Does your blood type give you a higher chance of having MS?

[lilgypsy89]

I was just wondering if its just a coincidence that myself and two friends both have A- blood type and both have MS?

[supermum_ms]

Hi and welcome to our little MS community,

I think it's likely just a coincidence,  i couldn't find any research based association of blood type and MS, you'll find a few diet and or natural health type web sites that mention blood type autoimmune susceptibility and occasionally mention MS but there's no MS research or reputable MS specific site that i could find to back up any blood type association with MS.  

How strange a coincidence probably depends on what country your from eg A- is estimated at 6% of the US population, which translates to being around 19 million in the US with A- blood type and if there's 400,000 MSers, theoretically that should be somewhere around 24,000 MSers who also have A- blood type....knowing 2 of the 400,000 MSers are A- wouldn't seem very strange to me.

If you have MS you'll probably know more than 2 other people with MS, some of the other people you know who have MS will probably be A- too but you just don't know their blood type, keeping in mind that theoretically you'd probably know even more MSers who are not...

Hope that helps.........JJ