SALTMER CITY – Your blood type does not take your risk of developing COVID-19 or developing a serious case of it, researchers from Intermountain Healthcare and other agencies have determined.
Their findings, published in the Journal of American Medical Association earlier this month, show previous worldwide studies and research suggesting that blood type was one factor why some people had more than other symptoms of COVID-19.
“I think this is important because it was one of our primary goals for us to identify higher-risk patients and to set up risk scores,” said Dr. Jeffrey Anderson, a cardiologist and researcher at Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute, said. , and the lead researcher of the study.
Hospitals use all sorts of possible risks to determine if someone should be admitted to the hospital or not, or what other care they should get. The results of the study indicate that ABO blood type is not a factor needed to evaluate the risk.
Anderson explained that the study was led by the many unknowns in COVID-19. Medical professionals around the world have had little or no answers as to why people get sicker than others. If they could solve the mystery, they could help treat patients better.
The data identified older people, as well as people with high obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and pre-existing lung or heart conditions. But since COVID-19 plagued China and Europe ahead of the US, global researchers have gained an edge over potential other factors.
A study that emerged in China early last year has piqued Anderson’s interest. Blood type is suggested to play a role in contracting COVID-19. More specifically, it suggested that those with blood group A had a higher risk of developing COVID-19 and that blood group O had a lower risk of becoming infected.
Researchers in Italy and Spain then released a study indicating that blood type could not contract COVID-19, but did experience the severity of a new case. In a somewhat similar result, the research suggested that blood group A resulted in severe cases and that type O was less severe. It is unclear how many medical professionals relied on these studies in handling COVID-19 treatment.
“We became interested in this and asked ourselves if we should look into this as well, especially since other reports came out that were volatile,” Anderson said. “There was one from Denmark who, in contrast, said it was contagious but did not affect the severity of the disease, and then here from the United States of New York and Boston … where there was no risk link. . “
Thus, researchers from Intermountain Healthcare, the University of Utah School of Medicine and Stanford University tried to confirm the findings of the earliest studies.
Between March 3, 2020 and November 2, 2020, they examined the results of 107,796 people tested in COVID-19 in Utah, Idaho, and Nevada. Anderson said the health care database provided a goldmine to researchers as it provided the patients to them. ‘COVID-19 test results and their blood types. It also provided information on how serious a case is when someone ends up in the hospital.
About 10.6% of the nearly 108,000 people involved in the study tested positive for COVID-19, according to the data. Breaking down by blood type, researchers found that the percentage of people who tested positive for COVID-19 reflected the percentage who tested negative.
Blood group A, for example, was 39.6% of the positive results, but also 40.4% of the negative results. Type B was 9% positive and 9.3% negative. Type AB was 3.2% positive and 3.3% negative, while type O was 48.1% positive and 47.1% negative.
“There was no link between ABO type and the risk of becoming infected,” Anderson said.
Similar patterns have occurred in hospitalizations and cases of intensive care units. Of the 11,468 positive cases, 2,326 ended up in the hospital; and 706 of those admitted to the hospital ended up in the ICU.
Again, blood type was 38.6% of the hospitalizations and 39.9% of the non-hospital cases. It accounted for 36.4% of ICU stays and 39.5% of non-ICU hospitalization cases.
Type B accounted for 8.8% of hospitalizations and 9.1% of non-hospitalizations, as well as 8.6% of ICU cases and 8.9% of non-ICU cases. Type AB represents 3.4% of the hospitalizations and 3.1% of the cases that do not require hospitalization; it was responsible for 2.8% of the ICU cases and 3.6% of the cases where the ICU was not needed.
Finally, 49.2% of the hospitalizations involved persons with type O blood, compared with 47.9% of the cases where no hospitalization was required; it also has 52.1% of all cases of ICU in the data compared to 48% of no hospitalization.
The results came as a bit of a surprise to researchers, especially as studies over the years have found a link between type A blood and the risk of a heart attack, Anderson said.
“We went into this study and thought we would probably validate or confirm the reports of a relationship, but we found nothing,” he said.
This is not to say that the research did not find other compounds. The data confirm theories that older individuals, men and those in minority communities are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 or developing serious diseases from it.
I think it’s extremely important that we learn everything we can about this virus so that we can fight it best.
-Dr. Jeffrey Anderson, a cardiologist and researcher at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute
Anderson added that it is also possible that the findings are regional. There is a potential that other factors could cause different regions of the world to find different results.
“Blood type does differ in frequency among different populations, and so on,” he said. “There may be different associations with blood type that explain some of the other results, different from other areas.
“In other words, blood types can be linked to other traits that cause disease or endanger people,” he continued. “It’s called an association, and it’s different from what we would call a causal risk factor.”
For researchers like Anderson, finding no link between blood type and COVID-19 risks is one step closer to solving the COVID-19 puzzle.
This contributes to the growing list of items learned since SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 were identified at the end of 2019. Since SARS-CoV-2 was a new coronavirus, it meant that medical experts started with the same knowledge as anyone else about how it spreads and how it affects humans.
“I think it’s extremely important that we learn everything we can about this virus so that we can fight it best,” Anderson said. “We are not done yet. It’s great to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to see our numbers decrease, but it will still be with us for the next few months, maybe years.
“The more we can learn about it, the better we are.”