• Question: Why do we have blood types?

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      Asked by Chloe to Daniela ?, ☣ Danna, Jonny, Juan, Lindsay on 10 Jun 2016.
      • Photo: Jonathan Hunter

        Jonathan Hunter answered on 10 Jun 2016:

        I don’t know. I guess the same reason people have different coloured eyes or hair – natural diversification of a group to suit the environment. But that’s just a guess.

      • Photo: Lindsay Robinson

        Lindsay Robinson answered on 11 Jun 2016:

        I don’t think anyone really knows why. I think Jonathan’s right in that it could just be that everyone’s different. When scientists have studied blood type across different groups based on race they found different percentages for each blood type but I think there’s still a lot of work going on in this area.

      • Photo: Danna Gifford

        Danna Gifford answered on 11 Jun 2016:

        It’s not completely known why there are different blood types. One thing that scientists think might be the reason is that people with different blood types have different chances of getting some kinds of illnesses. For example, people who catch malaria that have B or O type blood don’t get as sick as people with A type blood. And there tend to be more people with O type blood in areas where malaria is high. But no body really knows for sure if this is why we have different blood types in the first place.

      • Photo: Juan Ortiz

        Juan Ortiz answered on 12 Jun 2016:

        As the rest of the scientists have pointed out, it is difficult to tell why we have different blood types or why we have other different features. In general, variety is an advantage to survive as a species in a changing environment. Some blood types may be advantageous in one environment (for example by preventing some diseases, like Danna said) but disadvantageous in others. That’s why we have preserve a variety of blood types to be ready for anything that may come!

      • Photo: Daniela Lobo

        Daniela Lobo answered on 16 Jun 2016:

        I think I would have to guess too, Chloe – as other scientists suggested, I think there is a relationship between immunity (protection) to certain diseases and the likelihood of being less/more tolerant to a number of physiological phenomena (for example, I read somewhere that people of blood type A have more digestive problems and that people with blood type B are less tolerant to allergies, but I don’t really know if this is true!).

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