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February 1, 1997
A 10-year-old boy was watching television in the living room when he mysteriously developed an acute and severe case of asthma. Having a history of the disease, the wheezing child quickly used the bronchodilator that had been prescribed him. But when his shortness of breath continued to build, the child's parents rushed him to the hospital, where he was treated with a range of drugs and recovered quickly.
The diagnosis: toxic hot-dog smells.
It seems the boy's mother, working in the kitchen -- just off the living room -- had popped some frankfurters into boiling water shortly before the boy's symptoms began. This was not a food the boy ate, owing to what he had previously described as its bad smell.
The aroma reminded the boy of the bad taste that chicken had left in his mouth at age 4. Since that chicken episode had also triggered a rash around the boy's mouth, suggesting an allergy, the child had thereafter avoided chicken -- and hot dogs -- but no other foods.
Four weeks after being rushed to the hospital, the boy was taken to his allergy clinic for a follow-up visit. At that time, his physician asked to see a label from the offending hot dogs. Chicken was on the list. The allergist then confirmed the child's allergy to this meat with a skin-prick test. To everyone's surprise, the boy also exhibited a mild reaction to pork and potato -- both of which had also been in the boiled hot dogs
Though food vapors, especially from cooking fish, have been linked to asthmatic reactions before, Ravinder Polasani and his colleagues at Children's Hospital of Buffalo, N.Y., the physicians who reported the recent episode, note that this appears to be "the first reported case of hot-dog-vapor induced asthma."
Some minute quantity of chicken protein seems to have wafted into the air, out of the boiling pot of frankfurters. This report in the January ANNALS OF ALLERGY, ASTHMA, & IMMUNOLOGY points to how little of an allergen is needed to trigger a life-threatening response in especially sensitive individuals. Indeed, Polasani's team cites one case of a child, known to be allergic to chickpeas, who actually died after inhaling odors from the cooking legumes.
In December, Greek allergists at the University of Athens reported a similar episode of airborne allergens. In this case, an 8-year-old girl with a history of lentil allergy developed anaphylactic shock after getting just a whiff of cooking lentils.
Both of the latter cases involved legumes, foods that belong to the same family as peanuts. Indeed, the girl who survived that life-threatening reaction to smell of cooking lentils also proved allergic to peanuts, which are considered to be the most common and dangerous source of food allergy.
References:
Kalogeromitros, D., et al. 1996. Anaphylaxis induced by lentils 77(December):480.
Polasani, R., et al. 1997. Hot dog vapor-induced status asthmaticus. Annals of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology 78(January):35.
Related Readings:
Raloff, J. 1996. Peanut allergy found common and increasing. Science News 150(Sept. 7):150.
_____. 1996. Family allergies? Keep nuts away from kids. Science News 149(May 4):279.
Sources:
Ravinder Polasani
Department of Pediatrics
Division of Allergy/Immunology and Pediatric Rheumatology
The Children's Hospital of Rochester
219 Bryant St.
Rochester, NY 14222
Dimitrios Kalogeromitros
Allergy Section
A Sygros Hospital
5, Ionos Dragoumi St.
Athens 161-21
Greece
This week's Food for Thought is prepared by Janet Raloff, senior editor of Science News.
Illustration: Wendy Temple.
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