A Comprehensive Review of Glycation on Food Quality Involved Allergenicity Reduction and Functionality Improvement: Mechanisms, Influence Factor, Application, and Future Direction

Food allergy is a significant worldwide issue. This review comprehensively summarizes the allergenic mechanisms and allergen characteristics of "big nine" allergenic foods, highlighting glycation as a promising strategy for reducing allergenicity and improving functional properties in foods. It is found that food allergenicity is related to major allergenic proteins. Glycation, via wet and dry methods, causes protein aggregation and structural changes to mask and destroy epitopes for decreasing food allergenicity. And oral administration of glycated proteins modulates Th1/Th2 balance and regulates gut microbiota to alleviate allergic reactions. The effectiveness of glycation depends on multiple factors such as sugar type and reaction conditions. Besides, glycated samples exhibit improved functional properties such as foaming and emulsifying properties and antioxidant activity. Therefore, glycation is an efficient and promising strategy for producing hypoallergenic food products with enhanced functionality. Future work should optimize processes, validate clinically, and balance allergenicity with function quality.