Majority of shrimp-allergic patients are allergic to mealworm

The growing world population motivates the exploration of new sustainable protein sources to ensure food security. Insects such as mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) are promising candidates, with active ongoing marketing efforts within America and Europe. This warrants assessment of the potential risks. Toxicologic and microbiological risks were assessed previously,1,2 but not the potentially allergenic risks. Pilot results3 suggest that shrimp-allergic patients might be at risk for mealworm allergy because IgE binding to tropomyosin and arginine kinase (major shellfish allergens) and sarcoplasmic calcium-binding protein and myosin light chain (minor shell fish allergens) was detected.