A strange condition caused by a tick bite appears to have taken the first known human life. Scientists have linked the death of a 47-year-old New Jersey man last year to alpha-gal syndrome, commonly known as red meat allergy.
Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine detailed this tragic event in a case report released this week. The man appeared to have experienced a severe allergic reaction to a burger he had eaten four hours earlier, with experts later finding evidence of alpha-gal sensitivity in his blood. Although this may be the first death from red meat allergy, it may not be the last, as cases are generally on the rise in the U.S.
“We are reporting the first documented fatal case here [alpha-gal syndrome] occurs after eating mammalian meat,” the researchers wrote in their paper published Wednesday. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice,
a fatal red meat reaction
The man, an airline pilot, died in the summer of 2024, according to case reports.
Two weeks before his death, during a camping trip with his family, he had a late dinner of beef steak. Several hours later, the man woke up with severe stomach pain, diarrhea and vomiting. But eventually his condition improved and he went back to sleep and recovered quickly enough to go on a 5-mile hike the next day. He and his wife considered seeing a doctor, but they weren’t sure how to explain what had happened.
On that fateful day, the man and his wife went to a barbecue where he ate hamburgers around 3:00 p.m. Everything seemed fine until around 7:20 p.m., when he went to the bathroom. His son learned at 7:30 pm that he was ill again and soon found his father unconscious on the bathroom floor with vomit around his mouth. He called 911 and attempted resuscitation, with paramedics arriving and taking him to the hospital. But by 10:22 pm the man was officially declared dead.
The initial autopsy found nothing abnormal in his major organs nor any other obvious culprit for his demise, and the coroner labeled it “sudden unexplained death”. But his wife consulted her friend, a doctor, and they eventually reached out to researchers to see if alpha-gal syndrome might play a role. With their permission, researchers were allowed to test the man’s postmortem blood themselves.
The researchers found relatively high levels of IgE antibodies to alpha-gal in the man’s blood, which is significant because IgE is a type of antibody that helps cause food allergies. They also had high levels of the allergy-related enzyme tryptase — levels high enough to be consistent with a severe allergic reaction, or anaphylaxis.
The researchers concluded that, given the man’s otherwise good health, blood test results, his earlier symptoms, and recent exposure to beef, it was almost certain that a red meat allergy was responsible for his death.
a growing threat
Most mammals, except humans and other primates, contain the sugar alpha-gal in their muscles. Generally, eating meat from other mammals is not a problem for us, even if it contains sugar. But for reasons that scientists are still trying to understand, the bite of a lone star tick (and possibly other species) can sometimes cause a new sensitivity to alpha-gal in people.
It’s not just the source of the disease that makes red meat allergy strange. For starters, it’s the only IgE-related food allergy to a carbohydrate rather than a protein. Secondly, in this case, it often takes hours for symptoms to appear after exposure to red meat, whereas for other foods it will usually take a few minutes. Although alpha-gal syndrome can sometimes go away over time, many people who have it will never be able to safely eat red meat.
It is estimated that approximately 450,000 Americans have developed alpha-gal syndrome since 2010. But researchers say both the general public and doctors are still unaware of its existence. This is especially worrisome as more and more Americans are coming into contact with the ticks that cause it. So if nothing else, he hopes this case can boost awareness of this real and growing public health concern.
,The significance of this case is that a large and growing population of the United States is being exposed to the lone star tick, because the tick is moving north and because many states now have large deer populations,, they wrote. ,[I]It is clear that better education is needed for both professionals and the public.