{"id":513469,"date":"2026-06-23T00:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T00:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/513469\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T00:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T00:36:09","slug":"one-blood-type-appears-to-carry-higher-risk-of-type-2-diabetes-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/513469\/","title":{"rendered":"One Blood Type Appears to Carry Higher Risk of Type 2 Diabetes : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Depending on your blood type, it’s possible you could carry a higher diabetes<\/a> risk, research suggests.<\/p>\n

According to a 2024 review<\/a>, people with blood type B \u2013 either positive or negative \u2013 face a slightly higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes<\/a> than people with non-B blood types.<\/p>\n

How much higher?<\/p>\n

About 28 percent, on average. That might not seem huge, but it may be significant enough to tip the scales if other risk factors are involved.<\/p>\n

“Numerous systematic reviews with meta-analyses have been published, which explored correlations between ABO and Rhesus blood groups with various health outcomes,” wrote a team<\/a> led by epidemiologist Fang-Hua Liu of Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University.<\/p>\n

“However, to date, the association between these blood groups and human health outcomes remains controversial. The current umbrella review included 51 systematic reviews with meta-analysis<\/a> articles with 270 associations.<\/p>\n

“We recalculated each association and found only one [instance of] convincing evidence for an association between blood group B and type 2 diabetes mellitus risk compared with the non-B blood group.”<\/p>\n

Human blood is categorized into eight main groups<\/a> based on the sugars and proteins, or lack thereof, present on the surface of your red blood cells.<\/p>\n

A, B, and AB types are based on the presence of antigens \u2013 sugar molecules that can trigger an immune response. O-type blood has no A or B antigens. Meanwhile, Rhesus (Rh) factors are proteins that determine blood compatibility and give your blood its positive or negative designation.<\/p>\n

Previous studies have suggested that these subtle differences in our blood cells may be linked to increased vulnerability to certain diseases<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Liu and colleagues embarked on their study to systematically evaluate links between blood type and disease across a catalog of around 270 different health outcomes.<\/p>\n

A systematic review<\/a> is a study that reviews published papers on a given topic and analyzes their results collectively. An umbrella review<\/a> compiles systematic reviews \u2013 a sort of giant synthesis that provides a wider overview.<\/p>\n

Think of individual studies as trees; a systematic review is like standing outside a copse, while an umbrella review is like flying a drone over a whole forest of copses.<\/p>\n

\"BloodBlood type (or blood group) is determined, in part, by the ABO blood group antigens present on red blood cells. Antibodies<\/a> in our blood plasma detect when a foreign antigen marker is present. (InvictaHOG\/Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, public domain)<\/p>\n

“We systematically searched PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and several regional databases on the date from inception until Feb 16, 2024, to identify systematic reviews with meta-analyses of observational studies evaluating associations between ABO as well as Rh blood groups and diverse health outcomes,” the researchers explained<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To sort through the 270 reported links between blood group and disease, the researchers put each one through a series of statistical stress tests designed to weed out weak or unreliable findings.<\/p>\n

They examined the strength of the evidence, whether results were consistent across different studies, and whether the datasets were large enough to be trustworthy.<\/p>\n

They also checked for signs of bias, such as small studies exaggerating effects or an unusually high number of positive results.<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

Crucially, they asked whether each association would likely hold up if tested again in future research. Most of the associations didn’t pass these checks.<\/p>\n

In the end, just one link, between blood type B and type 2 diabetes, met the highest standard of evidence.<\/p>\n

That suggests that the link is real, albeit relatively small: just 28 percent higher than the current baseline. That’s much smaller than the risk associated with diet, weight, or lifestyle.<\/p>\n

Just 50 grams of processed meat a day, for example, increases the risk of type 2 diabetes by 37 percent<\/a>. A sedentary lifestyle can increase the risk by 112 percent<\/a>. And being overweight is one of the strongest risk factors known<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Related: A Distinct New Type of Diabetes Is Officially Recognized<\/a><\/p>\n

The researchers also didn’t examine what might drive this increased risk. A 2025 study suggests that the gut microbiome may be involved<\/a>; however, further investigation is needed.<\/p>\n

The results do suggest that there’s a real, tangible association between blood type and type 2 diabetes \u2013 one that people can factor into how they think about their own risk.<\/p>\n

More broadly, the study highlights weaknesses in existing research that better-designed reviews can address, and shows that more rigorous work is still needed to understand how blood type relates to disease.<\/p>\n

The research was published in BMC Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An earlier version of this article was published in March 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Depending on your blood type, it’s possible you could carry a higher diabetes risk, research suggests. According to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60,2209],"class_list":["post-513469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-msft-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}