Surprising Cause of Life-Threatening Food Allergies Revealed

For those with severe food allergies, just one morsel of the wrong thing can lead to a life-threatening reaction. A new understanding of how this begins could lead to better treatments, a study claims.

While scientists have long understood how injected allergens—bee stings, for example—trigger sever reactions—or "anaphylaxis"—it has been unclear how it begins in the gut after eating a food allergen.

Now, a research team led by Arizona State University (ASU) has pinpointed a surprising culprit: specialized immune cells in the intestine that produce powerful chemical messengers.

These messengers can cause muscles in the airways and gut to contract, increase mucus production and boost inflammation. While they're already known to play a role in asthma attacks, this new study on mice suggest