Pancreatitis often in blood group B

Carriers of blood type B have a 2.5-fold increased risk of pancreatitis

09/17/2014

Every year more than 72,000 patients in Germany are treated with acute or chronic pancreatitis. More than 1,600 do not survive the disease. In addition to the main risk factors, high alcohol consumption, tobacco smoke and the occurrence of gallstones, the hereditary predisposition has an influence on the development of pancreatitis. Researchers at the University of Greifswald recently discovered that the blood group also plays an important role. Accordingly, people with the blood group B - after all, one in eight Germans - a 2.5-fold increased risk against the carriers of the blood group 0, to fall ill with the chronic form.

For blood group B, increased risk of pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer
„Our findings are also interesting because another study has shown that blood group B is also an important risk factor for the development of pancreatic cancer. This indicates that chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic carcinoma share the same genetic basis“, explain the two senior authors of the Greifswald study, Prof. Markus M. Lerch and Dr. med. Georg Homuth. About 12 percent of the German population, according to the experts, the blood group B.

Increased lipase value in patients with pancreatitis
As part of their study, the researchers first analyzed the blood levels of 4,000 healthy volunteers in the SHIP study on the causes of disease and 1,400 equally healthy blood donors. In the next step, the blood of 1,000 pancreatitis patients was examined. The researchers took advantage of the fact that people with pancreatitis have a significantly higher lipase value compared to healthy people.

Dr. Claudia Schurmann and Dr. med. Frank U. Weiss then searched in the blood of 5,400 healthy for potential genetic factors that affect the level of lipase. It turned out that carriers of blood group B increasingly showed a high, but within the normal range lying lipase value. In addition, they showed changes in the gene for the enzyme fucosyltransferase 2 (FUT 2).

The blood analysis of the 1,000 patients with pancreatitis confirmed that they had both blood group B accumulated and the so-called FUT2 non-secretor status was subject to strong changes, which defines the hereditary inability to excrete this enzyme from the glandular cells. From this, the researchers calculated a 2.5-fold increased risk of disease for carriers of blood group B compared to blood group 0. „Interestingly, this increase in disease risk is primarily related to patients with chronic pancreatitis and not to patients with acute pancreatitis, whether or not they drink too much alcohol“, explains Dr. Schurmann.

For blood group B, avoid risk factors for pancreatitis
„The risk gene variants may be based on a common physiological mechanism in the pancreatic cells“, so Dr. White, „because depending on both the ABO blood group and the FUT2 non-secretor or secretor status different sugar residues are attached to the excreted by epithelial proteins.“

People with blood type B should avoid or minimize the risk factors for pancreatitis, such as alcohol and nicotine consumption, the researchers suggest. So Dr. Homuth then that smoking doubles the risk of disease. For alcohol, the amount is crucial.

According to Lerch, however, the biggest hereditary risk factor is mutations in the trypsinogen gene, which in eight out of ten people cause pancreatitis with this change. Within the blood group B of 4,000 carriers one of.