Lone star tick

So there's different species.

Today in particular, we're probably going to be talking about the lone star tick, which is Amblyomma americanum.

The deer tick or the black-legged tick people know it as, which is Ixodes scapularis.

That's what is responsible for Lyme disease.

Before you think that you have tuned into the wrong podcast because I'm talking about sugar instead of animals, I am talking today about the alpha-gal syndrome.

and how the Lone Star Tick plays a role in causing humans to become allergic to the foods we like a lot, such as beef, lamb, pork, and even, folks, this one surprised me, sometimes dairy and even other products.

You know, folks, our podcast, The Amateur Naturalist, is now listened to worldwide in all of our 50 United States states.

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So what in the world have I got for you on today's podcast? Well, today's podcast title is Lone Star, the tick that makes you allergic to meat.

Today, I'm going to discuss the alpha gal syndrome that humans.

can receive from a single bite or even multiple tick bites from mainly one type of tick, the lone star tick.

But towards the end of the podcast today, we'll talk about a couple of other types of ticks that can also give you alpha-gal syndrome.

Question number ten.

A bite from the Lone Star tick can suddenly leave people allergic to what? The Lone Star

Tick? A bite from the Lone Star Tick.

On your birthday, they come and they have to sing happy birthday to you.

And you get a big brownie.

I can't remember.

Vincent D'Onofrio.

So the question though, a bite from the Lone Star tick can suddenly leave people allergic to what?

and I'm looking at the efforts of the community of Martha's Vineyard, which is really a lot of people are rising up to try and cull the deer herd, do treatment trials for deer.

I mean, there's a big focus on the deer because they did a study, and there's 4,000 deer on the island, and a lot of the science shows that, especially for lone star ticks, the deer is the main host of of the lone star tick.

And so it's like, you know, of course, the moles, the voles, the rabbits, they don't help the mice, but it really all comes to the deer.

You can't try to find a solution without focusing on the deer as well.

So you could get it, in theory, instantaneously from a transmission of its saliva, which is scary.

And so a tick check in the case of alpha-gal may not make a difference or help because if it's bitten you, it may be too late.

And Lone Star ticks, they are a super tick.

they reproduce at twice the rate of deer ticks they are super fast they will seek you out from your carbon dioxide emissions and they will even they will bite you and then they will let go and they will find another place in your body they'll bite you multiple times sometimes i didn't

And it came back with some kind of, it tested positive for this thing that makes you allergic to meat.

So if you're bitten by this tick, it's called the Lone Star Tick, which I never even heard of.

And it's kind of interesting because that's like what Texas is, the Lone Star State.

And this wasn't even in Texas.

And, you know, the tick, we don't...

The Lone Star tick is the primary vector.

And so we're...

And that may change.

And I primarily see patients from California, which is where I'm licensed.

So I don't see out-of-state patients.

The lone star tick is a very aggressive tick on the East Coast.

Most of the folks actually at where I live, when they're being bitten and they're bringing me ticks, and I become like the tick magnet that people are dropping on ticks all the time, it's almost uniformly a female lone star tick that is biting.

And so I, of course, had to dig into this.

I thought it was really interesting that Lone Star ticks have this range.

They've been in the Americas.

They have a range across the southern and eastern U.S. It's from Texas all the way over to Florida and then all the way up to Michigan and then parts of New England, including the part that I am in.

The male ones have these white streaks that run along the side.

And so those sorts of morphological differences, in addition to the legs, as you were mentioning before, in the context of Ixodes, the genus of ticks responsible for transmitting Lyme disease, that's how you can tell some of these differences along with these behaviors.

Because as you alluded to, Camille, these lone star ticks have a habit of actively hunting for their prospective blood mules based off of the odor that those individuals emit.

And it's worth noting that all tick life stages at this point, so from the larvae to the nymphs to the adultable form, all of them are capable of and are certainly willing to feed on you and me, which is a delightful prospect.

So there are still many questions about alpha-gal syndrome and how it works in the body and who gets it and who doesn't.

There are plenty of people who get lone star tick bites and do not develop the allergy.

So why that's happening and why other people are developing the allergy is still an active part of science.

But basically what's happening is there's a molecule in a lone star tick bite that looks like a molecule called galactose alpha-1,3-galactose.

That's a mouthful.

No one needs to be able to say that.

Because that is a huge question.

It's a million dollar question.

It's short for some scientific chemical compound or whatever.

But it is triggered by the bite of the Lone Star tick that injects a sugar molecule called alpha-gal into your body.

People with alpha-gal syndrome develop an immune reaction to red meat and other mammalian products, including beef, pork, lamb, venison, gelatin, and sometimes all dairy products.

Just send me to Jesus.

be all over it.

It sparked a lot of questions coming from our audience that have been using the talk back on the free iHeartRadio app, hitting the microphone, leaving us messages wondering why alpha-gal syndrome and what is causing this.

Lone Star Tick is also here in Oklahoma, and I'm with James on that.

Send me to Jesus if I can't have dairy.

And it's just, it's hard to kind of unsee.

We have this whole push with Bill Gates funding the Lone Star Tick, which led to AlphaGal.

That's been largely publicized already.

He's got they're trying to shut down red meat, blaming the cow farts for the climate change.