Meat Allergies May Not Be as Rare as Once Thought

We read often about allergies to milk, peanuts and shellfish, but for whatever reason, not so much about allergies to meat. A study just reported at a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, in New Orleans, suggests they may be more common than believed — maybe medium rare, the scientists appear to be suggesting.

Here’s a summary of the report, in a release from the academy. Conducted by researchers at the University of Virginia, the University of Tennessee and the John James Medical Center in Australia, it looked at 60 cases of recurring cases of unexplained anaphylaxis and found that 25 of those patients had IgE antibodies (the type of antibodies that are responsible for allergies) in their blood that reacted to alpha-gal (or alpha-galactose for long), a carbohydrate in meat.

View the full article at Loos Angeles Times