I guess this is very dependent on your societal group. F.ex., unlike the US, Portugal is still a very UNdiversified country, etnicity wise. You wont find many people who immigrated there from France (thank God), Africa, or anywhere in the world. As such, most Portuguese who live in Portugal and the Azores, are descendants of those who founded the country 800 years ago. So clearly, different populations who adapted to different environments and climates, evolved to have an optimal blood type - while those who had different blood types apparently didnt thrive as well. I cant think of another reason why Portuguese people would be 70-80 percent A types, with the majority of these being A+, and only 5 %(if I recall) being O types (with O- being, by far, the minority). Heck maybe it means you better stay the heck away from Portugal’s lifestyle if you’re an O type lol.
Come to think of it, if you lived and were raised in Portugal, up until 20 years ago (not so common today), your livelihood would depend on working the land, growing vegetables, potatos, corn, harvesting cows and pigs and chickens. This obviously takes a very strong toll on you physically as you work up a sweat from sunup to sundown in the blazing heat, just to be able to feed your (very large) family - the average family also had 6-12 kids. My dad was one of 9 f.ex. and my grandparents made their livelihood out of working a rather large piece of land. They would make their kids (my dad) work like animals on that land to make sure they had food to live off of. Most families worked like this. To thrive in this environment you needed strong physical endurance to carry out your duties day and day out.
My dad’s family is a bunch of ectomorphs and A+ types. They are pretty damn tall and naturally skinny, much like most portuguese people from the North of Portugal.
Maybe there might be a link? I would be interested in knowing of a country that is mostly O types, what their lifestyles have been for the past centuries and what their diets have consisted of. In portugal, a traditional meal (carried out from generations) was a portion of cod fish, a bunch of white potatos(boiled), green beans or spinach, and olive oil.
If somebody has something to add about the O types or even the B and AB types, this could get interesting.
For those who might ask, yes I live in the US, and yes I am a US cicitizen from birth.
Diesel`s got some good points on diversity. Not to mix the cards, but a similar trend exists for insulin resistance in populations.
For example, eskimos have a very low carb, high fat, high protein lifestyle since who knows when. Hard to see where they would get their carbs too.
Anyway, not having crossbred with other nations, plus having no direct survival need/incentive to tolerate carbs, you have a nation that is very low carb tolerant.
I have no idea of the blood type patterns. I`d be curious to see, when I have the time, if the above link describes these far-located populations…
Diesel: Your numbers are still off. Among Portuguese people, A is the most common, but it’s only 53%. O is the second most common at 35%. B is 8 and AB is the most rare at 4%.
Dan: Alaskan Eskimos are 44% A, 38% O, 13% B and 5% AB.
I know engineers who use 95% as the percentage to assess something as safe/reliable.
Maybe 50%+1 is more aptly define majority. You’re at that threshold, you are starting to win more cases than you lose. So even at level, there’s a pattern, albeit small, starting to emerge.
95% is commonly used as statistical significance (scientific significance as opposed to laymans).
If you used 50% you would be wrong half of the time. The problem with this is because from all the positive results you get from your intervention or sample there is the potential for conamination from other factors. >/=95% Alpha level ensures that the intervention or difference between samples is due to the factors being studied or experimented with (introduced).
I can check my notes.
OSHEA: Call me contaminated by Richard Dawkins Selfish Gene book, but, as much as I would like that 95% be the test, theres just too many cross-factors that come up to prevent pure` isolated characteristics. However, given enough time long term, majority starting even at 50%+1 eventually will get bigger in the population has any evolutionary stable strategy value/advantage, and possibly cluster with genes that work well together…
On the other extreme, the birth of the trend starts at 50%+1 (while not the most significative). There`s surely a level of percentage where some traits cross-reference / cohort, like, say 70-80%. I would never expect more than that level on population studies.
Just think of all possible correlation that could be done with a couple of traits: bodytype (ecto-endo-meso morphs), blood type, blood pH (yep, another variable), insulin resistance, bodyfat %, standard deviation for bodyfat/bodycomp levels.
Heck, I`d be happy if I find any large sample backup for my observations. =0)
I’m B+ and not an ectomorph. I AM more tolerant than some when it comes to how pigging out effect my weight, though. But if I pig out long enough, I do get fat. My younger son is B+ and considerably more ecto (granted he’s only 13 but he’s on his way to 6’ – already a couple inches taller than me). His build, however, is nearly identical to my father-in-law and brother-in-law – long arms and torso, relatively short legs, eat everything in sight, relatively skinny. But both are type 0. My older son is built pretty much the same as me, but he’s 0+.
Yeah, as an undergraduate too many research reports contain “there is a large and/or visible difference in means but no significant difference” “sob”.
By the way I suppose I should tell you my blood type hey. Its O. I am avg height and fairly stocky. I put on mass quickly, have some type A personality traits on occasion and can’t go without meat. Fast twitch dominant too. I don’t gain fat too easily but don’t eat like a fatty either so Ill never really know.
