{"id":10185,"date":"2025-08-27T16:16:25","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T21:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=10185"},"modified":"2025-08-27T16:16:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T21:16:28","slug":"a-red-meat-allergy-from-tick-bites-is-spreading-and-the-lone-star-tick-isnt-the-only-alpha-gal-carrier-to-worry-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/08\/27\/a-red-meat-allergy-from-tick-bites-is-spreading-and-the-lone-star-tick-isnt-the-only-alpha-gal-carrier-to-worry-about\/","title":{"rendered":"A red meat allergy from tick bites is spreading \u2013 and the lone star tick isn\u2019t the only\u00a0alpha-gal\u00a0carrier to worry\u00a0about"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/a-red-meat-allergy-from-tick-bites-is-spreading-and-the-lone-star-tick-isnt-the-only-alpha-gal-carrier-to-worry-about-262428\">The Conversation<\/a> Hours after savoring that perfectly grilled steak on a beautiful summer evening, your body turns traitor, declaring war on the very meal you just enjoyed. You begin to feel excruciating itchiness, pain or even swelling that can escalate to the point of requiring emergency care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The culprit isn\u2019t food poisoning \u2013 it\u2019s the fallout from a tick bite you may have gotten months earlier and didn\u2019t even notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This delayed allergic reaction is called&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.jaci.2014.12.1947\">alpha-gal syndrome<\/a>. While it\u2019s commonly called the \u201cred meat allergy,\u201d that nickname is misleading, because alpha-gal syndrome can cause strong reactions to many products, beyond just red meat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The syndrome is also rapidly spreading in the U.S. and around the globe. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/alpha-gal-syndrome\/about\/\">as many as 450,000 people<\/a>&nbsp;in the U.S. may have it. And it\u2019s carried by many&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/tick-borne-disease\/research-ties-bites-2-more-types-ticks-red-meat-allergy\">more tick species<\/a>&nbsp;than most people realize.<\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\"ZEgf JLbgAscPlFSlmE\">ZEgf JLbgAscPlFSlmE<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Conversation Hours after savoring that perfectly grilled steak on a beautiful summer evening, your body turns traitor, declaring war on the very meal you just enjoyed. You begin to feel excruciating itchiness, pain or even swelling that can escalate to the point of requiring emergency care. The culprit isn\u2019t food poisoning \u2013 it\u2019s the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tick-bourne-diseases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10186,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10185\/revisions\/10186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}