Blood Group Types Explained

When your practitioner tells you your "blood group type", you are being given two pieces of information - your Blood Group and your Rh Status.

Blood Group Types Explained

1. Your blood group will be A, B, AB, or O. If you have "A" "B" or "O" blood group, you have antibodies in your blood plasma that destroy some of the other blood groups. If you have group "A" blood, you cannot receive blood that is group "B" and vice versa. If you have "O" blood, your body will create antibodies to fight "A" or "B" blood. If you have group "AB" blood however, your body will not create antibodies for any of the other blood groups.
2. Your Rh status will be listed as negative (-) or positive (+). If you have Rh- blood, your body may form antibodies against Rh+ blood and destroy it. In order for this to happen, you must first be exposed to Rh+ blood (i.e., through a blood transfusion or carrying an Rh+ fetus). This can be a problem if you have antibodies against Rh+ blood and are pregnant with an Rh+ fetus. However, there is medication that can prevent this reaction from occurring if it is given immediately after you are exposed to Rh+ blood.

Blood type and Rh	How many people have it?
O +	40 %
O -	7 %
A +	34 %
A -	6 %
B +	8 %
B -	1 %
AB +	3 %
AB -	1 %

Does your blood group type reveal your personality?

According to a Japanese institute that does research on blood types, there are certain personality traits that seem to match up with certain blood group types. How do you rate?

Blood Group	About Personality
TYPE O	You want to be a leader, and when you see something you want, you keep striving until you achieve your goal. You are a trend-setter, loyal, passionate, and self-confident. Your weaknesses include vanity and jealously and a tendency to be too competitive.
TYPE A	You like harmony, peace and organization. You work well with others, and are sensitive, patient and affectionate. Among your weaknesses are stubbornness and an inability to relax.
TYPE B	You're a rugged individualist, who's straightforward and likes to do things your own way. Creative and flexible, you adapt easily to any situation. But your insistence on being independent can sometimes go too far and become a weakne ss.
TYPE AB	Cool and controlled, you're generally well liked and always put people at ease You're a natural entertainer who's tactful and fair. But you're standoffish, blunt, and have difficulty making decisions.

Blood Typing

The chart of blood groups from whom you can receive the blood is given below.

If Your Blood Group is	O-	O+	B-	B+	A-	A+	AB-	AB+
AB+	YES	YES	YES	YES	YES	YES	YES	YES
AB-	YES		YES		YES		YES
A+	YES	YES			YES	YES
A-	YES				YES
B+	YES	YES	YES	YES
B-	YES		YES
O+	YES	YES
O-	YES

Blood Group Diet

The blood group diet is said to have originated from two American Naturopaths, Dr James D'Adamo, and his son Dr Peter D'Adamo, who believe that your blood group type is the key to how you burn your calories, which foods you should eat and how you would benefit from certain types of exercise. They recommend that eating to suit your blood group may, help you to lose weight, help you fight disease, boost your immune system and slow down the ageing process.

It is believed that a chemical reaction occurs between your blood and foods as they are digested. Lectins, a diverse and abundant protein found in food, may be incompatible with your blood group and adverse side effects may occur. The avoidance of these Lectins which can agglutinate (adhere or stick to one another) can be important if your particular cells-determined by your blood type may react with them.

Blood Group Matching For Marriage

Matching blood group before marriage is important. This is to prevent Rh incompatibility. Rh incompatibility can lead to erythroblastosis fetalis (Hemolytic disease of the newborn-HDN). Fetal RBC get destroyed & newborn may get severe anaemia, jaundice. This jaundice is more severe than Physiological jaundice ( which is the most common and will usually resolve on its own). In very severe form, fetus may die due to heart failure. This is mediated by antigen-antibodies reaction. Transfer of maternal antibodies across the placenta occurs. This happens when Rh +ve man marries Rh-ve lady. So Rh +ve man should try to avoid marrying Rh-ve lady.

So, it becomes important to match the bood group before marriage otherwise newborn with erythroblastosis fetalis may need exchange transfusion. Complete blood count, bilirubin levels are done. High levels of bilirubin may lead to kernicterus. Kernicterus means deposition of bilirubin in basal ganglia region & can cause severe brain damage (bilirubin encephalopathy). In kernicterus, baby will be lethargic, slowly responding when breast-feeding is tried. Bulging fontanelles may be seen. In 1st pregnancy problem is less severe but in subsequent pregnancies problem becomes more severe. Hemolytic disease of the newborn can be treated before birth by intrauterine transfusion.

Incompatibilities of ABO blood types do not cause erythroblastosis fetalis. Erythroblastosis fetalis can be prevented by giving the mother Rh0(D) immune globulin at 28 wk gestation and within 72 hours of pregnancy termination. Due to preventive treatments given to the mother, erythroblastosis fetalis is less common now-a-days. Direct antiglobulin test (DAT, Direct Coomb's test) is used to diagnose HDN.

If a girl has RH-ve & boy has RH+ve Blood Group factor (irrespective of A, B, AB, O), then there is about 50% chance that the child will be RH+ve. I such case, complication may occur. Dring pregnancy if child's blood and mother's blood mixes, mother's immune system starts to develop antibodies against RH factor. This may result in destruction in RBC as mentioned above but even in that case, it is possible to prevent such complications and the pregnancy is possible. This is because of the developments in the field of medical science.