Is there an association between ABO blood types and depressive symptoms among Japanese healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Dong Van Hoang,Takako Miki,Ami Fukunaga,Shohei Yamamoto,Tetsuya Mizoue,Zobida Islam,Maki Konishi,Kimiyo Kikuchi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0256441

Dong Van Hoang, Takako Miki + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256441

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Aug 27, 2021
Citations: 1	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: National Center for Global Health and Medicine

Abstract

ABO blood types could be a biological predisposition for depression. The present cross-sectional analysis was conducted amid the second wave of COVID-19 in Japan during July 2020. We wanted to investigate the association between ABO blood types and depressive symptoms among workers (352 men and 864 women, aged 21–73 years) of a medical institution in Tokyo, Japan, which took a leading role in the response to COVID-19 in the country. A Poisson regression model with a robust variance estimator was used to estimate the prevalence ratio (PR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for depressive symptoms associated with ABO blood types. Overall, the prevalence of depressive symptoms (using two questions employed from a Two-question case-finding instrument) was 22.0%. The adjusted PRs (95% CI) for depressive symptoms, comparing the carriers of blood type O, A, and AB with those of type B, were 0.88 (0.66, 1.18), 0.81 (0.62, 1.07), and 1.07 (0.74, 1.53), respectively. There was no difference in the prevalence of depressive symptoms between non-B and B carriers. The present study did not support the association of ABO blood types with depressive symptoms.

Highlights

Depression continues to be a worldwide public health concern which has affected more than 264 million people [1]
Among the 1,216 health workers of a medical institution designated for COVID-19 in Japan, depressive symptoms were not associated with ABO blood types
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between ABO blood types and depressive symptoms among Japanese people

Summary

Introduction

Depression continues to be a worldwide public health concern which has affected more than 264 million people [1]. Biological and epidemiological studies suggest that there may be a link between ABO blood types and the vulnerability to depression. ABO blood types and depressive symptoms using the data, please contact Department of Epidemiology and Prevention, Center for Clinical Sciences, National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Japan (website: http://ccs.ncgm.go.jp/ index.html, tel: +81 3 3202 7181). Previous studies [10] have shown that blood type B is associated with lower DBH activity, while blood types O and A are associated with higher DBH activity, which may increase one’s vulnerability to depression [11]. This suggests that those with blood type A and O may carry a higher risk of depression compared to those with type B. We examined the association between ABO blood types and depressive symptoms among workers of a designated medical institution for COVID-19 in Tokyo, Japan

Study design and participants

Results

Discussion