Amaranth - a new allergen in bakeries

Amaranth shows to be an important occupational allergen. Since more and mor e people are becoming careful about what they eat, bakeries are offering, i n addition to other breads, special health breads to their customers. There fore, they use amaranth as an ingredient. Amaranth has high protein content and is thus a potential allergen. We observed, on the basis of investigati ons in five bakers, that people working in a bakery were sensitized by amar anth. They showed allergic reactions like asthma, etc. Skin prick tests pet -formed with our own solution (according to Frugoni's method) caused large wheals. EAST-classes were measured between 1.3 and 2.9 in the sera of patie nts on the basis of amaranth allergen disks we prepared ourselves. By doing western blot analysis amaranth-specific allergen patterns could be detecte d. The results of our in vivo and in vitro investigations showed that amara nth causes a classical type 1 reaction in sensitized patients. In bakeries, in which amaranth is used, special caution must be taken to protect the wo rkers from sensitization to amaranth. Because amaranth prick test solutions are commercially not available, specific IgE measurements can be done by E AST using amaranth allergen disks.