What are nickel-containing foods?
Nickel occurs as a trace element in many different foods. If you want to eat as nickel-free as possible, for example to determine the influence on possibly allergy-related symptoms, you can avoid foods that contain a particularly high amount of nickel. The limit value for a food to contain “a lot” of nickel is over 100 micrograms per 100 grams. Foods that are above this limit value are, for example
- Soy products
- Nuts
- Dried food
- Chocolate (especially dark chocolate)
- Alcoholic beverages of all kinds (especially beer)
- Coffee.
- “older” cereals such as millet, amaranth and oats (contain relatively high levels of nickel compared to wheat)
- Offal such as liver or corresponding products (liver sausage or blood sausage)
- Mussels
Which cross-allergies exist?
A cross-allergy is caused when the molecules of a certain substance are so similar to the molecules of the allergen that the immune system reacts to them. The similarity is due to biochemical mercamels, the so-called epitopes, by which the immune cells recognize the corresponding molecules. Often the substances that cause such a cross-allergy are also externally similar to the actual allergens.
Allergies to certain plant pollen or fruits therefore often trigger cross-allergies to other pollen or fruits. The same applies to nickel: known cross-allergies contain reactions to other metals such as cobalt or chrome. Other metallic substances can also trigger a cross-allergy, but this is usually difficult to analyze because they are usually used together with other metals or with nickel.
As described above on the subject of cross-allergies, molecules that are biochemically similar to a certain allergen can be fought by the immune system as such. Nickel allergy sufferers can therefore sometimes also react to certain other metals. Chromium is one of these metallic substances. An allergy to chromium is therefore not necessarily unusual for nickel allergy sufferers, but is nevertheless rare. In addition, the treatment of a chromium allergy is basically the same as for a nickel allergy: Also here skin reactions are treated with contact avoidance and if necessary with a cortisone-containing cream.
