Are Lectins Bad for You?
As so many diets float across the internet and around your social media platforms, you may have come across a diet called the lectin-free diet. Most diets make sense upon reading the name and sometimes after a short explanation. However, lectin-free rings no bells and makes no reference to what we have learned in high school biology. The word "lectin" didn't even sound familiar to me.
Well, that was until I learned about the power of blood type eating. A large part of my blood type diet education in Dr. D'Adamo's books was learning about its reliance on lectins.
What are Lectins?
Lectins are the basis for the blood type diet, and in Latin the word means "I choose", aka "I choose what you eat". They are proteins on your cells that actually determine your blood type. In fact, all living things have lectins that are specific to them and their species. It’s what makes them different from another species.
For humans, lectins (also called agglutinins) are located mostly in the bloodstream and the digestive tract. They are like Velcro that stick out all around the surface of the cells and latch onto sugars from other cells based on their shape, size and sugar availability.
Some cells’ lectins are one-sided, like the ones in the liver that snatch up the fungi, parasites and bacteria that try to stick to the mucus lining of the intestines. So you can see how the body handles these pests for you when it’s working properly. And some are two-sided that glue cells together.
The degree in which lectins stick to the lectins of human cells is determined by their blood type preference and the glycosylation that a particular tissue cell has. Glycosylation refers to the number of sugars on the cells. Immature cells have more sugar receptors, which means they are more glycosylated, to which lectins can bind more frequently and easily. On the other hand, older cells are less glycosylated and are thus less susceptible to binding.
Agglutination, another new biology term...
Agglutination refers to the binding together of cells. Your lectins will agglutinate the cells of other food lectins that fit the shape of their receptors. In this case, “fitting in” is detrimental to the lives of those cells because they are then viewed as foreign invaders who have found themselves in the wrong body. These food cells are glued together with nearby human cells and marked for destruction. (The word glue is in agglutination.)
Putting it all together
Here’s an example of how lectins, glycosylation and agglutination all work together. In the case of people with Crohn’s Disease and Colitis, their digestive tract is full of immature cells due to needing to replace destroyed tissue cells so frequently from eating lectin-rich foods that cause agglutination for their blood type. These immature cells are highly glycosylated and are more liable to interact with food lectins, causing inflammation.
"I Choose"
In situations like Crohn's Disease, your lectins are telling you what they want you to eat because of what they allow to pass through the body and what they decide to destroy. When you disobey your lectin’s preferences, weird and possibly detrimental things happen to you.
Because, at the same time these food cells are destroyed, nearby human red and white blood cells are destroyed along with them.
All this mismatched food causes an agglutination-war to break out in your body as it tries to eliminate the invader. It is a battle between You and not-You, as Dr. D’Adamo says.
This dis-ease should signal to us to stop eating these foods. Unfortunately, many of us have not adopted the practice of mindful eating that will allow us the time and awareness to pinpoint foods that give us health problems.
The Effects of Lectins
Here is a list of effects that the wrong lectins have on the human body.
Lectins influence Histamine Reaction: Histamine is a chemical that can produce allergic symptoms. When food lectins attach to the digestive tract, histamine may activate, bringing on symptoms labeled as food allergies.
Lectins impair nutrient absorption.
Lectins interfere with protein digestion.
Lectins can cause growth in the size of organs.
Lectins block digestive hormones, including insulin.
Lectins influence gut permeability (leaky gut).
Lectins damage the intestinal lining.
Lectins can cause rapid overproduction of white blood cells.
Lectins aid in activating autoimmune diseases.
So, as we can see, lectins can be bad for you, if they prefer YOUR blood type and agglutinate YOUR cells. It is important to note that the food lectins that prefer Type A cells will not agglutinate Type B cells, and Type Bs are free to eat them.
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Keep reading in the next article as I get more specific about food lectins.
