You are 50, hit the gym regularly, and maintain a healthy diet. So it’s impossible for that tight feeling in your chest to be a heart attack—right? Not so fast. (Brush up on the symptoms of a heart attack.) New research suggests that one cause of heart attacks in men might be something you can’t even control: your blood type.
In a recent study, researchers compared data on more than 1,300,000 people from nine previous studies. Overall, those with type A, type B, or type AB blood were 9 percent more likely to have a cardiovascular event (like a heart attack) than those with type O blood.
Although it’s not exactly clear why blood type might increase your heart attack risk, researchers have a few hunches. For starters, people with non type-O blood tend to have higher levels of blood-clotting proteins, which make artery blockages—one of the main causes of a heart attack—more likely. People with types A, B, and AB blood are also more likely to have higher cholesterol and higher levels of inflammation, researchers said in a press release.
Going forward, researchers hope that further studies will examine each blood type alone, as well as determine why the link between blood type and heart attack risk might exist.
While this news may appear all doom and gloom for those with non type-O blood, there is one plus side: Like cholesterol, age, and blood pressure, blood type could one day be a factor that helps predict heart disease. Don’t miss these subtle signs you might be headed for a heart attack, too.
2625 45th Street
Highland, IN, US
Closed
8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Closed
8:00 AM - 5:00pm
Closed
Closed
Closed