I have a patient who took the Cyrex Array 4 test and had antibody production to amaranth, although the patient doesn’t actually eat amaranth. I did Arrays 3 and 4 on the patient, and she only produced antibodies to amaranth.

Dr. Amy Nett: This is a great question. I’m not sure exactly what happened here. There are a couple of possibilities. One, we know that amaranth cross-reacts with quinoa, rice, and sunflower, so maybe the patient has an intolerance to sunflower and what we’re seeing are cross-reactive antibodies. I don’t know. It’s sort of a small chance, but that’s a possibility. Another one is if she ate amaranth to prepare for the test, is it possible that, as we mentioned when we talked about food sensitivities, if you haven’t eaten foods throughout much of your life but then you introduce foods, something like teff or amaranth, and your body is seeing it more or less for the first time, is your immune system going to recognize it as foreign and potentially mount an antibody response because you’re eating the amaranth for about five to seven days to prepare for the test?