Tick Bite-Induced Meat Allergy Linked to More Species

Alpha-gal is a lot more than a perfect name for a female superhero. It’s also a syndrome that makes people allergic to red meat.

It’s usually contracted through tick bites, particularly the lone star tick. However, new research suggests that a wider variety of ticks might also be spreading alpha-gal than previously thought. Suddenly my theory that cows and ticks are in cahoots feels like it has more credence.

It’s all thanks to the aforementioned alpha-gal, a sugar found in the tissues of most animals but not in humans. Most humans can tolerate alpha-gal. But sometimes a tick bite can cause the immune system to overreact to alpha-gal, leading to an allergic reaction.

Most other food allergies are caused by reactions to proteins. What makes alpha-gal unique is that it’s an allergic reaction to sugar.

Lone Star Tick May Not Be the Only Species Whose Bite Causes Meat Allergy

Researchers found that alpha-gal was present in Ixodes pacificus and Ixodes scapularis, two types of ticks that weren’t usually associated with the syndrome.

One case involved a woman in Washington who was forced to become a vegetarian after she developed the syndrome in 2017 after a tick bite. She was bitten again just a few years later, and this time she kept the tick so it could be studied. It was the Ixodes pacificus.

Researchers observed that after she was bit the second time her alpha-gal antibodies went up, suggesting her system was fighting off the presence of alpha-gal. She was bit again two years after that by another Ixodes pacificus, and her antibodies went to work again.

The vast majority of alpha-gal syndrome cases in the United States are linked to the lone star tick, but it’s certainly looking like at least two other tick varieties could also be spreading the syndrome.

It’s estimated that up to 450,000 Americans have developed Alpha-Gal syndrome since 2010, a number that will likely rise as climate change makes the world a little hotter, creating the perfect conditions for ticks to breed and multiply.