Adverse Food Reactions:Physiological and EcologicalPerspectives

While food is essential for survival, it can also cause a variety of harmful ef-fects,ranging from intolerance to specific nutrients to celiac disease and foodallergies. In addition to nutrients, foods contain myriads of substances thatcan have either beneficial or detrimental effects on the animals consumingthem. Consequently, all animals evolved defense mechanisms that protectthem from harmful food components. These "antitoxin" defenses have someparallels with antimicrobial defenses and operate at a cost to the animal's fit-ness. These costs outweigh benefits when defense responses are exaggeratedor mistargeted, resulting in adverse reactions to foods. Additionally, patho-logical effects of foods can stem from insufficient defenses, due to unabatedtoxicity of harmful food components. We discuss the structure of antitoxindefenses and how their failures can lead to a variety of adverse food reactions.