I had the pleasure to speak with Dr. Peter D’Adamo, a naturopathic physician, to learn more about his new book, The Genotype Diet. It’s a fascinating book that explains that you can define a diet and fitness program that is built specific to your needs based on your genetic code. By following simple measurements of your body, explained in the book, you can determine your Genotype, one of six “paths” your genetic code fits into. These measurements include, among others, the length of your ring finger vs. index finger, torso length vs. leg length, blood type, finger print patterns and face shape.

Once you’ve determined your Genotype, you can follow the incredibly detailed diet and fitness plan. Learn the foods that are ideal for you and the foods you should definitely avoid, as well as exercises that are ideal for your body and those that aren’t doing you much good.

You can hear the interview in its entirety below and read a few key excerpts. For more information, you can check out the DietsInReview.com Genotype Diet Review.

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The Genotype Diet is sort of the next generation of the “Eat Right 4 Your Type” books that you wrote 11 years ago, a NY Times Bestseller and Amazon diet books bestseller. Genotype is the result of your continued research, but a little more refined than a diet defined by your blood type and more so based on your genetic build. Explain how Genotype goes beyond the Blood Type Diet.

I wouldn’t say one is the refinement of the other. Actually, they are two separate systems. If you look at what goes into the blood typing system, it’s really a very straight-forward, cut-and-dry relationship.The difference between Blood Type and Genotype - Blood Type is describing a situation and eating in alignment with that. With Genotype, you’re actually describing a character, a certain way a person has been programmed through family history, prenatal experiences or through some of their early lifestyle choices that have resulted in genetics being set at a certain way. Then you understand what that way is and devise a way to be able to optimize that. Genotype is a different way to look at the data- in part it has Blood Type, but it actually has other things as well. One doesn’t obsolete the other.

If people have problems with disorder of the blood or problems with inflammatory conditions in the digestive track, really the Blood Type is a very good system and we tell them that we want them to look at that initially.If we see people who are maybe more metabolically challenged from a weight loss perspective, Genotype is better because it has a more genetic understanding of why people would put weight on as they get older.

How would our readers at DietsInReview.com look at the two different systems and determine which is a better match for them?

They go to [my] blog and scroll down- I designed a little computer program that asks them to fill out a questionnaire and it tells them if Genotype or Blood Type is a better diet for them.

Is there an age that makes sense for someone to read the Genotype? Is there an age that more clearly helps you define what your Genotype is?

Yes. It turns out that growth completes itself about age 16 in girls and age 18 in boys. It’s not going to be reasonable to measure leg length and torso length in a kid who is still growing. The way most people work around this- in the book there is a section called Strength Testing. With Strengh Testing, you look at things like fingerprint patterns, things that don’t change while you’re growing.

If you have a kid, and you’re interested in getting him on the Genotype diet, then the simple things to do are the non-growth related measurements that are eternal.

How does the Genotype Diet play into a pregnant woman’s diet? Anything she should do differently that could impact the Genotype of her baby?

I would think the Genotype system would be an excellent way to develop a prenatal approach that was about as scientifically optimized as one could make it at this point in time.

The evidence suggests that as well. Not that I’m particularly fond of animal studies as they apply to humans, but with regard to certain genetic functions, they are identical to us.

For instance, if you look at the studies done on certain species of mice bred to have diabetes, bred to be overweight and have cancer within a year of their life, they found if you optimize certain genetic functions with the epi-genetics (not the actual gene, the setting of the gene- like a volume control). You can change in one generation that particular breeding so that the offspring are not overweight, don’t go on to get diabetes and many times don’t go on to get cancer as well.

So, a family with a history of cancer or another illness, by switching to the Genotype now, could slowly but surely remove that gene from future offspring?

It’s a start, because the Genotype Diet is based on what we currently know about the role that certain nutrients have in affecting gene function.

People could potentially save themselves thousands of dollars on personal fitness plans at the gyms and personal diet plans built by nutritionists by spending $25 on the Genotype Diet. Following the plan that is, by design of their body, custom for them.

Those are your fingers you’re measuring. It’s a simple thing like “Is your index finger longer than your ring finger?” It tells you if you were floating around as a fetus in estrogen or floating around as a fetus in testosterone. Then you look at some simple things- Why are we interested in finger prints? Well, they tell you whether or not your prenatal environment was very acidic, or whether or not it had too much glucose or whether the oxygen tension was too low.

Even more cool- if you match the fingerprints from your left hand to your right hand- you get an idea of how asymmetrical you are. It turns out the more asymmetrical a person is- the rougher time they had inside of their mother. The more symmetrical you are, the more fit you are.