An examination of HLA frequencies in three age groups

The question as to whether the distribution of HLA antigens differs between old and young persons has been studied only in a few population groups. There are observations showing an increase of heterozygosity of the HLA system (Bender et al. 1973, Gerkins et al. 1974) which indicate an advantage of heterozygosity for survival, but other studies fail to confirm this finding )Albert et al. 1974, Mucurová et al. 1975, Bender et al. 1976). Since the present authors, in a study of HLA gene frequencies on five small Danish islands (Hansen et al. 1974) had found a tendency to a changed frequency of certain HLA types among the oldest persons, it was decided to examine this question by typing larger numbers of persons of different age groups.