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It's also unclear why most people have a protein known as the Rhesus (Rh) factor on the surface of their blood cells, making them Rh positive, although about 15% of Caucasians, 8% of Black people, and 1% of Asians lack this protein (opens in new tab), making them Rh negative. "Malaria is the only one where it really seems to bear itself out," she said. As such, they don't actually find evidence of blood types causing protection or susceptibility to diseases. These studies did not prove a causal relationship between blood type and the prevalence of these diseases the links may be due to other factors. Should we kill every mosquito on Earth?Ĭohn doesn't find these associations convincing, though, especially not as a potential reason for why humans have different blood types. Other blood types are more likely to have other diseases for example, people with type AB blood are more likely to have smallpox and Salmonella and E. For example, a 2021 study in the journal BioMed Research International (opens in new tab) found that people with type O blood are more likely to have cholera, plague, tuberculosis and mumps. Some scientists point to disease associations between various blood types. There's quite a bit of evidence for why populations that evolved in malaria-prone areas have type O blood, but it's less clear why type A, B and AB blood can be found in relatively high proportions elsewhere. Duffy negativity is common throughout sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria is most prominent, but it is rarely seen elsewhere in the world, according to the Malaria Atlas Project (opens in new tab). People who lack the Duffy antigen are relatively resistant to one of the two major malaria parasites. ![]() In addition to those that cause the four main blood groups, there are 15 other types of antigens that can be present on the surface of red blood cells, Cohn told Live Science. Yet blood group isn't the only aspect of a person's blood that affects their malaria risk. But whereas RIFIN binds strongly to the surface of type A red blood cells, it binds weakly to type O red blood cells, according to a 2015 study in the journal Nature Medicine (opens in new tab). This is at least partially because the malaria parasite makes infected red blood cells express a protein on their surface called RIFIN, which acts like a glue that makes uninfected red blood cells pile up around an infected red blood cell, according to a 2015 study in the journal Nature Reviews Microbiology (opens in new tab).
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