A study published by the ACAAI (American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology) on September 2014 in its official publication highlighted a very unique allergy case of a 10-year-old Canadian girl who went into an anaphylactic shock after eating a blueberry pie.
Only after a few minutes of consuming a pie, the girl had difficulty breathing, a severe allergic reaction that requires immediate emergency response. In the hospital, she was immediately provided with strong doses of anti-allergy drugs like epinephrine. The girl has now completely recovered.
During allergy analysis of the pie, the girl did not develop any reaction to its main ingredients. It also did not contain milk, which the girl is allergic to. It was only upon much deeper examination later that the culprit may be an antibiotic that is normally included or found in a fruit pesticide. The blueberry pie, it turns out, contained small traces of streptomycin.
The research team hopes that the study will encourage doctors to also consider antibiotics used in food, including meat, when diagnosing allergy causes.
An allergy is a body's natural reaction and defense against what its immune system perceives as a threat. In the process of "attacking" the foreign substances, the antibodies release histamines. When they find their way into the bloodstream, the typical allergic reactions we know of happen such as itchy or swelling skin, rashes, and, in extreme cases, difficulty in breathing and anaphylactic shock.
In the United States, more than 12 million people develop food allergies. The incidence, moreover, has increased to around 50% from 1997 to 2011.
Rare allergies have also been on the rise. In 2012, a two-year-old Tucson boy was discovered to suffer from EE (eusinophilic esophagitis), which makes him allergic to almost any kind of food. More people are also becoming sensitive to red meat and milk.