Can your blood type predict whether you’re more or less susceptible to the coronavirus? - Yahoo Lifestyle

Recent studies suggest there may be a link between a person’s blood type and their risk of becoming infected with the coronavirus.

Researchers observed that type O blood was associated with slightly more protection from the virus, while those with type A blood may be more vulnerable to the disease.

According to the study’s authors: “Our genetic data confirm that blood group O is associated with a risk of acquiring COVID-19 that was lower than that in non-O blood groups, whereas blood group A was associated with a higher risk than non-A blood groups.”.

And folks with blood type A were basically not protected from infection at all; they had a trend that was statistically significant of requiring oxygen supplementation or mechanical ventilation.” .

This isn’t the first study to find correlations between blood types and the risk of COVID-19.

Another study, conducted by Chinese researchers in March, found that “blood group A was associated with a higher risk for acquiring COVID-19 compared with non-A blood groups, whereas blood group O was associated with a lower risk for the infection compared with non-O blood groups,” according to the study’s authors.

Iahn Gonsenhauser, MD, chief quality and patient safety officer at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, tells Yahoo Life that, while there are a handful of studies that have found type O blood appears to correlate with lower risk and better outcomes for COVID-19 and type A blood with a higher risk and poorer outcomes, “it’s really important to understand that these are observational studies.

Winslow says blood type might be “just one more factor” that may explain why certain individuals respond differently to this virus. .

But this doesn’t mean that people with type O blood should be less worried about the coronavirus in general.