{"id":1648,"date":"2021-10-20T09:49:25","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T13:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1648"},"modified":"2021-10-20T09:49:25","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T13:49:25","slug":"is-o-type-blood-protective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1648","title":{"rendered":"Is O-type blood protective?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Question:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0I remember hearing a long time ago (at least a long time ago in COVID) that blood type might be associated with disease severity.\u00a0 And that O blood type might be protective.\u00a0 This stuck in my mind because I have O blood type and I admit, the news felt slightly reassuring.\u00a0 Is it true?\u00a0 Any updates?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Answer:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0I remember that too!\u00a0 In fact, our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=424\">Q&amp;A from 6\/23\/20<\/a>\u00a0gives a good overview of what we knew 1+ years ago.\u00a0 There has been a lot of work since then, but the additional science has made the picture murkier.\u00a0 We don&#8217;t know whether any given blood type is protective against infection or disease severity.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s a quick list of competing findings, much of which I&#8217;ve drawn from a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC8286549\/\">literature review published last month<\/a>, which\u00a0also describes the strengths\/limitations of these studies:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Findings support blood type correlation with infection and\/or disease severity.<\/strong><ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7594382\/\">Barnkob et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that O-type blood is associated with decreased risk of infection, but &nbsp;no difference between ABO blood type and progression of illness to hospitalization or mortality.&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong>O-type protective against infection.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7354354\/\">Latz et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that O-type blood is associated with decreased risk of infection, and find&nbsp;no association between blood type and disease severity.&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong>O-type protective against infection.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7267665\/\">Li et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that O-type blood is associated with decreased risk of infection and A-type blood is associated with increased risk of infection, and there is&nbsp;no association between blood type and disease severity.&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong>O-type protective against infection.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7711653\/\">Rey et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that O-type blood is associated with decreased odds of infection and of disease severity as compared with non-O-type blood.&nbsp;<strong>O-type protective against infection and death.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7454371\/\">Zhao et. al.&nbsp;<\/a>&nbsp;find that A-type blood is associated with increased risk of infection and death as compared with non-A type blood, while O-type blood is associated with decreased risk of infection and death as compared with non-O type blood.&nbsp;<strong>O-type protective against infection and death.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7666188\/\">Zietz et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that A-type blood and B-type blood is associated with increased risk of infection as compared with O-type blood. A-type blood was also associated with decreased risk of intubation and death. Rh-positive is associated with increased risk of infection, intubation, and death as compared with Rh-negative.&nbsp;<strong>O-type protective against infection and death. A-type protective against death.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7594392\/\">Hoiland et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that A-type and AB-type blood is associated with increased risk of ventilation and prolonged ICU stay as compared with O-type and B-type blood, however, no differences in mortality were observed by blood type.&nbsp;<strong>O-type and B-type protective against ventilation and ICU stay.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7379446\/\">Goker et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that A-type blood is associated with increased risk of infection. No differences in disease severity by blood type were observed.&nbsp;<strong>O-type protective against infection.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamanetworkopen\/fullarticle\/2781923?utm_source=For_The_Media&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=ftm_links&amp;utm_term=071321\">Bennet et. al.&nbsp;<\/a>&nbsp;find that AB-type blood is associated with decreased risk of intubation and death.&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong>AB-type protective against intubation and death.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-021-84810-9\">Almahdi et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that AB-type blood is associated with decreased risk of infection and B-type is associated with increased risk of infection. No association between blood type and disease severity was identified.&nbsp;<strong>AB-type protective against infection.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><strong>Findings do NOT support blood type correlation with infection and\/or disease severity.<\/strong><ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7594382\/\">Barnkob et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that O-type blood is associated with decreased risk of infection, but &nbsp;no difference between ABO blood type and progression of illness to hospitalization or mortality.&nbsp;<strong>No association between blood type and disease severity.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7354354\/\">Latz et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that O-type blood is associated with decreased risk of infection, and find&nbsp;<strong>no association between blood type and disease severity.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7267665\/\">Li et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that O-type blood is associated with decreased risk of infection and A-type blood is associated with increased risk of infection, and there is&nbsp;<strong>no association between blood type and disease severity.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7361419\/\">Leaf et. al.&nbsp;<\/a>find no association between blood type and death, though A-type blood may increase risk of disease severity and O-type may decrease risk of disease severity among Whites.&nbsp;<strong>No association between blood type and mortality.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7716357\/\">Boudin et. al<\/a>. find&nbsp;<strong>no association between blood type and infection risk or disease severity.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7379446\/\">Goker et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that A-type blood is associated with increased risk of infection. No differences in disease severity by blood type were observed.&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong>No association between blood type and disease severity.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7594392\/\">Hoiland et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that A-type and AB-type blood is associated with increased risk of ventilation and prolonged ICU stay as compared with O-type and B-type blood, however, no differences in mortality were observed by blood type.&nbsp;<strong>No association between blood type and mortality.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-021-84810-9\">Almahdi et. al.<\/a>&nbsp;find that AB-type blood is associated with decreased risk of infection and B-type is associated with increased risk of infection. No association between blood type and disease severity was identified.&nbsp;<strong>No association between blood type and disease severity.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamanetworkopen\/fullarticle\/2778155\">Anderson et. al<\/a>. find&nbsp;<strong>no association between blood type and infection risk or disease severity.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question:\u00a0I remember hearing a long time ago (at least a long time ago in COVID) that blood type might be associated with disease severity.\u00a0 And that O blood type might be protective.\u00a0 This stuck in my mind because I have O blood type and I admit, the news felt slightly reassuring.\u00a0 Is it true?\u00a0 Any [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40,22],"tags":[63],"class_list":["post-1648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disease-severity","category-mortality","tag-blood-type","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/pexels-photo-4047146.jpeg?fit=1880%2C1253&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1650,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions\/1650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}