Immune response due to egg.

[choozi]

I have a question regarding immune response. Why our body doesn't respond when we eat eggs or other proteins. If it is protein, it should behave as antigen. Why this non-self protein does not start immune response?
thnx.

[JackBean]

because if you were alergic to your food, you would die. But still, there are some alergies to food

[choozi]

Can you please explain it scientifically? Why antibodies don't act against our food? I'm not talking about IgE allergic responses. I wanna ask about normal healthy person.

[daniel.kurz]

We just simply don't have an antigen against those proteins. It is that simple. Some people are allergic to things like peanuts, casein, whey, etc etc. We are not sure what the stimulus of why their immune system develops antigens against those foods and why those are active. In "healthy" people where healthy is a relative word, we simply haven't made an immune system that contains antigens for those foods.

The interesting question is why some people with allergies caused by antigens are in some people more active than other people. Why can smelling a peanut cause some people to go into shock others may have a less severe reaction? Is it just less highly expressed antigen in less immune cells or something else. It points to the idea that allergic reactions are acquired properties and not genetic properties that affect the whole body.