Strange Allergy Causes Teenager To Break Out In Hives If She Eats Hummus Before Exercising

A Canadian teenager is the subject of a peculiar new case study published in the Journal of Medical Case Reports, which details an instance where the young girl, 17, developed swelling in her lips just minutes after she began running on a treadmill. By the time she stopped running, the girl had developed hives and was experiencing abdominal pain.

The cause, doctors later confirmed, was her pre-workout snack of hummus with rice crackers. More specifically, chickpeas, the main ingredient in hummus, was determined to be the allergen responsible for her allergic reaction.

According to the study, the girl had previously consumed the crackers and hummus without incident, and without exercising immediately afterward, leading doctors to posit that the combination of exercise and chickpea consumption led to "food-dependent exercise-induced anaphylaxis (FDEIA)," a potentially deadly allergic reaction. Doctors noted that, "as legumes are not a common food associated with food-dependent exercise-induced anaphylaxis, this will add to our current knowledge base in the field of allergy."

The teenager, whose symptoms went away three hours after being treated with Benadryl and epinephrine, has since been instructed to carry an EpiPen, and partake in hummus and exercise separately, indefinitely.