Abstract
Since its discovery in the 1930s, the effects of Rh phenotype on human health and wellbeing, with the exception of the effects of Rh-negativity of a mother on the risk of hemolytic anemia of Rh-positive children, has only rarely been studied. In the last few years, however, several studies have shown that Rh-negative subjects have worse health and performance in certain tests than their Rh-positive peers. Nothing is known about the effect of Rh phenotype on the quality of life of subjects as measured by a standard instrument. We hereby analyzed the data of 1768 male (24% Rh-negative) and 3759 female participants (23% Rh-negative) of an anonymous internet study using the partial Kendall test with the age and the population of the hometown of subjects controlled. The results showed that the Rh-negative women, but not men, scored worse in wellbeing measured with the WHO-BREFF. The Rh-negative men scored worse in mental health-related variables and in their reported economic situation and the Rh-negative women scored better in physical health-related variables. Both the Rh-negative men and women reported higher sexual activity than their Rh-positive peers. The effects of the Rh phenotype were significant after the correction for multiple tests. However, they were usually weaker and less numerous than those of smoking, consuming alcohol, and high body mass index, which were used as a sort of internal control.
Highlights
About 16% of the population in Europe (5% in Africa and 1% in Asia) are Rh-negative, i.e., they carry two copies of the allele of the RHD gene with large deletion, the d allele [1,2]
The effects of the Rh phenotype were significant after the correction for multiple tests
They were usually weaker and less numerous than those of smoking, consuming alcohol, and high body mass index, which were used as a sort of internal control
Summary
About 16% of the population in Europe (5% in Africa and 1% in Asia) are Rh-negative, i.e., they carry two copies of the allele of the RHD gene with large deletion, the d allele [1,2]. Several studies suggested the existence of specific effects of Rh phenotype and genotype on human psychomotor performance [10,11,12,13,14] and health [15,16,17]. No data has been published regarding the effect of Rh phenotype on quality of life, for example, on wellbeing, measured with a standard psychological instrument. Since its discovery in the 1930s, the effects of Rh phenotype on human health and wellbeing, with the exception of the effects of Rh-negativity of a mother on the risk of hemolytic anemia of Rh-positive children, has only rarely been studied. In the last few years, several studies have shown that Rh-negative subjects have worse health and performance in certain tests than their Rh-positive peers. Nothing is known about the effect of Rh phenotype on the quality of life of subjects as measured by a standard instrument
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