Know thy self
I had a bit of a shock the other day---I was not the O blood type that I had always assumed! You see, I am pretty average in most things, so it was but natural for me to presume i also had the most common blood type. But no it seems I actually have a pretty rare blood type. FSM help me if I need a blood transfusion!
So anyway i started reading up about blood types and I learned some pretty cool stuff.
- The distribution of blood types is dependent on geography and the difference in distribution is pretty large. For example, [see wiki page]
| Country | O+ | A+ | B+ | AB+ | O− | A− | B− | AB− |
| Aust. | 40% | 31% | 8% | 2% | 9% | 7% | 2% | 1% |
| Turkey | 29.8% | 37.8% | 14.2% | 7.2% | 3.9% | 4.7% | 1.6% | 0.8% |
| Saudi Arabia | 48% | 24% | 17% | 4% | 4% | 2% | 1% | 0.23% |
| USA | 37.4% | 35.7% | 8.5% | 3.4% | 6.6% | 6.3% | 1.5% | 0.6% |
- That graph on top shows who can donate blood to whom. The universal donor is O- (so best blood type if you are selfless) but AB+ is universal recipients (best blood type if you are selfish :-P)
- Scientists have found a way of converting blood types A, B, and AB to O!
- An aussie girl's blood type changed upon a liver transplant!
Know any other interesting facts about blood? :-)
- An aussie girl's blood type changed upon a liver transplant!
Know any other interesting facts about blood? :-)
4 comments:
GAH!
So with all your nationalities, no driver licence ever asked you for your blood type in case of accident?
Scary and intriguing blood type change story.
Scary that here donor's cell invaded her bone morrow >.>
Interesting that turn out not to be cancerous... but I guess time will tell.
I have a similar story. For a while I thought my blood type was A+ or AB+ or something like that. That's what is on my Colombian driver's license, but I never trusted it because of the way I got my driver's license (don't ask). So a year ago, when I went to get my new ID in Colombia, they asked me for blood type. So I decided to resolve the issue right away, and got a blood type test. The result: O-, that is if I remember correctly, the actual document with my blood type is at home, but I do remember I am a universal donor.
Scary stuff! Fortunately I never needed a blood transfusion!!
@ Juanton.. now I am interested in your story of how you got your license!!
@Kanmi.. I dont know if i needed to tell them my blood type for my license. Maybe I said O? I don't know that's a good question.
This relationship between the blood types is really interesting, who can donate to who etc. I was reading that wiki on blood types for ages.
On a side note, isn't wiki awesome????
In Aus you don't have your blood type on your drivers licence - in an accident they will automatically give you O-.
I was having dinner with friends the other day and out of 5 of us - 4 people had AB+ blood type...what are the chances of that??
This included me - and because of my slightly rare blood type I have been thinking lately that when I return to Australia I will join a bone marrow donors list and increase the chances for some poor AB+ person out there to find a match :)
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