Wuhan food allergy

According to the Hubei Allergy Disease Epidemiology Report jointly released by Wuhan Xiehe and Tongji in 2023, the prevalence of food allergies among adults in Wuhan has reached 3.8%, an increase of 1.2 percentage points from 10 years ago. The top three specific allergens are Procambarus clarkii (crayfish), freshwater carps, and amaranth seeds. The prevalence and allergen spectrum have strong local regional characteristics.

Last week, I accompanied a friend whose face was swollen into a steamed bun after eating three kilograms of braised prawns in oil to go to the Tongji Allergy Department to register. The nurse at the triage desk glanced at his face and asked without looking up: "Did you eat shrimp? The 27th this month. ”Later, the blood test results came out and it was found that he was indeed allergic to the tropomyosin in crayfish. Even a little bit of shrimp yellow seasoning could trigger the reaction.

Many people in Wuhan themselves wonder why so many people are suddenly allergic to river fish and shrimp that their ancestors have eaten for hundreds of years. The old professor who attended the clinic was an old man who has studied allergies for 30 years. His opinion was that the hygiene conditions of Wuhan families have improved in recent years. Children are exposed to fewer microorganisms when they are young, and their immune balance is not well established. When they grow up, they are more likely to be allergic when exposed to high-protein fish and shrimp. ； But young doctors who are doing allergen research in the same department don’t think so. They pulled data on crayfish consumption in Wuhan from 2013 to 2023, and it increased 17 times in ten years. In the past, crayfish was a trash fish that no one wanted in the countryside. Now it is a standard dish on summer tables. With more people in contact, the absolute number of allergies will naturally increase. Both theories are supported by data. So far, there is no unified conclusion in the industry.

Don't tell me, many people in Wuhan themselves don't know that amaranth seeds are an allergen. I had a colleague who got hives every summer. After half a year of investigation, no cause was found. Finally, after a local allergen screening, it was discovered that he was allergic to amaranth seeds - old-fashioned Wuhan dough cakes, handmade sour plum soup sold at roadside stalls, and even cold dishes in some old restaurants were seasoned with amaranth seeds to enhance the flavor. This item is rarely used elsewhere and is rarely included in the list of universal allergen screening. Many people are confused when they are allergic.

I have a friend who has been running a crayfish restaurant in Wansongyuan for eight years. He said that in the past three years, there have been more customers who are obviously allergic. Every month, he encounters two or three cases of people who become red and out of breath after taking two bites of shrimp. In the past, there was not one case a year. Now, the back kitchen of his store specially prepares loratadine, and it has become an unwritten rule to give one pill to customers who are allergic before sending them to the hospital.

As for what to do after an allergy is detected, different doctors have different recommendations. Some more conservative doctors will tell you to completely avoid food, including shrimp, fish, and food with amaranth seeds. ； However, doctors who do desensitization treatment feel that there is no need to be so extreme. After all, half of the dishes on the Wuhan people's table are related to freshwater fish and shrimp. Complete taboos will affect the quality of life. Now the success rate of low-dose progressive desensitization for crayfish and freshwater fish has reached about 60%. After you slowly get used to it, you can eat it once or twice occasionally. There is no need to completely break away from Wuhan's delicacies.

A few days ago, I met a young tourist girl on Liangdao Street. After eating a bowl of fresh fish paste soup noodles, her neck turned red within ten minutes. She squatted on the roadside and rubbed calamine on her neck. Her friends who were traveling with her also laughed at her for being too squeamish and couldn't even eat a noodle. In fact, it’s not a matter of squeamishness. Food grown in the soil and water of Wuhan is not tolerable to everyone. Now many community hospitals can do local allergen screening. You can spend a few hundred yuan to check it out, and you don’t have to blindly eat food or carry it. After all, you can’t miss out on hot-dried noodles, soup noodles, and braised prawns just because of allergies, right?