Page 49 - Spring2020

Reading Between the Lines

By Merinda Teller

Alpha-Gal Syndrome and Ticks: A False Trail?

Individuals who tend to follow the advice term “allergy” did not come along until 1906, Allergic
of mainstream nutritionists likely find the following on the heels of French physiologist conditions,
on-again, off-again demonization of red meat (and eugenicist) Charles Richet’s 1902 invention
rather confusing. Weston A. Price Foundation of the term “anaphylaxis.” and especially
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members know better, recognizing that red Around that time, injected antitoxins and food allergies,
meat—when sourced from healthy animals vaccines—new on the scene—were causing exploded
raised on healthy farms—is not only innocent “new diseases and strange reactions that phy-
of the many crimes of which it is often accused sicians could not explain.” Observing these beginning
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but is a nutrient-rich powerhouse. 2 “hypersensitivity reactions” that seemed to around 1990.
But what if you are a nutritionally informed involve the “collision of antigen and antibody,”
red meat lover—enjoying animal fats, organs particularly with repeated injections, Austrian
and bone broth as well as varied cuts of meat— pediatrician Clemens von Pirquet coined the
and you suddenly cannot eat anything red- term “serum sickness” and later elaborated the
meat-related without developing hives, rashes, concept of allergy.
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excruciating stomach pain or life-threatening Over subsequent decades, professionals
anaphylaxis? In the past, allergy experts con- continued to debate the meaning of various
sidered red meat allergy to be unusual, but allergy terms and concepts, and even today,
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by 2012, a red meat allergy dubbed “alpha-gal these are not necessarily agreed upon or used
syndrome” or simply “alpha-gal”—named after in a consistent and precise manner. There is a
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a carbohydrate molecule (galactose-alpha-1,3- firm consensus, however, that allergic condi-
galactose) present in non-primate mammalian tions—and especially food allergies—exploded
meat and high-fat dairy products —had made beginning around 1990. The alarming increase
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it into the pages of Science magazine, which in allergies over a relatively short period of
colorfully described it as “a carnivore or BBQ time is, in most experts’ view, a strong clue
lover’s worst nightmare.” that environmental factors are a leading allergy
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Since then, the number of individuals aller- trigger —and researchers believe that this holds
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gic to red meat—both adults and children—has true for the rise in red meat allergy as well. 7
continued to climb. In the U.S., one specialist
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sees five new patients a week and reports having A MEDICAL MYSTERY
treated nine hundred individuals over the past In 2009, several simultaneous case reports
decade. The same trend is apparent in numerous appeared in the scientific literature describing
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other countries—including various European the mysterious red meat allergy, with research
nations, Japan, South Korea, Panama, Brazil, teams from the U.S., Australia and France
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the Ivory Coast and South Africa —with the all converging on similar assertions about the
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result that a lot more carnivores are coming face presence of alpha-gal immunoglobulin E (IgE)
to face with their “worst nightmare.” antibodies in their patients. Researchers were
somewhat puzzled by the new syndrome, how-
A MODERN MALADY ever, because it “defie[d] some of the bedrock
As medical historians remind us, allergies tenets of immunology” and “challenge[d]
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are a “modern malady.” Hay fever became a the current paradigm for food allergy.” For
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recognized condition only in 1870, and the example, while IgE antibodies typically are
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SPRING 2020 Wise Traditions 49