Alpha-Gal: What We Learned When We Started Doing the Research

After Alpha-Gal Syndrome became part of our lives, we did what a lot of people probably do after hearing a diagnosis they’d barely thought about before:

We started Googling.

And then we kept reading.

And reading.

And asking questions.

If you read our first Behind the Label article, The Tiny Tick That Changed How We Look at Everything, you know how personal this subject is for us. Chappy’s experience is what sent us looking for answers in the first place.

But this article isn’t about Chappy’s diagnosis.

It’s about what we found when we started researching Alpha-Gal Syndrome.

A lot of information about Alpha-Gal is online. Some of it comes from excellent sources. Some of it comes from people sharing their own experiences. And some of it makes claims that are much harder to substantiate.

So for this article, we’re sticking with organizations such as the CDC and published scientific research.

We’re not diagnosing anyone.

We’re not telling anyone what they personally should or shouldn’t eat, use, or take.

We’re certainly not promising a cure.

We’re simply sharing the research we found—and giving you the sources so you can keep reading for yourself.

A quick word about where you get your information

One of the hardest parts of learning about Alpha-Gal Syndrome wasn’t finding information.

It was figuring out which information to trust.

Search long enough, and you’ll find personal stories, social-media posts, theories about what causes or worsens Alpha-Gal, lists of things someone says every person with AGS must avoid, and websites promoting protocols or products that claim to treat—or even cure—the condition.

We understand the temptation to keep reading.

When someone you love is miserable, and you're looking for answers, you’ll follow rabbit holes you never imagined you’d be researching.

We certainly did.

But we’ve learned to ask another question:

Where did this information come from?

Personal experience can be incredibly valuable. It can help someone feel less alone, raise a question they hadn’t considered, or give them something useful to discuss with their healthcare provider.

But personal experience isn’t the same thing as scientific evidence.

And a website selling a product or treatment isn’t automatically evidence that its claims are true.

That’s particularly important when someone claims to have a cure.

Current CDC information does not identify a cure for Alpha-Gal Syndrome. Instead, its guidance focuses on identifying and avoiding relevant alpha-gal exposures, preventing additional tick bites, preparing for allergic reactions, and working with an allergist or other healthcare provider.

So throughout Behind the Label, we’re going to try to distinguish between three things:

What happened to us.

That’s our experience, and we’re comfortable sharing it with you.

What reputable research currently supports.

When we make those statements, we’ll show you where we found the information.

What we don’t know.

Sometimes that’s the answer.

And we’re okay with that.

We’re also cautious about conspiracy theories and claims that go far beyond the available evidence. Something sounding plausible—or being repeated thousands of times online—doesn’t make it established science.

That doesn’t mean research can’t change.

It should.

New evidence can improve what scientists and healthcare professionals understand about a condition, particularly one like AGS that is still being actively studied.

But there’s an important difference between emerging research and an unsupported claim presented as fact.

Don’t just trust us, either.

That’s why you’ll find links to our sources through these research articles.

We encourage you to read them.

Maybe it’s the nurse in me, but when something medical sends me down a research rabbit hole, I usually find myself at the CDC quickly. From there, I look for established allergy and immunology organizations, peer-reviewed medical literature, and qualified healthcare professionals familiar with AGS. That doesn’t mean every question has a neat answer—Alpha-Gal is still being researched—but it gives me a much better place to start than simply trusting whatever happens to show up first in a Google search.

And if something you read here affects a decision about your health, medications, diet, or treatment:

Take the question to your healthcare provider.

Our goal isn't to become your medical authority.

Our goal is to make it easier to ask better questions.

First things first: What exactly is Alpha-Gal?

Alpha-gal is short for galactose-α-1,3-galactose.

It’s a sugar molecule found in most mammals, but not in humans. Alpha-Gal Syndrome, usually shortened to AGS, is an allergy to alpha-gal that can develop after certain tick bites.

In the United States, the Lone Star tick is the tick most associated with AGS.

You may hear doctors and researchers talk about the immune system becoming “sensitized” to alpha-gal and producing something called IgE antibodies. That sounds complicated, so here’s the simpler version:

After certain tick bites, a person’s immune system can start treating alpha-gal like something dangerous, even though it normally wouldn’t.

The body can then make allergy antibodies, called IgE antibodies, against alpha-gal.

Later, when that person eats or is exposed to something containing alpha-gal, their immune system may recognize it as a threat and trigger an allergic reaction.

And here’s one of the first things that surprised us:

The reaction isn’t necessarily immediate.

Why Alpha-Gal can be so confusing

When most of us picture a serious food allergy, we picture someone eating the food and reacting almost immediately.

Alpha-Gal can behave differently.

According to the CDC, AGS symptoms commonly appear 2 to 6 hours after exposure to products containing alpha-gal.

Think about how hard that is to connect the dots.

If you eat dinner at 6:00 and wake up itching or sick in the middle of the night, dinner may not immediately be the thing you blame.

Reported reactions can include hives or an itchy rash, headaches, nausea, vomiting, severe stomach pain, heartburn or indigestion, diarrhea, coughing, breathing difficulty, swelling, dizziness or faintness, and potentially life-threatening anaphylaxis.

And reactions aren’t necessarily identical every time.

A person with AGS may not react to every alpha-gal-containing product, and the same person can experience different symptoms or severity on different occasions.

That variability is one reason someone else’s Alpha-Gal experience isn’t a diagnostic tool for yours.

And symptoms may not begin right after the tick bite

This one caught our attention for obvious reasons.

CDC says it can take weeks to months after a tick bite for a person to begin experiencing AGS symptoms.

That’s important to distinguish from the 2-to-6-hour delay we just discussed.

Those are two different timelines:

Tick bite → development of AGS symptoms: potentially weeks to months.

Later alpha-gal exposure → allergic reaction: commonly about 2 to 6 hours.

That distinction helped us understand why reconstructing a person's history can get so complicated.

What about those tiny “seed ticks”?

We had a particular reason for asking.

Months before the Lone Star tick that eventually made me think about Alpha-Gal, Chappy had an unbelievably tiny, attached bug that we could barely see even with a magnified phone photograph.

People commonly use the term “seed tick” for larval ticks.

Lone Star ticks have larval, nymph, and adult stages, and the immature stages can be extremely small.

But here’s where personal experience and evidence need to stay separate:

We cannot tell you that Chappy's tiny October tick was a Lone Star tick.

We couldn't identify the body at the time.

Knowing what happened later doesn't give us permission to rewrite what we knew then.

Could it have been?

Maybe.

Do we know?

No.

That's a distinction we'll try hard to maintain throughout Behind the Label.

Does another tick bite matter after someone has Alpha-Gal?

This was another big question for us because Chappy had the unmistakable Lone Star tick attached in May.

Current CDC guidance says preventing future tick bites is an important part of managing AGS because new tick bites may reactivate allergic reactions to alpha-gal.

Published medical reviews also report that alpha-gal-specific IgE levels can decline over time in some people who avoid additional tick bites, although the rate varies considerably.

That's interesting research.

It is not, however, enough for us to look at two of Chappy's blood tests and declare that a particular tick caused a particular change in his numbers.

That's a medical interpretation we're leaving to qualified clinicians.

A positive blood test isn't the whole diagnosis

This may be one of the most important things we learned.

There is a blood test that measures alpha-gal-specific IgE.

But according to CDC guidance, a positive alpha-gal-specific IgE test by itself does not automatically mean a person has Alpha-Gal Syndrome.

Diagnosis involves a broader clinical picture, including a person's symptoms, medical history, physical examination, whether reactions are delayed, tick-bite or outdoor-exposure history, and laboratory testing.

That's also why comparing someone's number online to somebody else's can be misleading.

The test is information.

The diagnosis is bigger than the number.

Why reporting Alpha-Gal matters—especially here in Tennessee

We also learned through this process that Alpha-Gal Syndrome is a reportable condition here in Tennessee.

Tennessee added AGS to its list of reportable conditions in 2025. Healthcare providers must report qualifying cases to the Tennessee Department of Health. In fact, we received notification after Chappy’s case was reported.

Why does that matter?

Because reporting helps public-health officials and researchers better understand how many people are affected, where cases are occurring, and how those numbers may change over time.

Alpha-Gal Syndrome is not currently a nationally notifiable condition, so reporting requirements vary by state. If you live outside Tennessee, it’s worth checking with your state health department or healthcare provider to learn how AGS reporting is handled where you live.

Here in Tennessee, though, AGS is reportable—and we think that matters.  The more reliable information researchers have, the better picture they can build of how widespread Alpha-Gal Syndrome really is.

Alpha-Gal isn't simply a “red meat allergy”

You'll hear AGS called a “red meat allergy,” and that's an easy shorthand.

But it's incomplete.

Alpha-gal can be present in meat from mammals such as:

• Beef
• Pork
• Lamb
• Venison
• Rabbit and other mammalian meats

Mammalian organ meats can also contain alpha-gal.

Milk and dairy products may also contain alpha-gal, although the CDC notes that many people with AGS can tolerate dairy.

And this is important:

Chicken, turkey, and other poultry are not mammals. Neither are fish and seafood. Eggs also do not contain alpha-gal.

That little biology lesson suddenly becomes pretty useful when Alpha-Gal enters your life.

Then things get more complicated: gelatin and mammalian fats

CDC also identifies gelatin made from beef or pork as a potential alpha-gal source.

Products made or cooked with mammalian fats such as lard, tallow, or suet may also contain alpha-gal.

Then there are broths, stocks, bouillon, and gravies, where mammalian ingredients may not be obvious from the name of the finished food.

That's when we started realizing:

Reading the front of the package isn't enough.

And it isn't only food

This is what eventually sent me straight back to the ingredient lists for our own products.

CDC notes that some medications and vaccines may contain alpha-gal-containing additives, stabilizers, or coatings.

Among the ingredients CDC specifically says may contain alpha-gal are:

• Gelatin
• Glycerin
• Magnesium stearate
• Bovine extract

Notice the word may.

It's important.

An ingredient such as glycerin isn't automatically mammalian-derived simply because the label says “glycerin.” Glycerin can come from different sources.

Which creates a completely different question:

Where did THIS glycerin come from?

That's the question that eventually changed the way I started reading my own supplier documentation.

But that's a rabbit hole big enough to deserve its own article.

And trust me.

We're going down it.

What about lanolin?

This is another ingredient that caught our attention while investigating personal-care products.

Lanolin is derived from sheep's wool and associated sebaceous material. In other words, it's of mammalian origin.

For the formulation standard we're developing for our own products, that's enough information for us to make a straightforward decision:

Lanolin doesn't fit our standard of formulating without mammalian-derived ingredients.

That's a formulation decision we're making.

It is not the same thing as claiming every person with AGS will react to a topical product containing lanolin.

Those are two very different statements.

And you'll see that distinction a lot as we continue this series.

“Contains a mammalian ingredient” does not mean “everyone with AGS will react”

This may be the most important caution in this entire article.

Alpha-Gal Syndrome varies from person to person.

CDC repeatedly notes that people with AGS may not react to every product containing alpha-gal, and even an individual person's reactions can vary.

So we're not interested in making lists that say:

THIS IS SAFE.

or

THIS WILL CAUSE A REACTION.

We can't know that for another person.

What we can ask is:

Is this ingredient mammalian-derived?

Can its source vary?

Do we have documentation showing where ours came from?

Those are questions we can investigate.

What does the research say about avoiding more tick bites?

This part is remarkably consistent.

Preventing additional tick bites matters.

CDC specifically recommends tick-bite prevention for people with AGS and notes that new tick bites may reactivate allergic reactions.

That includes familiar tick-prevention measures such as appropriate repellents, treated clothing and gear, checking yourself for ticks after being outdoors, and showering after coming inside.

For people who spend their lives outdoors—as farmers, gardeners, hunters and outdoor-loving families often do—that advice suddenly carries a whole different weight.

Believe me.

We check for ticks now.

Is there a cure?

This was one of the questions we had early on, and of course, it sent us right back to researching.

Right now, there isn’t a recognized cure for Alpha-Gal Syndrome. Current CDC guidance focuses instead on managing AGS—avoiding alpha-gal exposures that cause problems, preventing additional tick bites, being prepared for allergic reactions, and working with a healthcare provider.

There is some encouraging news. CDC notes that, for some people, avoiding additional tick bites may allow antibody levels to decrease over time, and some may eventually be able to tolerate certain alpha-gal-containing foods or products again. But that varies from person to person, and it’s something to work through with a healthcare provider.

There are also plenty of things online claiming to treat, reverse, or cure Alpha-Gal. We came across some of them ourselves. That’s one reason we kept going back to the CDC, allergy and immunology organizations, and published research to see what the evidence supported.

Maybe someday research will give us a different answer.

For now, sometimes the most accurate answer really is:

We don’t know yet.

What Alpha-Gal has taught us about research

Maybe one of the biggest lessons we’ve learned through all of this isn’t about ticks or meat.

It’s about asking better questions.

We’ve read personal stories that made us stop and think, and we’ve learned a tremendous amount from other people living with AGS. Those experiences can be incredibly valuable. But we’ve also learned to ask, “What do we know, and how do we know it?”

Someone sharing what happened to them is different from a clinical study—and both can have value if we understand the difference.

The same thing is true when we start talking about ingredients. Learning that an ingredient can come from a mammal doesn’t necessarily tell us where the ingredient in a particular product came from.

Sometimes you must keep asking.

Where did it come from?

Is there documentation?

What does the research say?

And sometimes, after all those questions, the answer is still:

We don’t know.

We’re becoming more comfortable with that answer, too.

What we can do is tell you what happened to us, show you what we found while researching it, share the sources we used, and be clear about the places where the answers aren’t so clear.

That’s really what we want Behind the Label to be.

A place to ask questions, follow the occasional rabbit hole, look for credible information, and share what we learn along the way.

And our next rabbit hole started with a surprisingly ordinary word:

Glycerin.

Once I learned that seeing an ingredient name on a label doesn’t necessarily tell me where it came from, I started looking at body-care labels differently.

Including ours.

Sources & Further Reading

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Alpha-Gal Syndrome — General information about AGS, symptoms, management, products and clinical resources.

CDC
Symptoms of Alpha-Gal Syndrome — Information about symptoms, delayed reactions and the time between tick bites and development of symptoms.

CDC
Clinical Diagnosis and Testing — Information for healthcare providers about alpha-gal-specific IgE testing and clinical diagnosis.

CDC
Fast Facts: Products That May Contain Alpha-Gal — Information about mammalian foods, gelatin, mammalian fats, dairy and potentially relevant non-food ingredients.

CDC
Managing Alpha-Gal Syndrome — Current guidance regarding avoidance, additional tick bites and preparing for allergic reactions.

Peer-reviewed literature
Recent reviews of Alpha-Gal Syndrome continue to examine the immune mechanisms involved, gastrointestinal presentations, variability among patients, alpha-gal-specific IgE and the effects associated with additional tick exposure.

This article is for general educational and informational purposes only. It describes research and publicly available health information and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent Alpha-Gal Syndrome or any other medical condition. Individual reactions and medical needs vary. Please discuss questions about symptoms, testing, medications, diet, and personal risk with a qualified healthcare professional. Seek emergency medical care for a severe allergic reaction or suspected anaphylaxis.