If Lyme disease isn't reason enough to avoid ticks, here's another: the inability to enjoy a burger.
Odd as it seems, researchers say that bites from the voracious lone star tick are making some people allergic to red meat?even if they've never had a problem eating it before.
The allergic reactions range from vomiting and abdominal cramps to hives to anaphylaxis, which can lead to breathing difficulties and sometimes even death.
Unlike most food allergies, the symptoms typically set in three to six hours after an affected person eats beef, pork or lamb?often in the middle of the night.
The bite that seems to precipitate it may occur weeks or months before, often making it difficult for people to make the link.
U.S. cases of the unusual allergy were first identified at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 2007, and are now being reported as far north as Nantucket, Mass., and on the east end of New York's Long Island.
"It's a huge problem out here," says Erin McGintee, a pediatric and adult allergist in East Hampton, N.Y., who says she knows of more than 70 cases and sees several more each week. "I've been trying to get the word out?but there are still a lot of people who don't believe it," she adds.
Tony Piazza, a landscape designer in Southampton, N.Y., first woke up in the middle of the night gasping for breath and covered in hives six years ago. Emergency-room doctors at Southampton Hospital gave him intravenous antihistamines and said it was probably an allergy, but they couldn't determine the source. The same scene played out two or three times a year for the next few years, Mr. Piazza, 49, says.
"I was afraid that the next time, I wouldn't wake up," he says.
He noticed that the reaction occurred every time he ate lamb for dinner, even though he had never had food allergies before. Then it happened with steak and then hamburger. "I swore off red meat completely and the reactions stopped," says Mr. Piazza. When he heard about the tick connection, it made sense, given his work. "I get ticks all the time," he says.
U. Va. allergy specialist Thomas Platts-Mills discovered the tick connection serendipitously?while investigating why some cancer patients had severe allergic reactions to the drug cetuximab in 2006. Blood tests revealed they had pre-existing antibodies to a certain sugar commonly known as alpha-gal, which is present in the drug and found naturally in mammalian meat.
Curiously, only the cancer patients from the southeastern "tick-belt" states had the allergic reaction. And as U. Va. researchers checked for the antibodies to alpha-gal in their (non-cancer-stricken) allergy patients, the same geographic pattern held true. What's more, some had reported having allergic reactions hours after eating beef, lamb or pork.
The researchers began routinely asking all their allergy patients about tick exposure. "We would have people routinely pull down their socks and show us these massive tick bites on their ankles," says Scott Commins, another U. Va. allergy specialist.
Dr. Platts-Mills himself returned from hiking in the Blue Ridge mountains in 2007 with his ankles covered in tiny lone star larvae. His blood soon tested positive for the telltale antibodies to alpha-gal. A few months later, he ate lamb for dinner at a meeting in London and awoke at 2 a.m. covered in hives. "I went back to sleep, pleased that I had another case to report on," he says.
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