agglutination

            Healthy cells                         Agglutinated cells

        Agglutination literally means “glued together”.  This is what happens to your red blood cells when they are exposed to lectins.  Note the left side is a picture of healthy cells, and the right side is a mass of cells clumped together.

Enlarged view

        What’s happened is the lectin acts like velcro to the surrounding blood cells.  Since lectins are proteins, and proteins often have “binding sites” for other substances, the lectin structure binds to your blood type antigen.

        Of course, the image above is not to scale, but the principle is still the same.  The sugars that make your blood type (the yellow antigens in the figure) are different shapes, depending on your blood type.  If they’re the same shape as the binding site on the lectin, the lectin will bind to the red blood cell, causing the agglutination. 

        Now the question is, “What happens when cells agglutinate?”  To understand why this is such a problem, imagine what happens during the worst-case scenarios of blood clotting. 

        Stroke: Blood clotting in the brain

        Thrombosis: Blood clotting in the blood vessels

        Pulmonary embolus: Blood clotting in the lungs

        Splenic infarction: Blood clotting in the spleen

        Coronary heart disease: Blood clotting in the heart

        Many people ask, “Why don’t lectins kill me when I eat them?”  This is a very good question, and the answer is simple: Most lectins (95%) are destroyed during digestion and don’t get absorbed into the blood stream.  The problem is the remaining 5% that end up in the blood stream. 

        Back to blood clotting- without even studying the molecular effects of agglutination, you can already get an idea that it’s probably not good when your red blood cells stick together.  Blood is the carrier of oxygen and nutrients to your cells, and C02 and waste products away from your cells.  Try filling your hose with sand and then water your garden- that’s roughly what your blood tries to do when your cells are clumped up.  In other words, nutrients don’t get delivered as efficiently and waste doesn’t get carried away like it should. 

    Not only do lectins attach to red blood cells, but they also target specific organs in the body (kidneys, liver, brain, stomach, etc).  Depending on the food, an incompatible lectin will end up traveling through your body and depositing in one (or more) of these organs.  Once the lectin has found its way into the organ, it literally has a magnetic effect on the cells around it.  The cells are then agglutinated together, and the body sends out a “red flag” alert to destroy the lectin and the healthy cells in that organ. 

        This may sound surprising to you, but it in fact happens to most people on a daily basis.  Healthy cells are destroyed as a result of food lectins.  Some peoples’ bodies are very efficient at repairing the damage from food lectins, and can seem to get away with eating whatever they want without problems.  Other people seem to have “allergies” or reactions to a wide variety of foods due to greater sensitivity.  Either way, your body is trying to fight an on-going battle after every meal you eat.  Sometimes your body wins, and sometimes the food wins. 

        When the food “wins” you might experience symptoms like a stomach ache (incompatible lectins binding to your stomach cells), a headache (lectins binding in the brain), joint pain (lectins binding in the joint tissue), or more serious conditions like Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), kidney disease or liver scarring (cirrhosis).  Even problems like hyperactivity can be a direct result of lectin adhesion.  Russian researchers have noted that the brains of schizophrenics are more sensitive to the attachment of certain common food lectins.  This is because nervous (e.g. brain) tissue is very sensitive to the agglutinating effects of lectins.  Dr D’Adamo has reported several instances of improved hyperactivity in children with the Blood Type Diet. 

        Let’s talk about the thyroid.  The thyroid, as you may know, is a very important gland located on the front of the trachea.  When the thyroid doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, namely secrete thyroid hormone, the body responds with a number of symptoms.  Many people take thyroid medication today to control obesity, water retention, fatigue, depression, brain “fog”, hyperactivity, sweating, low or high body temperature, and a host of other disturbances.  Just like some lectins target joints, leading to arthritis, the lectins in other foods can target thyroid cells, leading to a number of thyroid problems (Hashimoto’s, Grave’s, Hyper/Hypothyroidism).

        Why does the body respond to lectins in these destructive ways?  When your cells are destroyed, your body has to do something with them.  Like sweeping the floor after spilling the coffee beans, your body has to send in white blood cells (the broom) to “sweep up” the damaged cells.  This is called inflammation.