Food-Dependent, Exercise-Induced Anaphylaxis: Diagnosis and Management in the Outpatient Setting

Anna M. Feldweg

Food-dependent, exercise-induced anaphylaxis is a disorder in which anaphylaxis develops most predictably during exercise, when exercise takes place within a few hours of ingesting a specific food. IgE to that food should be demonstrable. It is the combination of the food and exercise that precipitates attacks, whereas the food and exercise are each tolerated independently. Recently, it was demonstrated that exercise is not essential for the development of symptoms, and that if enough of the culprit food is ingested, often with additional augmentation factors, such as alcohol or acetylsalicylic acid, symptoms can be induced at rest in the challenge setting. Thus, food-dependent, exercise-induced anaphylaxis appears to be more correctly characterized as a food allergy syndrome in which symptoms develop only in the presence of various augmentation factors, with exercise being the primary one. However, additional factors are not usually present when the patient exercises normally, so ongoing investigation is needed into the physiologic and cellular changes that occur during exercise to facilitate food-induced anaphylaxis.