Was hoping the term alpha-gal syndrome referred to something I have observed where alpha females can be so competent and drama free that their organizations and projects become too boring for others who live on adrenaline and intrigue.
Alpha-Gal Syndrome
121–130 of 155 posts
Re: Alpha-Gal Syndrome
#122Guess what? It's glycotime again! Gal(ɑ1,3)Gal (Galili epitope) is a common epitope in most animals, but in primates we lost the activity of the gene (GGTA1) to synthesise it. Since we don't produce it any more, it's recognised as foreign by our body and not only causes rejection in xenotransplantation, but also this Alpha-Gal allergy. I'm not going to comment on the actual immune mechanisms that take place with deve…
> Obviously, the solution to this problem would be to just eat primate meat instead What if we gene-edited our babies to have GGTA1 again from birth?
Short answer is we probably don’t know what will happen.
Long answer: We probably lost the enzyme activity during a fight with some pathogen. The truncated protein is still produced, and there are effects in the body if that is removed. So, putting it back (under the same expression programming) might do nothing bad, or it might break all the other hacks we’ve accumulated since we first lost the enzyme, or it might not protect against this allergy, or we might be more susceptible to some bacterial beastie that we should really mount immune responses to. Don’t think anyone has tried activating it again in any animal/model system.
Re: Alpha-Gal Syndrome
#123Had this for a year and it's a huge pain in the neck. Mercifully, my levels dropped to zero after a year and I was declared clear, but I'm now ultra-paranoid about ticks when going outside. I nearly died from it while discovering I had it: had a cheeseburger for dinner and woke up in the middle of the night covered in hives and then collapsed in anaphylaxis. One emergency room trip later (apparently my BP dropped to 'how are you still breathing' levels briefly) I was back on my feet, but I spent the ensuing year scrutinizing food for mammal contributions. I found them in surprising places: that soup at the Chinese restaurant flavored with pork fat (glad I asked first!), the vitamins and medications in gelatin capsules, the chicken wings fried in beef fat.
The annoying thing about this is that it's extremely variable. The allergist I saw is one of the names on the early studies of this, and has been seeing patients throughout the southeast with it for the last twenty or so years. He's seen people that reacted violently if Wendy's didn't change the fryer oil, and other patients that barely reacted unless they had a steak. He even had one cattle farmer who would react to eating anyone's cattle except his own, to which he didn't react at all.
Re: Alpha-Gal Syndrome
#124My dad got Alpha-Gal a few years back and is now severely allergic to beef; recently he ordered the impossible whopper at Burger King and got the same allergic reaction, suggesting either a mix-up or some serious contamination. He was fine but it's no joke, can cause anaphylaxis, etc. Side note, here's a free idea for a book: ecoterrorists conduct underground gain-of-function research on Alpha-Gal, making it transmit…
The novel idea reminds me a bit of the Greg Egan short story The Moral Virologist[0] in his collection Axiomatic.
"John Shawcross is a fundamentalist Christian who is disappointed that safe sex has limited the spread of HIV/AIDS, which he considers to be God's punishment for sexual immorality; consequently, he becomes a virologist, so that he may create a new, more lethal virus."
Re: Alpha-Gal Syndrome
#125My dad got Alpha-Gal a few years back and is now severely allergic to beef; recently he ordered the impossible whopper at Burger King and got the same allergic reaction, suggesting either a mix-up or some serious contamination. He was fine but it's no joke, can cause anaphylaxis, etc. Side note, here's a free idea for a book: ecoterrorists conduct underground gain-of-function research on Alpha-Gal, making it transmit…
The novel idea reminds me a bit of the Greg Egan short story The Moral Virologist[0] in his collection Axiomatic. "John Shawcross is a fundamentalist Christian who is disappointed that safe sex has limited the spread of HIV/AIDS, which he considers to be God's punishment for sexual immorality; consequently, he becomes a virologist, so that he may create a new, more lethal virus." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…
Text of the story is here[0], as linked from Wikipedia.
Re: Alpha-Gal Syndrome
#126This and Lyme are my main(ly irrational) reasons for never hiking outside of, like, Hawaii. And I'm sure a more seasoned HNer can scare me away from that, too. Any news on whether exposure treatments like those for peanut allergies have any effect on alpha-gal allergies too?
Given that figuratively all the causes of death in the Western World are directly caused (strokes) or heavily correlated (depression) with a sedentary life style, I am quite sure that regular hiking will massively improve life length and quality.
I sometimes wonder what the world would look like if people cared about the things that actually kill. Like, what if we would invest 300 trillion dollars into fighting prostate cancer instead of "terrorists"? What if we would design an entire education system around healthy sport instead of the prevention of "stranger danger"?
Re: Alpha-Gal Syndrome
#127My dad got Alpha-Gal a few years back and is now severely allergic to beef; recently he ordered the impossible whopper at Burger King and got the same allergic reaction, suggesting either a mix-up or some serious contamination. He was fine but it's no joke, can cause anaphylaxis, etc. Side note, here's a free idea for a book: ecoterrorists conduct underground gain-of-function research on Alpha-Gal, making it transmit…
I had a very similar idea, but I was thinking it'd be potentially employed against a geopolitical adversary with a large population and a tight or net import food supply. It could further put strain on the government to cope, thus reducing their threat.
Lack of protein in population diets probably also greatly reduces economic output.
Scary stuff, and anyone could use it against us.
You wouldn't even need gain of function. Just a more efficient vector. It seems almost impossible to get a virus to code for a carbohydrate pathway, and it would quickly be evolved out since it doesn't mediate adhesion or any critical function. Granted, there's a similar problem with supplying the alpha-gal in a parasite pathway.
Low tech air dropping lone star ticks seems like it would still produce the desired effect for the aggressor. And it'd be geographically limited impact unless the species spreads over time.
Biological warfare could be terrifying. We've just seen the first accidental use of it (assuming lab leak is what happened).
Back when I was a biochemistry student I had less scary thoughts, such as tranfecting the THC biochemical pathway into Kudzu to make it impossible to control. (I'm not into drugs but think the drug war is a drag on the US and its neighbors.)
Biology is like the computing field, it's just not as completely developed and fast paced. That could change in the future.
edit: again hit with the HN posting rate limit, and I'm not even downvoted. I think I have interesting insights given my background, but whatever. :(
Re: Alpha-Gal Syndrome
#128Based on my understanding that Covid-19 significantly impacts the blood and red meat is a primary source of important nutrients pertinent to blood health, I googled "alpha gal covid" and there are a few articles that turn up, such as: The antibody response to the glycan α-Gal correlates with COVID-19 disease symptoms https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.26575 U.S. Pharmacy Chain Will Not Give COVID-19 Vacc…
In response to the pharmacy link: I suffer from alpha-gal allergy and researched mRNA vaccine ingredients prior to getting the Moderna vaccine. I was perfectly fine. There's also a /r/alphagal reddit thread discussing the vaccine they got and reactions where the majority of people said the same.
Classic flu style vaccines like J&J's covid vaccine can use either a pig or chicken egg base - the pig being potentially risky for alpha-gal allergy sufferers and egg theoretically fine. I personally have just avoided the flu vaccine though may try it this year after confirming I can get the egg based one.
The other links are interesting...alpha gal and covid-19 are both very new afflictions which don't have much history of study yet. So I take that info with a grain of salt, though lets hope it leads to some breakthrough for treatment of either COVID19 or AGS.
Re: Alpha-Gal Syndrome
#129Re: Alpha-Gal Syndrome
#130Turns out there are perks to being vegetarian and having cultural inhibitions about cow meat :)