Food allergies that result in noticeable symptoms, such as hives, swelling or anaphylaxis, are relatively uncommon. However, nearly 1 in 5 adults are ‘silently’ producing IgE antibodies to food allergens without showing any overt symptoms.  Recent work by Wilson and colleagues discovered a previously unrecognized link between IgE antibodies to cow’s milk and other common food allergens and an increased risk of cardiovascular mortality. This association was found by measuring antibodies in banked blood samples from over 5,000 adults who were followed longitudinally for about 15 years. The strength of the relationship with cardiovascular mortality was similar to well known risk factors for heart disease, including smoking, diabetes and hypertension and suggests an opportunity for precision nutritional prevention of cardiovascular disease. The finding was recently covered by 125 new outlets, including U.S News and World Report.

This new award allows for the next critical steps to understand the relationship between food specific IgE and atherosclerotic plaque resulting in cardiovascular disease. The National Institute of Health recently awarded Dr. Wilson almost 1.1 million dollars to continue this work here at UVA, with additional funding for his collaborators at the University of North Carolina. This important research endeavor is also supported by a UVA Strategic Investment Fund (SIF) Prominence to Preeminence (P2PE) award: Immunology, Imaging and Informatics for Precision ImmunoMedicine (iPRIME). iPRIME provides investigators an ecosystem of support personnel from the clinical side of consenting patients and reading the complex imaging, to banking the high-quality samples at the bench. Over 600 samples from the Coronary Assesssment in VA (CAVA)-cohort will be used to examine the relationship between IgE to food allergens and atherosclerotic plaque.