ABO Blood Typing
I offer basic ABO blood typing to all my prospective patients. This is a basic screening test but it gives us immediate results. This, of course, needs to be confirmed via an outside lab like Quest and/or LabCorp. For all my patients, I send out a lab request to these companies to confirm their ABO and Rh blood types. With this lab test, I also order A1/A2, and Lewis (secretor) Blood types. All of which have many roles to play in health and disease.
ABO Blood Type:
Generally, about 40% of the population is Blood Type O while an additional 40% of the population are Blood Type A. About 15% of the population are Blood Type Bs while the remaining 5% or so are Blood Type ABs. Most people never stop and think why we even have blood types as humans. They generally think blood type was given to us so doctors can do blood transfusions or to make pregnancy complicated. Truth be told there is a ton of scientific research out there why this simple carbohydrate in our body plays such a huge role in health and disease.
Rh Blood Type:
This blood type was originally found in the Rhesus monkey. It is primarily used for blood transfusions and has very little scientific research for other issues related to health and disease.
A1/A2 Blood Type:
This blood type is a subclass of the classic A blood type. Blood Type A2 which make up about 20% of all Blood Type As have a general increased risk of heart disease compared to Blood Type A1 which generally has an increased risk of cancers. This information can help guide preventive treatments.
Lewis Blood Type/Secretor:
The Lewis Blood typing system is used to figure out something called secretor status. Generally one wants to be a secertor as this means the immune system is more robust and able to fight off infections and heal from diseases more efficiently. About 20% of the population are non-secertors and they are more prone to different health issues. The ideal way to test for this blood type is via a genetic test that looks for the FUT2 gene but as this can be expensive on its own the Lewis blood typing is used as a correlating measure. Your FUT2 gene can be analyzed via a DNA analysis visit along with many different genes.