I just went for a blood test and came back knowing I have type AB blood. However my blood can only be used by other people who share the same blood type with me but not others, while other people with type O, A, B they can share the blood with me. Why is that so?
In: Chemistry
We have proteins on our red blood cells. You have A protein and B protein = blood type AB. If you get blood from someone with A protein on their blood cells, your body recognises that and accepts it. Same with B. Blood type 0 means neither A or B protein. The body is fine with that too
If a person with blood type A is injected with blood type B, their body won’t recognise that protein and will destroy those blood cells. The destroyed cells will cause all sorts of complications in the body and the person can die if there’s a lot of them. The cause of death is usually kidney malfunction because the kidneys are trying to filter out the destroyed blood cells but there’s too much, or shock which is when several organs don’t get enough oxygen (the red blood cells carry oxygen to the organs) and they can’t function and it becomes a domino effect and the whole system collapses
No one really knows why different blood types evolved. It was probably a random occurance, the first person with the new blood type didn’t die and it spread. Blood types are not evenly distributed, some ethnic groups all had the same blood type before people started travelling. Native americans were almost all blood type 0. Blood type B is more common in Asia than Europe, and so on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type_distribution_by_country. Some blood types offer immunity to some diseases and that’s how they survived. Others are just genetic hiccups.
The ABO-system for blood types is the most common, but there are others. Some are rare but you do come across thrm from time to time, Like Kell and Duffy-systems. Others are so rare they only exist in one family
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