Are all Coeliacs the same blood type?

[Lynxcat]

I have read many articles of late suggesting that people who are Blood Type 'O' often appear to be healthier on a more primitive diet. This made me wonder as I too am type O+ - I wondered what blood type everyone else is to see if this may be something we all have in common?

[NorthernSoul]

Nope, I'm AB-. I'm not aware of any correlation of Duffy antigen (that's your ABO blood type) and coeliac disease. And there's no evidence to support the blood group diet (not to mention that it doesn't make much sense when one thinks about it).

[Liana]

I'm an O+... according to "Eat Right For Your Type", "0" blood types should not eat wheat. I certainly do better on a very simple diet.

[Diana]

The way to check is to check your blood type at the Eat right for your type book / website, various blood types are affected differently, and yes to the previous comment it does make sense, like the colour of your eyes, you can't change your blood type, make the best of it!

[NorthernSoul in reply to Diana]

How and why would food interact with antigens found on your red blood cells and what would this do?

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is: there are no peer-reviewed studies to support any of the basic 'science' that the creator of the diet uses to justify it. In fact, some of the basic premises behind it are completely wrong. For example, blood group O is not the first to evolve; it was A.

I'm not trying to say that it doesn't work for some people; if you've found it useful then that's great but perhaps it might be for other reasons you might not have considered? Basically, I believe in approaching everything with a healthy scepticism!

[meanioni in reply to NorthernSoul]

Yep, its all pseudo-scientific claptrap.

You will gain more from the placebo effect of doing this than anything.

[leslaki]

Nope i am AB positive, good thought though, it would be good to link it to something i guess.

[Fleakadee]

I'm blood type O Rh negative. I have recently found out I am HLA B27 and wondered whether other coeliacs are too. As HLA and Coeliac disease are both found on chromosome 6 I believe

[leslaki in reply to Fleakadee]

How did you find out about that and what does it stand for? I have come to the conclusion that i dont ask enough questions from the professionals, shall make it my new years resolution!!!

[Fleakadee in reply to leslaki]

In autoimmunity

HLA types are inherited, and some of them are connected with autoimmune disorders and other diseases. People with certain HLA antigens are more likely to develop certain autoimmune diseases, such as type I diabetes, ankylosing spondylitis, celiac disease, SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus), myasthenia gravis, inclusion body myositis, and Sjögren syndrome. HLA typing has led to some improvement and acceleration in the diagnosis of celiac disease and type 1 diabetes; however, for DQ2 typing to be useful, it requires either high-resolution B1*typing (resolving *02:01 from *02:02), DQA1*typing, or DR serotyping. Current serotyping can resolve, in one step, DQ8. HLA typing in autoimmunity is being increasingly used as a tool in diagnosis. In celiac disease, it is the only effective means of discriminating between first-degree relatives that are at risk from those that are not at risk, prior to the appearance of sometimes-irreversible symptoms such as allergies and secondary autoimmune disease.

[edit] In cancer

Some HLA-mediated diseases are directly involved in the promotion of cancer. Gluten-sensitive enteropathy is associated with increased prevalence of enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphoma, and DR3-DQ2 homozygotes are within the highest risk group, with close to 80% of gluten-sensitive enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphoma cases. More often, however, HLA molecules play a protective role, recognizing increases in antigens that are not tolerated because of low levels in the normal state. Abnormal cells might be targeted for apoptosis, which is thought to mediate many cancers before diagnosis

[leslaki in reply to Fleakadee]

Wow thanks for the indepth answer, I know nothing!!!!

I have Psoriatic Arthritis as well as Psoriasis, does that come in there somewhere? I must spend more time asking questions when i next see my consultant!!!

[NorthernSoul in reply to leslaki]

5-40% of people with psoriatic arthritis have HLA-B27 (and you can double that figure if you have spinal involvement).

The concept of HLAs can be a bit confusing but basically they are the receptors on immune cells that 'present' bits of protein (or antigen) to other immune cells when formulating an immune response. It's so lymphocytes can learn to 'recognise' specific organisms from the bits of protein on them.

What pieces of antigen (called epitopes) that tend to be presented depends on the HLAs you've inherited. For various reasons, the combination of some HLAs with some epitopes predispose to certain autoimmune diseases.

[leslaki in reply to NorthernSoul]

Thank you NorthernSoul, I understand a bit more now and its beginning to make sense. Not sure who I inherited it from though!

[Sappho]

AB positive here , I have celiac disease and Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

[Hidden]

I am rh negative and i also have RA dont know if there is a connection.

[Lynxcat]

So far we have only blood type O's and AB's (both positive and negative) - that is only two blood groups O being the very first to be created in man and I believe AB being the last.

Are there any more blood groups out there who are Coeliacs?

This little piece of information may be useful to us all!

[meanioni in reply to Lynxcat]

B+ too

[ailsamary]

i am B pos, though not coeliac have some sort of malabsorbtion/sensitivity

[lizziew]

I'm AD+ and have coeliac disease and ulcerative colitis, interesting topic but doesn't seem to be any link.

[philaustin]

O negative, me.

I only know because I was a gold badge donor before being diagnosed with CD.

Compatible with everyone elses blood so its sometimes called 'accident blood' because the recipient doesn't have to wait for their blood group to be checked before getting a transfusion if they need one.

[Romany]

A positive me x

[Hidden]

Hi Lynxcat, this same question was asked on the Celiac.com forum at the end of 2008,

Please see: (there are 6 pages of answers)

celiac.com/gluten-free/topi...

I'm an O+

[Lynxcat]

I suppose it is because if there was any kind of correlation it brings us all nearer to a cause, etc.

I wondered initially whether it was due to the fact that originally all British wheat was used for biscuit making - it was considered totally unsuitable for bread and we imported the wheat needed to make bread products. We now apparently use British wheat. Not sure about rye or barley and inital uses of both. It makes a person wonder if somewhere along the line there may be something that someone has overlooked that will aid us all - hopefully something quite simple.

There does appear to be more 'O' followed by 'AB' types assuming that people have accurate knowledge as to the type of group they are.

[FionaGFG Administrator]

O here & had clotting problems before diagnosed so was banned from giving blood.

[meanioni]

One thing which may be more genetically relevant is that I did hear that there was evidence that those of Irish descent had a higher than average precedence of coeliac disease than in UK generally. Certainly from some of the stats, certain countries have higher measured incidences than others (particularly Nordic states).

Would be interesting to see if this is reflected in membership here?

Having said that - if you go far enough back probably all of us have some Irish or Nordic in us, but would be interesting to see how many of those of first/second/third generation descent are coeliac.

My father was from Southern Ireland.

[meanioni in reply to meanioni]

And I can't pass without repeating the terrible old joke of a chat-up line:

Boy: "Do you have any Irish in you?"

Girl: "No"

Boy: "Would you like some?"

As related to me by my Irish cousins......

[HiveMind in reply to meanioni]

Hi,

Irish ancestry eh? Makes sense to me. Both my maternal G grandparents were from Ireland. I have a rare autoimmune disease and I am also GI. My sister has Ulcerative Colitis.

Hmmmm....

[meanioni]

And in a similar vein; I also read once that it is believed that animal milk tolerance was something that developed in Nordic states and that the natural state of early humans was to be intolerant to the milk of other animals. Milk tolerance developed as a result of farming and the necessity in times of yore to consume animal milk to survive - over time a tolerance developed and from interbreeding, spread across Europe and beyond.

This also explains why animal milk intolerance is greater in cultures outside of Europe and their colonies.

[NorthernSoul in reply to meanioni]

Yep, this is exactly true! Lactose intolerance is most common in Africa and least common in North Europeans. And I'm talking about true primary lactose intolerance, not acquired.

As for coeliac and being Irish... I have some Irish blood but that's going back a couple of hundred years. Mind, I'm most definitely Nordic in origin (my mum's maiden name is Viking and first cropped up in north Scotland) and Scandinavia has high rates of coeliac disease.

This shouldn't be confused with the same evolutionary process behind lactose intolerance, however! Whilst evolving enzymes that could digest milk offered an evolutionary advantage to agricultural peoples, which is why lactose tolerance propagated where this was commonplace (i.e. Europe), the clustering of coeliac in certain regions is probably due to something called the 'founder effect'. This occurs when by chance one person in the original group of people that first migrated to, say, Ireland, had a genetic predisposition towards coeliac whereas the group that migrated to, say, Spain, didn't. A spot of inbreeding later and ta da, higher rates of coeliac in Ireland...