What does blood group type A mean and what are its features

Blood is one of the connective tissues in our body that are fluidic in nature. It flows in within the arteries, veins, and capillaries and does not come out of the circulatory system unless there is an injury. Our blood protects our body and maintains the immunity system profoundly. There are different types of blood types. Recognizing the type of blood helps us to donate and secure endangered lives in the medical care units. In this article, we will understand what blood group type A means and how it is different from that of the rest of the blood groups.

What is blood? What is its composition?

Blood, as mentioned earlier, is a fluid connective tissue that connects every nook and corner of a human body. It is red in colour due to the presence of haemoglobin in the red blood cells. The human blood is made of plasma and blood cells suspended in it. The characteristics of these cells give birth to the different types of blood groups existing in the human population. You will be surprised to know that there are 40 different blood groups identified by the modern scientific systems but only four major blood groups are considered for medical transfusion.

Blood is also responsible for the regulation of the temperature of the human body. It also maintains the pH level and actively participates in the metabolism functions of cells and tissues in the entire human body. It transports gases, nutrients, enzymes, and hormones to their respective locations and serves as a carrier. A total of 5 – 5.5 litres of blood is produced and maintained on an average in an adult. According to the scientific interpretation, the volume of blood should be at least 7 to 8% of a person’s body weight. Let us proceed to discuss a blood group in detail.

What do you mean by blood groups?

Karl Landsteiner, the Austrian scientist received the Nobel Prize due to his remarkable discovery of the different blood groups in 1900. He paved the way to understand the different types of blood by researching and understanding the constituents and features. His eyes caught the different features associated with the red blood cells that led to the foundation of blood groups in humans.

The red blood cells contain antigenic proteins on the cellular membrane. The different types of antigenic proteins resulted in the differentiation of blood groups. He worked on different types of blood groups and found that when one type is mixed with another type, agglutination of the blood samples occurs. This agglutination process was continued. It is then he found our different groups significantly present in humans and named it the ABO blood group system. The presence of the Rhesus factor also indicates two different sets of each blood group and is denoted by positive or negative. For instance, group A can be either negative or positive based on the presence of the Rhesus factor. Hence, there are two systems to follow, Rhesus and ABO.

1. ABO system:

Based on this system, we find four major types of blood groups that are A, B, AB, and O. The grouping of blood led to the foundation of safe transfusion in the medical world and escalated the chances of survival of patients.  

There are two types of antigenic proteins found on the cell membranes of the red blood cells. These antigens are called A and B. if we focus on the different blood groups, we will find the following aspects.

Group A has antigen A along with antibody B

Group B has antigen B along with antibody A

Group AB has antigen A and B but antibodies are absent

Group O contains both A and B antibodies but no antigen

Upon mismatching the blood groups, Landsteiner found that Group O is the universal donor and Group AB is the universal recipient.

2. Rhesus system:

The Rhesus system is based on the presence of another antigen named Rhesus. This antigen is present in at least 67% of the entire population of human beings. This antigen is called the Rh factor. If it is present in the blood, the individual is termed as positive (Rh+) and if absent, the individual is termed negative (Rh-). This second system defines whether a blood group will be positive or negative.

What is Blood Group A?

Now that we know the two antigen-antibody systems of blood, we can easily define A blood group in detail.

As we can see, these antigens are the markers that differentiate the blood groups. Group A blood contains antigen A and antibody B. Rest all the functions of this blood group remain similar to that of the other blood groups.

When this group contains the Rhesus antigen, it is termed as Blood Group A+. When the Rhesus factor is absent, it is termed as A-. The blood group is entirely based on genetic selection and the blood group of the parents. Check the possible combinations of the blood groups of parents.

• A and B

• A and A

• AB and O

• AB and A

• AB and B

• AB and AB

• O and A

Any of these combinations may result in the formation of group A in the progeny. The combinations that will not result in the formation of Group A blood in the children are:

• B and O

• O and O

• B and B

This blood group can donate and receive blood to the same group. In fact, it can also receive blood from the O-group donors. Considering the Rhesus factor, a donor and recipient are chosen in the medical field for safe transfusion of blood.

Previously, it was thought that the blood group controlled the personality of a human being resulting in a hypothesis but there is no scientific proof of it. This is just a hoax ideology that many people consider true. You can now easily understand and answer what does blood group type A mean. Follow the antigen-antibody theory to understand how this blood group is distinguished.

Facts related to humans you should know:

• A newborn has only a cup of blood whereas an average adult has at least 4-5 litres of blood. This happens when the blood circulatory system starts forming blood vessels as per the body’s development.

• The blood groups are differentiated and distinguished based on the antigen and antibodies present on the red blood cells. More than 40 such blood groups are present out of which only 4 are considered significant. We have discussed these 4 blood groups above.

• The blood group that contains only antibodies but no antigen is termed as O. The blood of these donors will not react or agglutinate other blood groups and is termed as a universal donor.

• AB negative (AB-) is the rarest blood group in the world. Only 1% of the entire population is born with this blood group and it is hard to find donors for patients across the world. This is why we can find several communities of such blood donors in localities for the easier arrangement of this blood group in an emergency.

• The blood group type A means it has the antigen A and the antibody B. It is the second most found blood group in the world with 22.88% occurrence among the population.

• Two antigen-antibody systems are considered for distinguishing the blood types. The Rhesus factor gives positive or negative signs to the blood groups based on its presence or absence respectively. It has been found that more than 94.61% of the donors are Rhesus positive (Rh+).

• Any healthy person of age 17 or more can donate blood once within a time span of 3 to 4 months.

• A total of 4.5 million lives are saved annually with the aid of safe blood transfusion. It takes only 15 minutes to donate blood.

The more you know, the more you get enthralled by the complicated systems in the human body. The blood alone has so many facts to understand. When you study and realize what blood group type A means, many other questions pop into your mind.

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