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The Alpha Gal sugar. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/alpha-gal https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/alpha... and https
by shagie 5y ago
The Alpha Gal sugar.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/alpha-gal https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/alpha... and https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/return-alpha-gal https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/retur... are good listens on the subject.
In particular from the second one:
> SOREN: Which brings me back to that little part of the article that piqued my interest in the beginning, because the pig that they got the kidney from to do this was a very special pig. Normally, pigs and other mammals that aren't primates have a sugar in their body that our bodies don't have, and so we don't like it or see it as foreign. And that's why usually an organ from another animal would get rejected. But this pig had been genetically modified. It had had the gene that makes that sugar removed, so it didn't have that sugar. Which is part of the reason this worked. And that sugar just so happens to be called "alpha-gal."
- krisoft 5y agoNow I wonder if someone who got meat alergy after a tick bite could eat these pigs. Is this the same alpha gal in both cases? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy
- type_enthusiast 5y agoYes – they also discussed this pretty extensively in the RadioLab segment. In the second segment (linked by GP), they first re-played the previous segment (also linked by GP) about alpha-gal allergy. They then revealed that the company behind the alpha-gal safe pigs (which are being grown for medial research purposes) heard the previous one about the alpha-gal allergy, and after hearing it decided to seek FDA approval for alpha-gal safe pigs in the food market (which they received).
- greensoap 5y agoYes, they can. That was the focus of the RadioLab update on the Alpha Gal pigs. The person that loved meat before getting the allergy had moved on to a non-meat life. And when the company started marketing alpha gal safe meat, that person was the inspiration and the person was not happy about it.