Can you give any examples of reactions between food ingredients making people sick? The usual reasons that foods make people sick are quite specific to an ingredient: digestive issues usually stem from inability to digest a particular sugar, and allergies arise from food-specific antigens. Neither is created or modified when you mix two foods together, or digest one in the presence of the other.
> Can you give any examples of reactions between food ingredients making people sick?
Without commenting on whether this applies to the case at hand: the medical term "potentiate" refers to one substance increasing the effects of another; one substance can also decrease the effect of another. Neither substance in isolation causes a problem, but the two taken together can cause harm.
One common example: you shouldn't drink milk or other high-calcium foods with some types of antibiotics (such as those based on tetracycline), because the calcium binds to the antibiotic and prevents absorption.
A less well-known example: drinking grapefruit juice with various different medications (such as blood-pressure reduction medications, some antihistamines, and some statins that lower cholesterol) can prevent the drug from breaking down as quickly, increasing the concentration in your system, such that it builds up as you take more. That interaction can kill you in various ways, such as increasing the effect of the drug in question, or destroying your kidneys.
Heme-bound iron is better absorbed by the body than other sources of iron, which is why sometimes vegetarians are anemic despite the high quantity of iron in vegetables.
Much of the the known mechanics of digestion are molecular, but that's mostly due to the fact that we have a lot better scientific tools to deal with things on a molecular level than we do with macro-molecular constructs.
Okay, but you're still talking about how a particular nutrient interacts with the digestive system in a particular way. I don't assume there's any evidence that eating meat increases the absorption rate of iron from plants as well, for example. The hypothesis I responded to was a component of algae reacting with another chemical to create a product that some people are sensitive to.
Eating foods high in vitamin C increases absorption of iron. Calcium conversely reduces it, which is another reason for becoming anemic on a vegetarian diet, if you get a lot of your protein from dairy.
This isn't just food, but grapefruit juice alters the absorption of other chemicals; there are drugs that while you are taking them you can't have grapefruit juice, as it will screw with the effective dosage you get.
I recall hearing, also, that if you need both Calcium and Magnesium supplements they're better taken at separate times, as they compete for uptake due to both being +2 ions.
Alcohol on a full stomach will delay Alcohol absorption which leads to delayed intoxication peaks and for many people higher Alcohol consumption. "Beer before liquor, never been sicker; liquor before beer, you're in the clear."
Granted the real issue is drinking more liquor because you don't notice how much liquor you have already drunk.
That would be interesting if caffeine did affect the metabolism of alcohol. The points here are more about perception than any chemical mechanism as originally described:
>It very well not have been the algae but the reaction of the algae that occurred when another chemical's concentration was increase and caused a second or third order reaction.
I can't think of any chemical reactions like that off the top of my head. Some times different chemicals or the same chemical from different foods will reinforce each other.
Mixing Laxatives like prune juice and pineapples can have a stronger effect. Having two new foods that would both produce gas get's a significantly stronger reaction together. Excessive lean meat consumption can cause problems due to protein poisoning. There are also some poisons that act together.
Taking a multivitamin on an empty stomach makes me vomit. I don't have the same reaction when I take it on a full stomach. I also sometimes feel very ill if I drink black tea on an empty stomach.
