Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by global cognitive impairment, which implies a decline from the previous level of functioning and multiple symptoms. This disease is associated with a wide range of physical, psychological and behavioral disorders. The typically affected functions in Alzheimer are memory, the learning ability, attention, orientation, calculation, language, thinking and judgment. These cognitive function disorders are usually preceded and accompanied by disorders of emotional control, changes in personality behaviour and psychiatric symptoms (apathy, depression, psychotic disorders).
Researchers at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom conducted a study whose results demonstrated that the blood type can show whether a person is vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease.
To reach these conclusions, the scientists have analyzed the MRI images of some 189 volunteers. Thus, with their help, the scientists managed to calculate the volume of gray matter in the brain according to the blood type.
Experts have observed that people with O type blood have more gray matter in the posterior cerebral fossa, while the volunteers with A, B and AB blood type had a smaller volume of gray matter in the temporal lobe and in the limbic region of the brain, including the left hippocampus, a brain region that’s usually affected by Alzheimer’s.
As we get older, it is normal to have lower volumes of grey matter. “The findings seem to indicate that people who have an O blood type are more protected against the diseases in which volumetric reduction is seen in temporal and mediotemporal regions of the brain like with Alzheimer’s disease for instance,” said Matteo DeMarco, one of the scientists involved in the study. Even so, further study needs to be made in order to get to an accurate conclusion.
Read more about this study on: futurity.org
