Rare food allergies
Bandelier, C.; Leimgruber, A.; Wassenberg, J.; Bart, P.A.; Spertini, F.
Revue Medicale Suisse 4(154): 1024-1026; 1028-1029
2008
ISSN/ISBN: 1660-9379 PMID: 18557531 Document Number: 620499
A limited number of foods explain the majority of food allergies. These allergies can be due to a weak allergenicity (garlic, onion, potato), or a weak (or increasing) exposure to emergent food allergens which can be imported (exotic fruits), or recently introduced (lupin, buckwheat, sesame, inulin) or modified by the industry (lysats, lecithins, traces of antibiotics, caseinates, molds, dust mite). Others are in relation with rarer cross-reactivity food allergy syndrome (Apiaceae-Compositae-mugwort syndrome, egg-bird syndrome, cat epithelium-pork meat syndrome). Others are rarely identified, because the food is masked (pepper, basilic). We illustrate rare cases of food allergy and discuss the diagnostic management which is based on a meticulous patient history.