The basic answer to your question is that if you don't suffer or have a history of blood clotting disorders, birth control pills can be used even by type O women, especially the new, low estrogen types. Having answered that, what else can we add to the mix which might be of value?

Follow the O diet, especially the lectin avoidance foods, such as wheat and corn. Polycystic ovarian syndrome is characterized by insulin resistance, and insulin resistance is largely the effect of consuming large amounts of food lectins improper for your blood type. Insulin resistance a common phenomena in women with poly cystic ovaries, is often a cause of heart disease, obesity and other hormonal problems later on in life. Find a good "food-derived" carotene (sometimes called "carotenoid") preparation. By this I mean a carotene supplement not just composed of beta carotene, but rather beta carotene and its cousins, gamma carotene, lycopene and lutein. Lutein especially, has been shown to decrease the amount of cystic formation on the ovary by its anti-oxidant abilities.

The female ovary is a very metabolically active organ, and the follicles must cut their way out when a woman ovulates, by secreting an enzyme to bore a hole to the exterior. Normally there is quite a bit of lutein in the ovarian tissue to snuff out the inflamation that results. If not, the tissue becomes cystic.

It is interesting to note that lutein is the yellow pigment in plants (lutea is Latin for "yellow"). Many tissues which are metabolically unstable, such as the retina of the eye ("macula lutea") and the ovulatory product ("corpus luteum") are yellow from the deposition of lutein. Unhealthy ovaries tend to be whitish colored at autopsy because of an inability to deposit lutein or an inadequate amount in the diet. Unlike beta carotene, which is often synthetic and only pure beta carotene, the "food derived carotenes" have a broad mixture of carotenoids, and are closer to what is found in a healthy diet.

Urica dioica rhizome (root) is a well-accepted remedy in Europe for prostatic enlargement. It has even been compared to the drug Proscar and found to be more effective, with less side effects. Lignans ((+)-neoolivil, (-)-secoisolariciresinol, dehydrodiconiferyl alcohol, isolariciresinol, pinoresinol, and 3,4-divanillyltetrahydrofuran) from the roots of Urtica dioica and their metabolites bind to human sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG).

The net effect of this anti SHBG activity is a positive influence on testosterone metabolism. Testosterone is also metabolized by enzymes called aromatase and 5-alpha-reductase. Prostate enlargement is characterized by elevated testosterone levels (specifically elevated levels of the enzymes involved in testosterone metabolism), and stinging nettle is thought to lower the activity of one or both of these enzymes.

This probably plays a key role in the traditional use of the plant to control prostatic enlargement. Stinging nettle (both the leaf and root) also appears to prevent the over stimulation of proinflammatory cytokines like tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-1 beta. Cytokines can be thought of in simple terms as immune system messengers.

And while a discussion of these proinflammatory cytokines and immune system balance is beyond the scope of this column, cytokine balance is a growing area of interest in medicine. In fact, virtually all immune disorders (from HIV, to cancer, to autoimmune diseases), allergic conditions (like asthma and allergies) and even obesity/insulin resistance have characteristic imbalances in cytokine levels as part of the functional derangement occurring at a metabolic level.

Urtica dioica has a lectin with many unique characteristics. Urtica dioica agglutinin (UDA), a V beta 8.3-specific superantigen, prevents the development of the systemic lupus erythematosus-like pathology in mice. Stinging nettle lectin is actually a "super lectin" called UDA superantigen (UDA for short).

For those interested, UDA appears to be an N-acetylglucosamine specific lectin. Evidence indicates that this super lectin can inhibit a range of viruses including those responsible for HIV, colds, and influenza.

For prostate and immune health, Urtica dioica, the humble nettle plant, is hard to beat.

This question has not been looked at with any degree of exactitude, but two studies did show a slight increase in life span for those individuals who were type O (over type A). Whether this is the result of any genetic link or simply the result of the fact that the modern hi-fat diet, hi-stress lifestyle is inherently more poisonous to type A over type O has not been determined. In any case, the studies are on small numbers of people and have not been replicated. One older study looking at different rates of longevity between different nationalities saw the rate as being influenced by the percentage of type A in the population.

They stated that : "Innumerable influences of various types can cause diseases, primarily the high incidence of certain tumors in old age, climatic influences, overeating and malnutrition, and furthermore abuse of coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol, medicines and insufficient movement. It can be assumed that wherever blood group A is prevailing the genes of blood group A constitute a factor. The impact of the blood group genes varies as a function of the underlying disease, the effectiveness of the exogenic factors and the general constitution of the individual patient."

Another study of Italian dentists showed a higher incidence of type O among those who lived beyond 75. Remember that these are populations that have done no interventions such as diet or lifestyle modification. By following ER4YT, most type A's can be expected to better the odds considerably.

Renewed interest in the neurotransmitter nitric oxide has researchers looking at its precursor, L-arginine, for treating certain kinds of heart disease. Once thought to be only a dangerous environmental pollutant and a poison, it is now known that nitric oxide is made in the body and plays numerous roles including brain activity regulation and circulation control.

Using nitric oxide for vasodilation, the widening of blood vessels, has been a common practice for a long time but has only recently been understood. In World War I, doctors noticed that workers in ammunition factories who were packing shells with nitroglycerin had very low blood pressures. The observation eventually led to the development of a nitroglycerin pill for the rapid relief of angina--that is, exercise-induced chest pain caused by oxygen deficiency in the heart.

In 1987 nitric oxide was determined to be the relaxant factor released by endothelial cells, explaining how nitroglycerin tablets help angina sufferers. Nitric oxide controls blood pressure and prevents formation of blood clots by signaling the muscles that control relaxation and expansion of blood vessels. There is some evidence that the night time urination many people find so disturbing to their sleep may be the result of nocturnal variations in blood pressure that are the result of the fluctuations in nitric oxide activity.

When arteries become clogged, they produce less nitric oxide than normal. Treatment with nitroglycerin can increase nitric oxide, widening blood vessels and increasing blood flow. Nitric oxide also interacts with blood platelets to decrease platelet aggregation, thus lowering the risk of blood clots.

Healthy cardiovascular function can be enhanced by nutritional supplementation such as NAPS Nitricycle (proper modulation of nitric oxide function) and Hawthorn Plus (anti-oxidant support). Quercetin is a very common flavonoid widely distributed in many plants. The flavonoid intake has been linked to the prevention of some human diseases including cancer. Quercetin inhibits heat shock protein expression and in this way triggers apoptosis of tumor cells. The present study was designed to investigate whether quercetin exerts cytotoxic activity against human colon adenocarcinoma cells.

The studies have shown that quercetin alone and in combination with the heat shock can induce apoptosis and necrosis in vitro in human colon adenocarcinoma cells (LS 180).

There is a marked tendency of blood type O babies of blood type O mothers to be male as opposed to blood type A babies of type A mothers, who tend to be female. Blood type B and type O offspring have a greater chance of being male if their mother is the same blood type as their offspring. While other studies showed that blood type AB offspring tended to be female more often than expected (as in blood type A) which led the investigators to conclude that the presence of the A antigen may have some effect in skewing sex ratios in favor of higher percentages of female offspring.

A recent study compared 589 ABO compatible (that is, the husband and wife had blood types which could be exchanged) against 432 ABO incompatible mating couples. The mean number of living children presents a significant difference. In the incompatible couples, there was 21% deficiency of blood type A children and 16% deficiency of blood type B children when compared to couples which were ABO compatible.

This has led some researchers to theorize that ABO incompatibility results in 'cervical hostility' between the man's blood type antigen on the sperm, and the woman's opposing antibodies in her cervical mucus.

A positive association has recently been reported in adult subjects between O/nonSecretor phenotype and asthma. To confirm this association, this study investigated the joint ABO/Secretor phenotype in a cohort of 165 asthmatic children. Three-hundred and sixty-two consecutive newborn infants from the same population were also studied as controls. The proportion of O/nonSecretor in asthmatic children was higher than in controls, thus confirming the association found in adults.

The association was more marked in males than in females. In males, the pattern of association between the joint ABO/Secretor phenotype and asthma is dependent on the age at on-set of symptoms. Since the oligosaccharide composition of cell membrane and mucosal secretions is controlled by the cooperative interaction of ABO and Secretor genes, and since such composition influences the adhesion of infectious agents, the age pattern could reflect a more general interaction between developmental maturation and oligosaccharide structure concerning their effects on susceptibility to viral and bacterial agents.

Studies support my own observations that asthmatics (especially childhood asthmatics) have a higher incidence and severity of asthma. Probably the best long-term strategy is the O-non secretor diet, with its low-lectin elements.

Dietary lectins have been shown to increase antibodies against the kidney glomerulus (the filtration device used to detoxify the blood). Thus following the Blood Type Diet can help prevent this since it does minimize exposure to foods which may contain lectins capable of doing this. Another interesting idea is to use certain types of dietary fibers to help eliminate certain poisons that can build up in a person with compromised kidney function. Larch arabinogalactan (ARA6) has been studied with regard to this.

The researchers tested the hypothesis that dietary fiber, by inhibiting colonic bacterial ammonia generation and increasing fecal nitrogen excretion, might decrease hepatic urea synthesis and thereby reduce plasma urea in patients with chronic renal failure. Larch arabinogalactan decreased mean plasma urea in uremic subjects by 11% over 6-8 weeks. They concluded that "The reduction in plasma urea caused by dietary fiber is likely to be due to inhibition of colonic bacterial production of ammonia; such therapy could conceivably alleviate some of the symptoms of uremia and postpone dialysis in patients with endstage renal disease."