Turkey meat
Summary
Turkey meat is the second most consumed poultry meat worldwide and allergy to turkey meat is less common than chicken allergy. Turkey meat allergy can present as a primary food allergy or as secondary food allergy resulting from cross-reactivity. Turkey allergy is limited to individual case reports, with symptoms linked to oral allergy syndrome, gastrointestinal symptoms, urticaria and angioedema. Secondary allergy may arise due to sensitization to inhalant exposure to bird antigens or egg yolk.
Epidemiology
Worldwide distribution
Overall, allergy to poultry meat, and particularly to turkey meat, is rare. To put this into context, a seminal paper describing the double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenge procedure highlighted data from one medical center, where of 407 patients undergoing food challenge, 1 of these had a positive result to turkey.
Clinical Relevance
Allergy to poultry meat can affect both children and adults and may present as primary food allergy (e.g., main sensitization to poultry from heat-resistant allergens) or as secondary food allergy resulting from cross-reactivity, such as bird-egg syndrome, where the patient is sensitized to serum albumins via respiratory exposure to birds or from egg yolk (e.g. Gal d 5). Symptoms of allergy from turkey meat ingestion are usually rare and mild, and severe anaphylaxis with cardiovascular symptoms are seldom seen. Primary poultry meat allergy is mainly seen in adolescents and young adults, symptoms include oral allergy syndrome, gastrointestinal symptoms, urticaria and angioedema.
Published data on turkey meat allergy is limited to single case reports.
Cross-Reactivity
Immunoblot studies suggest that IgE antibodies from poultry-allergic subjects mainly bind with proteins between 5 and 25 kDa, which show cross-reactivity to alpha-parvalbumins from turkey, chicken cow, horse, and frog.
In secondary poultry meat allergy, serum albumins from egg are likely to be the causal sensitization in bird-egg syndrome. While cross-sensitization to poultry meat is common in patients with bird-egg syndrome, clinical reactions after meat ingestion appear to be rare because of the heat-lability of serum albumins.
Despite very limited reports, patients with poultry meat allergy can also have concomitant allergy to fish and possibly shrimp. Specific IgE against fish and shrimp is found in 60% and 40% of sera, respectively, suggestive of cross-reaction in these foods.
References
- Zampiga M, Soglia F, Baldi G, Petracci M, Strasburg GM, Sirri F. Muscle Abnormalities and Meat Quality Consequences in Modern Turkey Hybrids. Frontiers in Physiology. 2020;11(554).
- ITIS. Meleagris gallopavo Linnaeus, 1758 (Turkey) 2021 [cited 2021 18.11.21]. Available from: https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=176136#null.
- Hemmer W, Klug C, Swoboda I. Update on the bird-egg syndrome and genuine poultry meat allergy. Allergo J Int. 2016;25:68-75.
- Cahen YD, Fritsch R, Wüthrich B. Food allergy with monovalent sensitivity to poultry meat. Clin Exp Allergy. 1998;28(8):1026-30.
- Sokolova A, Costa AC, Santos MC, Bartolomé B, Barbosa MP. Severe allergy to poultry meat without sensitisation to egg proteins with concomitant Leguminosae allergy. Case report. Allergol Immunopathol (Madr). 2009;37(3):168-71.
- Allergome. Turkey 2021 [cited 2021 18.11.21]. Available from: https://www.allergome.org/script/search_step2.php.