ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the feature of hypersensitivity induced by seafood, and explains immunological cross-reactivity among causative seafood.
Food allergy is now a serious social problem worldwide, particularly in developed countries. Food allergy refers to an immunological hypersensitivity (allergy symptom) that develops by ingesting a specific food, and is defined as a “phenomenon in which symptoms that are detrimental to the living body are caused by the antigen-specific immunological mechanism after oral intake, skin contact, inhalation of the causative food” [1], and also defined as “an adverse health effect arising from a specific immune response that occurs reproducibly on exposure to a given food” [2].
