The Relationship between Blood Pepsin Level, ABO Blood Group, and Secretor Status

Abstract

Since many patients with duodenal ulcer have hypersecretion of both gastric acid and gastric pepsin and often a correspondingly high concentration of blood pepsin, the present study was undertaken to .determine whether there was any association between blood pepsin level, ABO blood group, and secretor status in a group of normal young adult men. One thousand adult males ranging in age from 16 to 21 years were survived for 3 factors: blood pepsin, blood group, and secretor status. The range of pepsin values for the entire group was 155 and 1160 units, and the mean value was 356 units. No significant differences in blood pepsin level could be demonstrated among the separate blood group phenotypes. Similarly, there were no striking differences in blood pepsin levels between secretors and non-secretors of all major blood groups. In this series of young adult men, there was no significant association between blood pepsin and 2 specific genetic markers, blood group, and salivary blood group secretor status, which have been shown to bear relationship to duodenal ulcer.