Adverse Food Reactions: Physiological and Ecological Perspectives.
Annu Rev Nutr
; 44(1): 155-178, 2024 Aug.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38724028
ABSTRACT
While food is essential for survival, it can also cause a variety of harmful effects, ranging from intolerance to specific nutrients to celiac disease and food allergies. In addition to nutrients, foods contain myriads of substances that can have either beneficial or detrimental effects on the animals consuming them. Consequently, all animals evolved defense mechanisms that protect them from harmful food components. These "antitoxin" defenses have some parallels with antimicrobial defenses and operate at a cost to the animal's fitness. These costs outweigh benefits when defense responses are exaggerated or mistargeted, resulting in adverse reactions to foods. Additionally, pathological effects of foods can stem from insufficient defenses, due to unabated toxicity of harmful food components. We discuss the structure of antitoxin defenses and how their failures can lead to a variety of adverse food reactions.
Key words
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Food Hypersensitivity
Limits:
Animals
/
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Annu Rev Nutr
Year:
2024
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United States