New Delhi: People with certain blood types are more likely to suffer a heart attack during periods of pollution, warns new research.
The study of 14 years of patient data discovered that the risk of a heart attack or chest pain doubled for people of type A, B, or AB blood when pollution hits high levels.
The ABO gene — which is present in people who have A, B, and AB blood types — is the only gene that is been validated in large international studies to predict heart attacks among people with coronary disease, researchers said.
An analysis of more than 1.3 million people found that those with blood types other than O+ or O- had a 9 percent higher chance of cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks or stroke - but they're still not sure what's causing the link.
Scientists have known for some time that pollution is linked to a raised chance of a heart attack but it is the first time that the risk has also been linked to blood type. The researchers identified a level of pollution at which the increased risk occurred for people with non-O blood types, and that threshold is 25 micrograms of pollution per cubic metre.
Previous research also suggested that, blood types are the best indicator of your risk of heart disease. These studies have also shown links between small- particulate PM2.5 pollution and heart attacks, admission to the hospital with unstable chest pain, heart failure, and atrial fibrillation.
Your blood type is based on the specific mix of antibodies and antigens present in your blood cells, and is determined before you're born, based on the blood types of your parents.
O blood types are the most common, with around 45 percent of people in the US being O+ or O-. But that means more than half the population has a non-O blood type: either A, B, or a combination of both.
However, a 2015 based study also found that people with type O blood also have higher risk of heart attack or unstable chest pain in times of high air pollution. But their level of risk is much smaller, at 10% instead of the non-O blood type’s 25% per 10 additional microgrammes per cubic metre.But the biological cause of this increase has remained elusive.
To get a better idea of what was going on, the Dutch researchers looked at data on more than 1.3 million individuals taken from 11 different research cohorts described across nine peer-reviewed papers.
Out of their sample, 771,113 people had non-O blood groups, and 519,743 people had an O blood group.
Interestingly, they found that around 14 out of 1,000 O blood group individuals went on to suffer a cardiovascular event - which included everything from a heart attack and stroke, to coronary artery disease and heart failure.
The research was presented last week at Heart Failure 2017, the 4th World Congress on Acute Heart Failure, ahead of publication in a peer-reviewed journal so until we see the published article, the possible explanations behind the study is the fact that could be the fact that non-O blood group carriers have greater concentrations of a blood-clotting protein called Von Willebrand factor, which has previously been associated with blood-clot-related events, such as stroke.
The higher cholesterol levels found in A blood types could also be influencing the results, as well as the fact that a molecule called galectin-3 - which has been linked to inflammation - is higher in those with a non-O blood group.
The rate for people with non-O blood groups was roughly 15 out of 1,000. “In comparison, the risk rose by 40 percent for those with type O,” said researchers from the Intermountain Medical Centre Heart Institute in Utah, US.
EasyWays to Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease and Stroke Are:
- Take a B vitamin complex every morning
- Go to bed an hour earlier
-Eat fish at least once a week
- Eat a high-fibre breakfast cereal at least four times a week
- Drink at least two cups of Green/Black tea a day
- Drink an 8-ounce glass of water every two hours
Along with that staying indoors, exercising indoors, compliance with heart medication may help reduce risks, the researchers said.
References:
http://www.hindustantimes.com
https://www.sciencealert.com
http://www.thehealthsite.com