A young lady is brought to the emergency department on a trolley. She is known to have latex allergy and collapsed while eating a fruit salad in canteen at lunch. What may be the cause?

The answer is interesting. The answer is banana.

Latex is a complex substance which are comprises of various combination of proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins, and gums (wikipedia). Some people are allergic to this latex.

Interestingly, banana have protein which is structurally homologous to latex. So those who are allergic to latex and repeatedly expose to banana, these may lead to anaphylactic type reaction which may be fatal sometimes, if measures not taken immediately.

Other fruits such as apples, mangoes, kiwis, pears, apricots and passion fruit are also sometimes known to cause this type of reaction. In medical field it is called Latex fruit syndrome.

So if anyone is known allergic to latex, be careful about eating fruit salad.

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very interesting information about bananas. thank you for posting.