{"id":9303,"date":"2022-06-15T06:29:20","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T06:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/id\/?post_type=product&p=9303"},"modified":"2022-06-15T06:39:53","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T06:39:53","slug":"why-are-so-many-people-getting-a-meat-allergy","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/id\/why-are-so-many-people-getting-a-meat-allergy\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are so many people getting a meat allergy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Becoming allergic to meat turns your life upside down. Known as alpha-gal allergy, the condition dictates what you can eat, wear, how you relax, and even which medicines are safe. Is research finally starting to catch up?<\/h4>\n
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It is early morning in early summer, and I am tracing my way through the woods of central North Carolina, steering cautiously around S-curves and braking hard when what looks like a small rise turns into a narrow bridge. I am on my way to meet Tami McGraw, who lives with her husband and the youngest of their kids in a sprawling development of old trees and wide lawns just south of Chapel Hill. Before I reach her, McGraw emails. She wants to feed me when I get there:<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you like to try emu?\u201d she asks. \u201cOr perhaps some duck?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These are not normal breakfast offerings. But for years, nothing about McGraw\u2019s life has been normal. She cannot eat beef or pork, or drink milk or eat cheese or snack on a gelatine-containing dessert without feeling her throat close and her blood pressure drop. Wearing a wool sweater raises hives on her skin; inhaling the fumes of bacon sizzling on a stove will knock her to the ground. Everywhere she goes, she carries an array of tablets that can beat back an allergy attack, and an auto-injecting EpiPen that can jolt her system out of anaphylactic shock.<\/p>\n

McGraw is allergic to the meat of mammals and everything else that comes from them: dairy products, wool and fibre, gelatine from their hooves, char from their bones. This syndrome affects some thousands of people in the USA and an uncertain but likely larger number worldwide, and after a decade of research, scientists have begun to understand what causes it. It is created by the bite of a tick, picked up on a hike or brushed against in a garden, or hitchhiking on the fur of a pet that was roaming outside.<\/p>\n

Reference:<\/h4>\n