What do you know about Histamines?

What is Histamine?
Histamines are chemicals produced during any allergic response. When an allergen triggers the immune system, mast cells (a type of white blood cells) release histamines as part of the inflammatory immune reaction. It’s this inflammation that gives you puffy, swollen eyes or a blistery skin rash. As well as being produced during the immune response, histamines can also be absorbed from histamine-containing foods, and produced by bacteria in the gut. In healthy people, the production and ingestion of histamines is balanced out by an enzyme called diamine oxidase (DAO), which breaks down the histamines. Some processes create histamine; others destroy it, and overall the system balances out. But some people have a deficiency of DAO, so the histamines build up in their body, and cause a wide array of symptoms.

Many of these symptoms are familiar to allergy sufferers: rashes, hives, runny nose, swelling in the throat, and itching (with or without an accompanying rash). It’s basically the same old inflammatory allergic response, only without an allergen. But an overload of histamine can also cause an enormous constellation of problems, including migraines, digestive upset (constipation and/or diarrhea), nausea, and low blood pressure.

How to find, I'm Histamine intolerant?

how can you tell if histamine is really at the bottom of your problems?

Medically, you can have a DAO test done, to see if your DAO levels are normal. However, since other enzymes can also degrade histamine, this test isn’t a foolproof method of diagnosis. Another experimental but promising method of diagnosis is a skin prick test: it’s not perfect, but in one test study, 79% of histamine-intolerant subjects reacted to the skin prick, while only 19% of the non-intolerant subjects did. That’s better than random guessing, but still not particularly precise.

In women, the picture gets even more complicated. Like many other things, production of DAOfluctuates with the menstrual cycle: it’s higher during the luteal phase (starting roughly a week after your period ends, and lasting until the start of your next period) than during the follicular phase (the rest of the time). This means that histamine intolerance issues will likely be worse during the follicular phase (while you’re bleeding and then for a week afterwards), and show some improvement at other times, regardless of what you do or don’t eat. With this monthly fluctuation, it’s even harder to figure out what foods you might be reacting to.

DAO levels also increase during pregnancy, so many women notice a remission of their symptoms during pregnancy, only to see them reappear after the baby is born. In the whole slew of changes that occur during even a healthy pregnancy, it’s easy to miss out on the improvement of histamine intolerance symptoms, or to believe it has some other cause – after all, when you’re pregnant and everything else in your body is also going haywire, the last thing you’d suspect is a histamine problem.

Considering all the complications involved, the best method that doctors have for diagnosing histamine intolerance is an elimination diet. Four weeks without histamines, followed by a reintroduction challenge, is the most accurate way of determining whether or not a person is really reacting to the histamines in food. This is long enough to get an idea of a long-term trend, and for women, it’s also long enough to hit every phase in the menstrual cycle so you aren’t misled by temporary fluctuations.

Symptoms of Histamine

When histamine is released from the mast cells it may cause one or more of the following symptoms:

• Eyes to itch, burn, or become watery
• Nose to itch, sneeze, and produce more mucus
• Skin to itch, develop rashes or hives
• Sinuses to become congested and cause headaches
• Lungs to wheeze or have spasms
• Stomach to experience cramps and diarrhea

Histamine-Rich Foods

• Alcoholic beverages, especially beer and wine.
• Anchovies
• Avocados
• Cheeses, especially aged or fermented cheese, such as parmesan, blue and Roquefort.
• Cider and home-made root beer.
• Dried fruits such as apricots, dates, prunes, figs and raisins (you may be able to eat these fruits - without reaction - if the fruit is thoroughly washed).
• Eggplant
• Fermented foods, such as pickled or smoked meats, sauerkraut, etc.
• Mackerel
• Mushrooms
• Processed meats - sausage, hot dogs, salami, etc.
• Sardines
• Smoked fish - herring, sardines, etc.
• Sour cream, sour milk, buttermilk, yogurt - especially if not fresh.
• Soured breads, such as pumpernickel, coffee cakes and other foods made with large amounts of yeast.
• Spinach, tomatoes
• Vinegar or vinegar-containing foods, such as mayonnaise, salad dressing, ketchup, chili sauce, pickles, pickled beets, relishes, olives.
• Yogurt

Low histamine foods

• Fresh meat (cooled, frozen or fresh)
• Freshly caught fish
• Chicken (skinned and fresh)
• Egg yolk
• Fresh fruits – with the exception of strawberries, most fresh fruits are considered to have a low histamine level (also see histamine liberators below)
• Fresh vegetables – with the exception of tomatoes
• Grains – rice noodles, yeast free rye bread, rice crisp bread, oats, puffed rice crackers, millet flour, pasta (spelt and corn based)
• Fresh pasteurised milk and milk products
• Milk substitutes – coconut milk, rice milk
• Cream cheese, butter (without the histamine generating rancidity)
• Most cooking oils – check suitability before use
• Most leafy herbs – check suitability before use
• Most non-citric fruit juices
• Herbal teas

Histamine avoiding and treatment

Since the gut flora are so important for histamine production and breakdown, one of the most important long-term steps to living with histamine intolerance is healing any gut dysfunction. By eliminating one source of excess histamine (dysregulated gut flora) and repairing your source of DAO (the gut lining), you can dramatically increase your body’s ability to handle histamines in food. Gut healing on a low-histamine diet seems like a paradox, because the fermented foods that you need to heal are the same foods that are causing the problem! It is possible to restore normal gut flora without sauerkraut, though:

• This is the perfect situation for a well-chosen probiotic supplement. In this study, a supplement with two strains of bifidobacterium actually suppressed histamine release. Inanother study, Lactobacillus rhamnosus helped suppress histamine receptors.

• If you’re not interested in micromanaging your probiotic strains, don’t worry: you have another option that might be even better. This new treatment is confusing, because it sounds almost the same: prebiotics are just one letter away from probiotics. Instead of a supplemental dose of gut flora in pill form, prebiotics deliver a tasty banquet of fiber to the flora that are already in your intestines. They’re basically a kind of carbohydrate indigestible to humans, but absolutely delicious to the bacteria.

Try taking Vitamin B6, copper, and Vitamin C are DAO cofactors, so make sure you’re getting enough. Good low-histamine sources of these nutrients include:

• Vitamin B6: chicken, turkey, and potatoes
• Copper: asparagus and liver
• Vitamin C: almost all fruits and vegetables

Antihistamines

There are two classes of antihistamines, the older ("first generation", "sedating") and the newer ("second generation", "non-sedating") classes. (20) The older class of antihistamines is effective for treating colds.

Antihistamines work by preventing histamine from attaching to a cellular receptor, H1. Attachment to this receptor is necessary for histamine activity to occur. (20) The first generation antihistamines also block the activity of a part of the nervous system, the parasympathetic system, that stimulates mucus glands secretion.

This article is compiled just to give you a brief understanding about Histamines and health. Consult your doctor when you have symptoms of Histamine and "do not" take any advice from this article.