The effect of age on the level of human ABO blood group antibodies

It is generally assumed that cellular and humoral immunity decline in aging humans. Although there have been reports that the naturally-occurring ABO antibodies also decline with age, some of the data are incomplete and others contradictory. Our study involved only healthy women of various ages and included assays of anti-A and anti-B titers in A, B, and O subjects. Statistical analyses of the data showed that while the antibody titers decreased with age, the amount of change was very small relative to the amount of variability among individuals and the variability attributable to blood type and season of the year. Comparisons with a previous study (1) from our laboratory showed that the changes due to aging were also small relative to the variability in titer scores within an individual over the course of a year. Based on this study, we conclude that the decrease in antibody titers with age is of doubtful clinical significance.