Inability to detect significant absorption of immunoreactive soya protein in healthy adults may be relevant to its weak allergenicity

Soya and peanut are botanically closely related and share cross-reacting antigens, but compared to soya, peanut allergy has a higher prevalence with more severe allergic reactions. Furthermore, the threshold dose for eliciting reactions is higher for soya. A difference in undigested protein absorption between the two foods, might explain this diversity. In the current study the amount of soya protein absorbed after soya bean ingestion in healthy adults was estimated. Ten subjects ingested 100 grams of soya beans (40 grams of soya protein) and blood was drawn before and 1, 3 and 24 hours after administration. Serum was analysed by ELISA and histamine release (HR). In all serum samples the soya protein concentration was below quantification limit (1.6 ng/ml which corresponds to 4.8 μg or 0.12 parts per million absorbed soya protein. We could not detect any significant absorption of soya protein. While we cannot totally exlude technical reasons, it may also reflect a true poor absorption in healthy adult volunteers. This could, in turn, be relevant to the apparently weak allergenicity of soy protein by comparison with peanut protein in allergic subjects.