
Evidence that blood type plays a role in COVID-19 - molecule
https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/23andme-finds-evidence-that-blood-type-plays-a-role-in-covid-19/
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zmmmmm
It looks like they have found a stastically significant correlation with a
very small effect size, using an extremely simple regression model adjusting
for only a handful of covariates, looking across, presumably, tens of
thousands or maybe even hundreds of thousands of SNPs.

It seems highly irresponsible to title such a study in a way implying a
mechanistic or causal link. I expected to find a whole lot of discussion in
the post about all the other evidence supporting it, but nope - they shoved
their data into a stats package, and put the result straight into a blog post
with a misleading title. They don't even discuss if they adjusted for multiple
testing.

There's peer reviewed science, then there are pre-prints pending review. This
is _far_ _far_ below either of those.

~~~
op03
As long as your performance in the Social Media Metrics driven arms race for
Attention increasingly determines what funding/employees/clients you attract,
this kind of behavior will continue and escalate.

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gremlinsinc
Hot damn, I may be > 400 lbs but I'm taking Vitamin D, Zinc, AND have
o-positive. I also wear masks everywhere, cause I'm not stupid. I'll let you
know if I survive.

Before the lectures about 'have you tried losing weight', I was 690 in 2012,
so yeah, it's just a SLOW burn, not a fast overnight thing, still going down,
just slow and about 80 lbs is skin that needs removed and I just haven't been
able to afford that surgery yet and was wanting to get lower still first
anyways.

W/ covid here, seems not the best time for electives anyways.

~~~
thdrdt
_" I'm taking Vitamin D, Zinc"_

Why aren't governments promoting this? For most people it is relatively easy
to get and it is already proven to have benefits. You can still get Covid-19
but it reduces the effects significantly. It is also safe to take but you
should not overdose (especially with zinc).

~~~
C1sc0cat
being careful with Zinc is VERY important.

I was in the Royal Free in the UK (for a Kidney transplant) and the guy next
to me had over done Zinc and had completely shut is kidney function down due
to complications with other prescribed medication!

~~~
gremlinsinc
I've been doing 50mg, but not religious/daily probably remembering 3-4 days
per week... Vitamin D is daily though as my surgery I had causes some vitamin
deficiency and I'm VERY D deficient.

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legerdemain
A group of hospital researchers in Europe published a preprint with similar
findings.[1] It has received recent coverage in the New York Times.[2]

[1]
[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.31.20114991v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.31.20114991v1)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/health/coronavirus-
blood-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/health/coronavirus-blood-type-
genetics.html)

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drhagen
It is good to remember when seeing a study showing a link between blood-type
and some outcome: blood-type itself means very little biologically (it is one
largely irrelevant gene among tens of thousands), but blood-type is heavily
correlated with ancestry/race, which is heavily correlated with income/class,
which is heavily correlated with lotsa stuff. When you see a blood-type
effect, you are usually seeing a race effect or a class effect. It looks like
this study tries to correct for "race [and] ethnicity", but not income. Even
when you try to correct for these things, you can often still end up with a
residual effect.

~~~
nradov
Are there any studies which show a correlation between blood type and income?

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mikhailfranco
That is very old news, this is from March 11:

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.11.20031096v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.11.20031096v2.full.pdf)

Type A is: 32% in the population 38% of those infected 41% of those that die.

Type O is: 34% in the population 26% of those infected 25% of those that die.

~~~
bacr
The article does reference that Chinese study, as well as a more recent one
from researchers in Italy and Spain. It is great to see the scientific process
at work — building evidence for a phenomenon. It also underscores one of the
biggest benefits of preprints: faster dissemination of information.

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air7
This is a PR blog, of a private company, publishing "first blush" of
"preliminary data".

While any contribution to knowledge is warranted, this should not be
circulating.

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Abishek_Muthian
>Although one study found the blood group O only to be protective across
rhesus positive blood types, differences in rhesus factor (blood type + or -)
were not significant in 23andMe data. Nor was this a factor in susceptibility
or severity in cases.

I'm O -ve and everyone else in my family are O +ve. Going by the rate of
infections in my state, I'm of opinion that it's just matter of when and not
if we'll get infected by COVID-19.

So, I'll update my data here when that happens.

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0xphk
What is the reason that nearly everybody refers to Covid-19 as the name of the
virus, instead using SARS-Cov-2?

In the study they even refer to 'genetically studying covid' which does mean
the disease caused by the virus, but I would assume one would study the virus
genetically instead?

~~~
im3w1l
Because having two unrelated names, one for the disease and another for the
virus just confuses matters during layman discussion.

~~~
groestl
OTOH it makes it easy to detect layman discussions.

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SloopJon
It seems that they're inferring the blood type from the ABO gene, although
displaying this on the web site is a "sunsetted feature." Edit: the rhesus
factor, on the other hand, seems to have been self reported.

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plastic_teeth
Interesting.... But am I the only one who recalls seeing multiple articles
stating that they suspect type A to be the most susceptible? It's curious
because due to this study's findings it would appear that while type O fairs
the the best, type A has slightly better chances compared to type B and type
AB. So in other words type A is the second most resistant? Am I interpreting
that right?

~~~
christianmann
Type A is wayyy more common than B or AB, at least in the US (and I think
Europe?). Not sure about other regions. That could distort the effect, which
looks to be fairly minor in the first place.

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nradov
Not surprising. Serious COVID-19 cases frequently have blood clotting
problems. Previous research on other diseases found that Type O blood is
correlated with a lower risk of blood clots.

[https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/ATVBAHA.119.313658](https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/ATVBAHA.119.313658)

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rurban
This was already known in April. But a Chinese study so nobody bothered. Two
weeks later confirmed by a New Yorker hospital.

[https://www.pharmacytimes.com/news/study-suggests-blood-
type...](https://www.pharmacytimes.com/news/study-suggests-blood-type-a-
associated-with-higher-risk-of-covid-19)

[old news]

This is now the confirmation study of both.

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peteretep
Wikipedia suggests great shifts in blood type between both nationality and
ethnicity. Can’t see any mention of the latter on that page.

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Kiro
How do people know their blood type? I've never had a situation in life where
someone has told me it.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Whenever you have any sort of blood test, you can ask them to include the type
test. Sometimes they even do it, without even asking, because it is such a
valuable test.

In case of an accident, you might need a blood transfusion fast, and that
delay to determine your blood type can be the difference between life and
death.

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thescribbblr
What happen with people have O+ blood group

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Arech
Very clickbaity title.

I remember Chinese researchers published about blood types in relation to
Covid19 months ago.

