Food allergies can alter the gut microbiome composition, increasing the risk of conditions such as
ankylosing spondylitis (AS).To identify the association between specific
allergens and AS, we investigated the differences in the serum levels of 14 food
antigen-specific
immunoglobulin (Ig) G between AS patients and healthy participants. The association between the levels of these
antibodies and disease activity was assessed by measuring the inflammatory marker
C-reactive protein (CRP).We enrolled 75 AS patients and 78 healthy controls who had undergone
antigen-specific
IgG tests in West China Hospital between January 2015 and October 2017, and performed
enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assays for specific
IgG against 14 food
allergens: rice, egg, mushroom, milk, pork, chicken, beef, crab, codfish, corn, soybean, tomato, shrimp, and wheat. The following tests were used to analyze differences between AS patients and healthy controls: χ test for sex, and a 2-tailed Student t-test or Mann-Whitney U test based on the results of Levene test for age and
IgG levels. Correlations between
IgG and CRP levels were calculated using a Spearman's correlation.AS patients had significantly higher serum levels of beef-, crab-, and pork-specific
IgG than did healthy participants. In addition, the serum levels of pork-specific
IgG were significantly and positively correlated with CRP.These results suggest that α-Gal, the predominant natural
antigen in mammalian red meat, might play a potential role in the pathogenesis of AS, and therefore, AS patients should exclude such allergenic foods, including beef, crab and pork, from their daily diet.