ABO blood type antigens are quite prominent in the digestive tract. Also, in about 80% of individuals (secretors) they are distributed in the mucus that lines your digestive tract. Because of this, many of the bacteria in the digestive tract actually use ABO blood type antigens as a preferred food supply.

In fact, blood group specificity is common among intestinal bacteria with almost 1/2 of strains tested showing some blood type A, B, or O specificity. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the blood type influence on intestinal microflora, it has been estimated that someone with blood type B will have up to 50,000 times more of some strains of friendly bacteria than either blood type A or O individuals. Some strains of unbeneficial bacteria actually can have lectin-like hemagglutinin activity directed against your blood type.

There is good evidence that our intestinal flora can have very positive effects on the immune capabilities of bone marrow. With this information, it is possible to design probiotic formulas that utilize blood type friendly prebiotics (substances needed to encourage the growth of healthy bacterial flora). These considerations are behind the design of the NAP Polyflora compounds.

Virtually all the nightshade vegetables (like potatoes and tomatoes) are known to contain lectins. Many lectins are capable of influencing the clinical severity of arthtitis, either by acting to upregulate the inflammatory response or by direct action on the tissues themselves. It is probably this reason above all else that their avoidance is recommended by many health authorities albiet in a very non-specific 'avoid all nightshades' principle.

However there is little evidence that the wholesale avoidance of nightshade vegetables has had a demonstrable effect on arthritis. For example, a check of MEDLINE searching under 'nightshade' and 'arthritis' produced no results, yet many people report improvement when then did avoid nightshades. This shows the importance of choosing your foods by blood type compatibility: instead of trying to see effects by of food groups on broad poopulation groups we look at patterns of individual foods on specific population groups. You do not need to avoid all foods in the category, just the ones which can be expected to react with your individual chemistry.

The bladder wall is open of the tissues most heavily deposited with ABO blood group antigens. As a matter of fact, it is known well accepted that the loss of blood group antigens from the bladder wall is almost always associated with malignancy. ABO blood groups and cancer have an interesting relationship; in tissues not normally though to contain much blood type antigen, such as the thyroid, malignancy often is hallmarked with the inappropriate elaboration of blood type antigen.

In tissues that normally contain ABO antigens, malignancy is often preceded by the loss of blood group antigens. Urinary tract infections have been associated with ABO blood group, especially with group B, although other studies have disputed this. What is not disputed, however, is the link between recurrent bladder infections and an increased incidence of chronic inflammation, with ABH non-secretors. When ABO blood group is factored with secretor status, the association becomes much stronger: Group B non-secretors have a much higher rate of chronic urinary tract infection and scarring over other blood groups. Non-secretors are more prone to infection because their inability to secrete their ABO blood type antigen in a 'free form' in such tissues as mucus and saliva deprives them of a way to inhibit bacteria from attaching to their tissue membranes.

Think of bacteria as a piece of scotch tape. Now imagine the bladder wall as a piece of paper. Then imagine the bladder wall of a secretor being dusted with talcum powder. The scotch tape cannot attach to the bladder wall (paper) because the receptors were flooded by free blood type antigen (talc). A non-secretor has only the paper (no talc; i.e. no free blood type antigen) so the scotch tape (bacteria) can attach very easily. Non-secretors will want to use a product like Deflect since it provides the 'talc' that they genetically cannot manufacture themselves.