Your Blood Type Might Affect How Well You Cope With COVID-19 , Say Researchers

A person's blood type might affect how their body handles the coronavirus, say researchers, according to CNN. "The evolutionary interest of maintaining these (blood) types might [be> their function in respiratory or digestive tissues," said Laure Segurel, a human evolutionary geneticist and researcher. "If you imagine a cocktail of pathogens ... there could be a cycle of sometimes B being advantageous, sometimes it's A. Cycling through those different preferences and you end up with a population with different blood types." There is already evidence different blood types seem to be associated with different health outcomes. For instance, blood type B is associated with a reduced risk of cancer. A few studies have shown a connection between blood type and the novel coronavirus. One study found that people with Type A blood had a 45% higher risk of becoming infected than people with other blood types, for instance. However, blood type is only a factor in knowing how someone will cope with COVID. "There's so many underlying factors. We think of this as a respiratory virus but it's really a whole collection of things going on that we don't understand yet," says Sakthivel Vaiyapuri, an associate professor in cardiovascular and venom pharmacology.