Severe allergy to meat may not be a rarity

Research presented at the February 21, 2010 meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in New Orleans, suggests that eating animal flesh may be a much more common trigger for anaphylaxis than previously thought. [1] Anaphylaxis shock is a life-threatening severe allergic reaction to a compound, in this case animal flesh.

A Reuters report out of Washington said that “A study of 60 patients who had unexplained severe allergic reactions suggests that a compound in meat known as alpha-galactose may be the culprit.” [1]

"What we're finding is that this traditional notion of allergy to meat being very rare may, in fact, not be true," Dr. Scott Commins of the University of Virginia, who led the research, said in a telephone interview.

What’s unusual about this anaphylaxis is that it may seem to appear out of the blue because the meat may have been eaten four to six hours earlier. Common thought has been that if an individual doesn't come down with an allergic reaction within two hours of eating, then a later reaction is not due to the food. Typically, anaphylaxis occurs within minutes after ingestion of an offending substance. This new research found that this doesn't seem to be true for those with severe meat allergy.

“Commins and colleagues screened blood samples from 60 patients, testing for the antibody to alpha-galactose. The people in the study -- 22 at the University of Virginia, 20 at the University of Tennessee and 18 at John James Medical Center in Australia, had anaphylaxis and no apparent cause for it, Commins said. Twenty-five tested positive for alpha-galactose and no other patterns were found that would have otherwise explained the cause of their anaphylaxis, the researchers said.” [1]

This is interesting, especially in these days of rising food allergies. Allergic to meat? No problem. You can shop at Down to Earth and buy every single thing in the store without worrying about developing anaphylaxis or any other less severe reaction.

Yet another good reason to go veggie.