Allergenic Fish Worms

Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

There’s a parasitic worm in fish called Anisakis. This year, we learned that about two-thirds of retail fish samples came up positive for them. This is what they look like—they’re really quite small, actually. You can see two here kind of peeking out of some sushi.

Because people eat fish raw, parasites are always a concern. But the unique thing about these worms is that our bodies can be so sensitive to them that the worms can trigger an allergic reaction, dead or alive—even if they’re cooked. So we’re finding some people who are “allergic” to fish really aren’t; they’re allergic to the dead worms in the fish.

In fact, because we feed so much fishmeal to chickens, you can have an allergic reaction to a parasitic fish worm, and not even eat fish at all!

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• I. Lopez and M. A. Pardo. Evaluation of a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for detection of anisakis simplex parasite as a food-borne allergen source in seafood products. J. Agric Food. Chem., 58(3):1469 -1477, 2010.
• A. Armentia, F. J. Martin-Gil, C. Pascual, M. Martin-Esteban, A. Callejo, and C. Martinez. Anisakis simplex allergy after eating chicken meat. Journal of Investigational Allergology and Clinical Immunology, 16(4):258, 2006.

• allergies
• animal products
• chicken
• fish
• parasites
• poultry
• seafood
• sushi