Alpha-gal syndrome is an immune system misfire developed after being exposed to a tick bite. It is rapidly spreading across the United States and globally.
Alpha-gal syndrome is actually an allergy to a sugar molecule with a tongue-twisting name: galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, shortened to alpha-gal.
The alpha-gal sugar molecule exists in the tissues of most mammals, including cows, pigs, deer, and rabbits. But it's absent in humans. When a big dose of alpha-gal gets into your bloodstream through a tick bite, it can send your immune system into overdrive to generate antibodies against alpha-gal. In later exposure to foods containing alpha-gal, your immune system might then launch an inappropriate allergic response.
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Once you have alpha-gal syndrome, it's possible to get over the allergy if you can modify your diet enough to avoid triggering another reaction for a few years and also avoid more tick bites. But that takes time and careful attention to the less obvious triggers that you might be exposed to.
Ars Technica
As if Lyme disease wasn't reason enough to hate on ticks. Reading this article had me imagining a life of avoiding things that might trigger the allergy for longer and longer periods of time, but never losing it, and just suffering.
Previously:
• Can you spot the ticks in this poppy seed muffin?
• Why you can't flick a tick
• Grossout video: Moth and tick removed from man's ear
• Life with chronic Lyme disease ('post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome') sucks
