Ticked Off About a Growing Allergy to Meat

Science Magazine ^ | 11-16-2012 | Gretchen Cuda Kroen

[Renfield]

Tick bites have long been synonymous with bad news, responsible for transmitting diseases such as Lyme disease, Ehrlichiosis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but this must be a carnivore or BBQ lover's worst nightmare. A growing body of research suggests that bites from a particular tick are causing an unusual allergic reaction to meat. At an allergy meeting last week, for example, a diagnostics lab presented evidence that the highest prevalence of the allergy is in the southeastern United States, where the tick primarily thrives. Yet American BBQ lovers and carnivores elsewhere may not rest easy; the allergy mysteriously afflicts people living in parts of the United States, even Hawaii, where the tick does not live....

[dangus]

Genetically engineered by Center for Science in the Public Interest? (/tinfoil)

[9YearLurker]

“the alpha-gal reaction”—tee hee.

[KeyLargo]

PETA is ecstatic!

[GnL]

If I ever get this condition, someone just please shoot me.

[Savage Beast]

Alpha-gal allergy is not the only bad consequence of eating beef, lamb, and pork. Arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease is a far more widespread and deadly consequence.

I stopped eating athersclerotogenic meats many years ago when I was a medical student studying this--never missed them one bit--and, despite a STRONG family history of arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, I have remained free of it by symptom, sign, and countless tests including CAT-scan.

(My mother, father, only sibling, both grandmothers, one grandfather, aunt all died of it.)

(My wife's father and grandmother died of it; she also stopped eating atherosclerotogenic foods; and she has also remained totally free of the consequent diseases.)

One wonders if a similar pathogenesis is behind the apparently soaring allergy to peanuts.