A new finding could bring scientists one step closer to a possible treatment for malaria, a disease that claims most lives in third world countries and sub-Saharan Africa.
The work has been reported by a team of researchers at Edinburgh University, in the US, Mali and Kenya who studied a population of 567 African children.
The results have shown that blood type O people are two-thirds less likely to experience two conditions characteristic of severe malaria - unrousable coma and life-threatening anaemia - than those with A, B or AB blood types.
Researchers observed that red cells in O group blood prevent malaria worsening through a mechanism called “reduced rosetting”. This knowledge could prove valuable in developing drug treatments or a vaccine aimed at mimicking the effect of red cells in the O blood group.
Besides providing an insight into the mechanism through which group O reduces the risk of dying from malaria, the results suggest that different diseases might have imposed different pressures on blood type evolution in the global human population.
The results have been published in the journal PNAS.
Original Source (s):
PNAS Abstract
BBC
Picture Credit (s):
Earthtimes
Prevention is the best cure. DDT is the answer. We have known that for years. The (soft egg shell) scare was bogus and millions have died as a result.
My father and his boyhood friends had malaria. Their description of the malady was less than pleasant. When I was a child, we lived near the Honey Island Swamp. The government was building the rocket engine test facility there in the early 1960’s. The mosquito and malaria problems were so bad that the government bombed the swamp with DDT. THis really cut the Anopheles problem down. Dad was so worried about us catching malaria anyway, that he gave each of us children a dose of quinine each morning. We didn’t get malaria. I don’t know whether the quinine or the DDT was to thank. I will say that wiping out the swarms of Anopheles was A OK in my book. Prior to the bombing of DDT, the mosquitos were so thick they would swarm us and cover our exposed skin. When you wiped them off, you were covered in blood. Not a nice way to greet the morning.
I have hunted that same swamp. There are deer, fish, nutria, beaver, wildcats, coon, an odd pather now and then as well as gators all over the place. The DDT did not destroy the environment, it just made it habitable to humans.
Istead of ignoring reality and trying to reinvent the wheel, perhaps it would make sense to do what is known to work.
By the way, there is a scientist (or was) that ate a spoon of DDT everyday for years without ill effect. It kills bugs, not people. By the way, the bad egg shells blamed on DDT turned out to be the result of an avian virus.
Unfortunately the west does not appreciate a “poor man’s disease”. while many parasites are making their way into the west I believe that efforts to eradicate the most populous organism on earth will be to short and too late. How we treat the weakest amongst us is more representative of our society and is the4 starting point for how we should judge ourselves. This killer has been around forever and claims more lives than all other means except for war. Hmmmm… that should tell you something.
It is amazing how many people suffer from malaria and other diseases from mosquitos such as yellow fever. While traveling around Brazil there has been an outbreak of yellow fever in some areas and everyone is trying to get vacinated as quickly as possible.