from Metabolic Typing, with some tweaks provided by Dr. Mercola's research. He never claimed to have invented it.

3) I too was disappointed by the Nutritional Typing "Test" that was in Take Control of Your Health. It turns out that that was not a full test, and that to get a complete evaluation that determines your Nutritional Type, you have to purchase it separately.

[Monique7nuns]

I looked into Mercola fairly seriously a year or so ago. Bought the book, considered the diet, which said I fell in between the two extremes. Speaking of extremes.. I followed his newsletter for over a year as well - seems as though scare tatics are his gig. It got pretty old so I opted out of the emails, which you can do and still be a member of the site.

If you're looking for a good "healthy" protein snack the coco casava bars are really good.

[Curtis2011]

I get what you mean about his scare tactics - I unsubscribed to the newsletter also because it just made me feel bad and made "being healthy" seem hopeless.


That is the biggest shame I see in Mercola, is that he focuses on the DOWNside of all the crap out there that ruins our health, instead of focusing on creating a definite plan to get healthy.