Community Corner

Tick Bite May Cause Meat Allergy. Really.

In what can only be described as a 'total bummer' for those who like a good steak, a tick bite may cause a life-threatening reaction to many meats.

It’s like being allergic to BBQ.

A condition that has been linked to tick bites may be making some people allergic to the meat of all non-primate mammals, according to reports.

That’s burgers, bacon, goat, deer, lamb... as well other mammals that aren’t in fashion in the United States.

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People who have developed the allergy present with the standard symptoms of food allergy when eating these meats: itchy throat, hives, problems breathing and even full-blown anaphylactic shock, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

To make matters worse, the allergy isn’t obvious. Some people say they have had it for years before pinpointing what, exactly, was going on.

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“Unlike other allergic reactions that occur immediately, this reaction tends to occur within three to six hours after eating red meat,” according to Scott Commins. Commins co-authored a study on the allergy in the journal Pediatrics after studying a group of children in Virginia who had developed symptoms. 

And the reactions, Commins determined, can be “life-threatening.”

According to Commins, people can develop this allergy after being bitten by a Lone Star Tick. The tick injects its spit into the person’s body, and the person develops an antibody specific to a sugar in the spit. That sugar, called alpha galactose (alpha-gal), is also present in—you guessed it—mammal meat, though not in primates.

Unfortunately, the Lone Star Tick is not limited to Texas, as its name may suggest. No, the Lone Star Tick and its meat-hating saliva are found right here in Maryland, according to the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Like other food allergies, there is no medication to treat the "meat allergy." But, Commins told CNN, if a person who developed such an allergy could avoid tick bites for a while, "He or she could become less allergic to meat."


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