do you know your blood type even more do you know what it means my name is leslie samuel and by the end of this video you're gonna understand the physiology behind blood types so let's do it [Music] [Applause] before we can dig into the different blood types and how that all works we have to briefly touch on how one part of the immune system works your immune system exists to protect you from bad stuff something foreign enters your body and your white blood cells can produce antibodies to fight against that foreign invader well the substance that the body recognizes as foreign is called an antigen when specific white blood cells detect the antigen they produce antibodies so that your body can attack and hopefully get rid of that invader red blood cells have a bunch of antigens on their surfaces but important ones where blood types are concerned are divided into two groups the blood group and the rh blood group let's deal with the blood group first a person can have either type a type b type a b or type o blood these are the four options and this really indicates the presence or absence of two specific antigens a antigens and b antigens if a person has type a blood the erythrocytes or red blood cells they have type a antigens on their surfaces if a person has type b blood the red blood cells have type b antigens on their surfaces if a person has type a b blood well you guessed it they have both type a and type b antigens on the surfaces and lastly if a person has type o blood they don't have either no a antigen no b antigen you can think of o as like a zero and tell yourself they got nothing it's pretty straightforward now here's where it gets tricky especially when it comes to things like getting blood transfusions if a person has type a blood we know that they have a antigens on the surfaces of their red blood cells but they also have antibodies against b antigens because those are foreign we call those anti-b antibodies so if they get a blood transfusion from a person with type b blood the immune system is going to attack and because of how antibodies have like a y shaped structure they're actually going to attach to multiple red blood cells causing them to clump together and this process is called agglutination this clumping can block blood vessels cutting off the nutrient and oxygen supply to the tissues and then the immune system will start destroying the foreign red blood cells this causes hemoglobin to leak out the kidney will try filtering that hemoglobin but that can quickly cause a huge load on the kidneys leading to kidney failure listen this is all very bad stuff and before we knew about blood types getting a blood transfusion was like playing russian roulette it could go well or you could just randomly die okay so type a blood has anti-b antibodies a person with type b blood has anti-a antibodies a person with type a b blood yes they have both antigens but they don't have any antibodies to either a or b if they did they'd attack their own blood cells and lastly a person with type o blood they have both anti-a and anti-b antibodies make sense because of all of this a person with type a blood can get a transfusion from a person with the same blood type type a or a person with type o blood since type o blood has neither of the antigens a person with type b blood can get a transfusion from a person with type b blood or once again a person with type o blood a person with type a b blood well they don't have either antibodies so they can get a blood transfusion with a person with type a type b a b or even o blood this is why that person is called a universal recipient the immune system won't attack blood cells from any of the groups because they don't have the antibodies they can get from just about anyone with one caveat and we'll talk about that in a minute and lastly a person with type o blood well they have both antibodies so they can only get blood from a person with type o blood but as we saw they can give blood to anyone since they don't have the antigens on their surfaces but once again with one caveat that we'll talk about well let's do it right now as we mentioned at the beginning yes we have the blood group but we also have the rh blood group a person can have either rh positive blood or rh negative blood and once again this has to do with the presence or absence of a specific antigen on the red blood cells the rh antigen if they have the rh antigen they are rh positive if they don't they're rh negative now if a person is rh negative and they're exposed to rh positive blood they'll produce antibodies against that rh antigen but if they are rh positive they won't produce rh antibodies because well the immune system isn't gonna like fight against something that's normally in your body unless something goes very wrong so technically the universal recipient is a person with a b positive blood because an a b negative person will produce anti-rh antibodies when exposed to rh positive blood and technically the universal donor is a person with type o negative blood once again for the same reason and that my friend is how this whole blood type system works if you got value from that go ahead and hit like subscribe and share this video with a friend who you think can benefit from understanding a little more about their amazing bodies that's it for now and i'll see you in the next video peace