Apr 20, 2025 12:00:00

Foods eaten immediately after a skin injury may cause allergies

Previous studies have shown that food allergies are more common in people with skin conditions such as dermatitis. A study on skin and food allergies led by the Yale School of Medicine showed that when people eat a new food for the first time, they are more likely to develop an allergic reaction to that food if they have fresh cuts or wounds on their skin.

Skin damage signals mediate allergic sensitization to spatially unlinked antigen | Science Immunology
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.adn0688

Skin Injuries And Food Allergies May Have a Mysterious Connection : ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/skin-injuries-and-food-allergies-may-have-a-mysterious-connection

In a paper published in April 2025 in Science Immunology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal in immunology, Daniel A. Weissman, a Yale University immunobiologist, and Isabella Brown Sorrell, a dermatologist at the Yale School of Medicine, delved deeper into the relationship between skin damage and allergies.

In a study, researchers used mice to examine their reactions when they were exposed to a new food immediately after skin injury. They found that mice that had a new food introduced into their intestines immediately after skin injury developed an allergic reaction to the food.

When the skin is damaged, an immune response called the humoral response is triggered. When B cells are stimulated by cytokines , which are cellular messengers, the B cells differentiate into plasma cells and produce large amounts of antibodies, which circulate in the body fluids and spread throughout the body. This prevents viruses and toxins from entering the wound and worsening the wound or making you sick.

According to Wiseman's paper, the whole-body antibody response caused by cytokines is thought to cause allergic reactions to antigens ingested from different sites. In other words, if you eat food immediately after damaging your skin, the signals that react to the skin damage are perceived as 'the food that has just entered your body is the problem.' The researchers call this 'remote priming.'

This paper is the first to show that the antigen response, which is originally intended to protect the body from infection and foreign invaders, can also form food allergies by reacting to 'spatially separated antigens' such as skin wounds and food in the intestine. The association between skin damage and food allergies has only been observed in mice, and it is unclear whether it will be confirmed in humans as well. The researchers are working to identify other cells that cause allergic reactions to specific foods.

'To understand food allergies, we need to understand the gut's tolerance to foods and beverages and how that tolerance can be overridden to cause a food allergy,' said Wiseman. 'This study shows we need a change in thinking: these things don't always happen in the same place in the body. We need to take a closer look at how different organ systems interact.'