Since 2010, more than 100,000 Americans have become allergic to red meat due to tick bites, reports APand refers to a report which was reported by the parliament on Thursday.
According to new figures, the allergy is becoming more common and researchers suspect that as many as 450,000 Americans may be affected.
If those numbers are correct, it would mean that it is the tenth most common food allergy in the United States, according to the doctor Scott Commins, who is behind the report.
Occurs in Sweden
Several cases have also been confirmed in Sweden.
Per-Eric Lindgren is a professor at the Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences at Linköping University. He tells TV4 Nyheterna that meat allergy caused by tick bites also occurs here.
– It is based on the fact that the tick first sucked blood from an animal and in the next step sucks blood from a human. Then the person can in some cases develop a meat allergy, he says.
According to the Asthma and Allergy Association, hundreds of cases have been confirmed in Stockholm.
Here, too, the darkness figure is assumed to be large, according to the Karolinska Institutet.
Made discovery in mice
The allergy is mainly caused by tick bites and can cause symptoms such as hives, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, severe stomach pain, difficulty breathing, dizziness and swelling of the lips, throat, tongue or eyelids, according to the AP.
It is when the carbohydrate alpha-gal, which is found in both meat and other animal products as well as in ticks, penetrates the skin that the symptoms can erupt.
In a first study conducted in 2010, the reaction of cancer patients treated with drugs developed in mouse cells was seen. They too contained alpha-gal.
It was only in 2011 that the connection to tick bites was seen.
Fainted three times after the steak
One woman tells the AP that she slapped a “big fat steak.” Six hours later she woke up with severe diarrhea and dizziness. She fainted three times.
The woman says that at that time she often suffered from other symptoms, such as hives, but that she did not connect it to food as the symptoms came several hours after she had eaten. Something that is typical for this type of allergy, according to the report.
After avoiding tick bites and meat, the allergic attacks have stopped. And doctors’ advice to those who are allergic is precisely to avoid tick bites, change their diet and carry adrenaline.