What blood group are you?

esperanza

I'm B positive and apparently it's amongst the rarest blood types in Western Europe.

I hear that Irish people's blood group is determined by their ancestry - vikings, celts, normans etc. Does anyone have more info on this?

Pherekydes

I hear that Irish people's blood group is determined by their ancestry - vikings, celts, normans etc. Does anyone have more info on this?

Everyone's blood type is determined by their ancestry.

These figures are for US blood donors (I'm A+ and I've two sons who are O- and A-):
O + 40%
O - 7%
A + 32%
A - 5%
B + 11%
B - 1.5%
AB + 3%
AB + .05%

unkel

I always forget my blood type

*digs up army dog tags*

A+

Musashi

Steady lads, they may be sneakily looking for organ matchs for wealthy business men types!
You answer an innocent question on Boards and next thing your being portioned out by Organ Traders from somewhere or other...................bugger.

Pherekydes

Musashi wrote:

Steady lads, they may be sneakily looking for organ matchs for wealthy business men types!

Then they'll need our tissue type as well.

dudara

I'm B+ also, or so I think. I'll have to dig out my blood donor card

hardtrainer

esperanza wrote:

I hear that Irish people's blood group is determined by their ancestry - vikings, celts, normans etc.

Well blood type is determined by your parents, if thats what you mean. There is no evidence that any particular group (i.e. vikings) all had the same blood type, in fact its very unlikely.

Just as an aside, the idea that Ireland was populated by Celts and later by invading Vikings and Normans really doesn't hold true. The most recent research into the notion of a Celtic migration from a central european "celtic homeland" has shown that in fact there is a shared ancestry along the atlantic facade of western Europe, from southern Spain to western Scandinavia, dating back to the end of the last iceage (Am J Hum Genet. 2004 Oct;75(4):693-702). It's likely then that the Irish population (the vast majority of it anyway) is descended from the first group of people to arrive on the island, who came from the northern atlantic region of Spain, traveling up along the coast of France etc.

Bluetonic

Just to add some info.

The ABO System

If you have blood group A then you've got A antigens covering your red cells.

Blood group B means you have B antigens, while group O has neither, and group AB has some of both.

The ABO system also contains lots of little antibodies in the plasma, antibodies being the body's natural defence against foreign antigens.

So blood group A has anti-B in their plasma, blood group B has anti-A (you probably get the picture at this stage).

To complicate matters though, group AB has none and group O has both of the antibodies.

Which means giving someone blood from the wrong ABO group could be fatal.

The anti-A antibodies in group B attack group A cells and vice versa.

Which is why group A blood must never be given to a group B person.

Group O negative is a different story.

The Rh system

Still with us?

Well, it gets more complicated here on in, because there's another antigen to be considered - the Rh antigen.

Some of us have it, some of us don't.

If it is present, the blood is RhD positive, if not it's RhD negative.

So, for example, some people in group A will have it, and will therefore be classed as A+ (or A positive).

While the ones that don't, are A- (or, wait for it...A negative).

And so it goes for groups B, AB and O.

This effectively doubles the number of different blood types to be matched, because you shouldn't mix blood type A+ with blood type A-.

84% of the population is Rh positive.

(And yes, that means the other 16% of the population is running around with Rh negative blood.)