RELATIONSHIPS OF BLOOD GROUPS WITH BODY MASS INDEX (B.M.I.).

Background: Blood group is genetically determined. Obesity is a risk factor for many diseases like cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes mellitus, obstructive sleep apnoea, certain types of cancer and osteoarthritis. Body Mass Index (B.M.I.) is an indirect measure of body fat. Objective: objective of this study is to find whether any relationship between blood group and B.M.I. of a person exists or not. Materials and methods: a cross sectional study on 79 subjects was done. Subjects were class 1 and 2 staff members of B. J. Medical College, Ahmedabad and family members of some of them. A thorough history, height, weight and blood group of every subject were taken. The data was analyzed statistically. Observations and results: mean B.M.I. of AB blood group subjects (26.87±1.73kg/m2 ) is higher than mean B.M.I. of A(24.15±3.17 kg/m2 ) and O (24.88±3.8 kg/m2 ) blood group subjects and these differences are statistically significant(p<0.05). Whereas there are no significant differences between mean B.M.I. of A, B and O blood group subjects as well as AB and B (25.42±4.26 kg/m2 ) blood group subjects. Also, in age group 41-60 years overweight and obese subjects are more in number as compared to age group 24-40 years, and this difference is highly significant statistically(p