What is alpha-gal syndrome? Know the signs, prevention of emerging condition – ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4

There’s a type of food allergy you might not expect because it doesn’t come from foods like peanuts, dairy, wheat or soy — it actually comes from tick bites.

Imagine this: A burger is cooked the way you like. Next, your body is in full revolt with hives, nausea and vomiting.

You think it’s the food. Could it be the bug bite you overlooked from earlier in the day?

It’s called alpha-gal syndrome, and health experts say it’s an emerging condition that is still not fully understood.

What is alpha-gal syndrome?

Alpha-gal is a type of sugar found in the tissues of most mammals, but not in humans or other primates. Normally, eating meat poses no problem for the human body. But a tick bite can change that. In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites the Lone Star Tick is the main carrier, but blacklegged and western blacklegged ticks can develop the syndrome.

“People are putting the pieces together that tick bites can actually cause a food allergy in people,” said Mark VanderWerp, manager of education and training at Rose Pest Solutions.

According to VanderWerp, something happens after a tick bite that sensitizes the body to alpha-gal sugar which is the same sugar found in the meat people eat every day.

“When you go to eat a burger, a venison steak, a lamb gyro, you are exposing yourself to that alpha-gal sugar, which all these other mammals make, and once you become sensitized to that, that can be a serious issue, where you have major allergic symptoms,” VanderWerp said.

Those symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, hives and intense itching. In severe cases, the reaction can be life-threatening.

A mysterious delay

What makes alpha-gal syndrome especially difficult to diagnose is the timing of symptoms.

“The really mysterious thing is there’s often a big delay in onset,” VanderWerp said. “So, you may have eaten something, and you may not notice symptoms for two, four, six hours in some cases. So, that’s quite strange and again it makes it a little hard to diagnose that you have this.”

The Lone Start Tick is in Michigan, but it’s not the most common species.

“Other ticks, including the famous blacklegged tick, that is the Lyme disease tick, also produces this alpha-gal sugar in its saliva, and so that can also cause this disease, this syndrome as well.”