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Sir,
We thank Kirsten et al1 for their comments on our recent study,2 in which we reported a genome-wide analysis on ∼4000 volunteers from the population-based Study of Health in Pommerania (SHIP) cohort3 with replication in 1444 blood donors. We had found a significant association between higher serum lipase activities and three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) as well as the fucosyltransferase-2 (FUT2) non-secretor status (homozygosity for the FUT2 p.W134X mutation) and the ABO blood type B (figure 1). In more than 1000 patients with pancreatitis, we confirmed that FUT2 non-secretor status and blood type B are also disease risk factors, with a greater than twofold OR for blood type B compared with blood type O.
Footnotes
Contributors FUW and MML wrote the manuscript. CS, AT, JM, PS, HV, AG, J-PK, MZ, UV and GH contributed and approved the final letter.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Obtained.
Ethics approval Local ethic review commitee.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.