Best Life
By now, scientists understand that certain conditions or personal habits can affect your chances of catching coronavirus and developing severe COVID. But there is also mounting research that certain genetic traits that aren't always visible to the naked eye could also put them at higher risk of the disease. Now, a new study published in the medical journal Blood Advances has found more evidence that blood type can play a factor and that those with type A blood are more likely to catch COVID overall. Read on to see how what's in your veins could increase your risk, and for more on what else could be increasing your chances of getting sick, see If You've Done This Recently, You’re 70 Percent More Likely to Get COVID. The coronavirus is more likely to attach to a specific type of type A blood cell. To arrive at this discovery, a team of scientists conducted a laboratory study to better understand how SARS-CoV-2 interacts with A, B, and O blood types, Live Science reports. The researchers focused on the part of the virus known as the receptor binding domain (RBD), which the pathogen uses to attach to cells once it enters the body.The results showed that the virus was more likely to attach to type A cells, specifically the type of blood cells found lining the respiratory system. The virus showed no preference for cells from other blood types or respiratory cells from the B or O blood groups. The study authors believe that their results can help explain how some are more susceptible to COVID. "It is interesting that the viral RBD only really prefers the type of blood group A antigens that are on respiratory cells, which are presumably how the virus is entering most patients and infecting them," Sean Stowell, MD, one of the study's authors from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston said.However, the study authors said the findings also raised even more questions that warranted further study. "Does this really influence the ability of the virus to get into cells? Does it just influence its ability to adhere to the cells? That's open-ended," Stowell said. "We're working on that right now, but the jury is still out." And for more on how you can help improve your odds, check out These 3 Vitamins Could Save You From Severe COVID, Study Finds. The study's authors pointed out that unlike other potentially high-risk conditions, nothing can be done to lessen the risk created by our genetic makeup. "Blood type is a challenge because it is inherited and not something we can change," Stowell said in a journal news release."But if we can better understand how the virus interacts with blood groups in people, we may be able to find new medicines or methods of prevention," he added. The recent research is far from the only study to consider different blood types and how they present different COVID risks. Other studies have recently found that blood type can affect susceptibility to COVID. In December, researchers from the GenOMICC Consortium, an international association of scientists that study the connections between severe illnesses and genes, compared the genes of more than 2,000 COVID-19 patients in the U.K. with those of healthy people, The Washington Post reports.Initial research from the same team, published in the journal Nature in October, found that those with type A blood were more likely to develop serious illness when infected with the novel coronavirus. Those with type O blood saw a level of protection from SARS-CoV-2. "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," the authors wrote. And for more on how you could potentially keep yourself safe, check out This Common Medication Could Save You From Severe COVID, New Study Says.
Yahoo Home