Nutrition
Histamine: Shedding Light on the Darkness / Part 2
Understand how histamine intolerance develops, recognize symptoms, and manage it naturally through dietary adjustments, enzyme support, and gut health.
Nutrition
Understand how histamine intolerance develops, recognize symptoms, and manage it naturally through dietary adjustments, enzyme support, and gut health.
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In the previous part, you already gained insight into how histamine is synthesized in the body. You learned what high histamine triggers and how it is broken down again. So feel free to check that out first if you haven't read the first part yet or want to refresh your knowledge.
One difficulty in identifying histamine intolerance is the long list of histamine-containing foods that could be responsible for a reaction.
Particularly histamine-rich foods:
Fish and seafood: Tuna, mackerel, anchovies, herring, shellfish (shrimp, crab)
Meat products: Smoked meat, cured meats (salami, ham), dried meat
Fermented foods: Sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, tempeh
Aged cheese: Parmesan, Gouda, Emmental, Camembert, Roquefort
Alcoholic beverages: Red wine, beer (especially wheat beer), sparkling wine
Other fermented products: Soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegar, balsamic vinegar
Vegetables: Tomatoes, eggplants, spinach, avocados
Fruit: Overripe bananas, strawberries, kiwis, pineapple
Nuts: Walnuts, cashews, peanuts
Beverages: Black tea, green tea, cocoa
Here again, though, we face the same problem: everyone reacts very individually. So perhaps one person gets a runny nose after a few forks of sauerkraut, while another can happily eat a whole plate without issues.
Fresh foods typically contain less histamine than processed or stored products, since histamine is produced in large quantities through bacterial fermentation and aging processes.
And then there's unfortunately the issue of histamine liberators, which makes the whole thing even more complex. Histamine liberators are substances that increase the release of histamine from histamine-producing cells, such as mast cells. These can be substances produced in our body, but also medications we take, alcohol, caffeine, food additives, cold, heat, touch, and stress. This list of factors that influence our histamine production is unfortunately quite long and individual.
As a final point to note, certain medications can also play a role, as they can both inhibit DAO activity or stimulate histamine release.
If you want to determine whether you have histamine intolerance or whether your enzymes are functioning properly, various values can be measured. It's possible to determine DAO activity in the blood or measure the DAO breakdown product in the urine—N-methylhistamine.
It's important to note that a dysfunction of both enzymes can also be present.
However, the simplest and most reliable method is keeping a symptom and food diary.
Before we get to treating histamine intolerance, let me explain how histamine intolerance develops.
To better understand the development of histamine intolerance, we need to take a closer look at an important organ: the gut. An imbalance in gut bacteria and a compromised intestinal barrier appear to be linked to histamine intolerance.
Patients with symptoms of histamine intolerance often show an imbalance in their gut microbiota and a disrupted intestinal barrier. This imbalance can contribute to inflammation of the intestinal mucosa and in turn promote the development of a leaky gut with a subsequent potential reduction in DAO enzyme activity and easier passage of histamine into the bloodstream.
Remember: DAO is produced in the cells of the intestinal mucosa. If these are damaged, sufficient DAO may not be produced.
Furthermore, it is believed that an imbalance in gut bacteria can also mean that more histamine-producing bacteria are present, which can promote the accumulation of histamine in the gut.
So what helps if you suspect histamine intolerance or have already been diagnosed with it? The simplest and most easily controllable measure is, of course, reducing or completely avoiding histamine-rich foods. First, you can try avoiding very histamine-rich foods, and if that doesn't bring improvement, you should switch your diet completely to histamine-free foods. However, this should only serve diagnosis and short-term symptom reduction—it's not a long-term solution!
You should also pay attention to histamine liberators. So observe whether your symptoms, for example, always occur during stressful periods.
As mentioned in the first part, antihistamines also relieve symptoms by occupying histamine receptors, reducing the effect of histamine. The histamine-degrading enzyme DAO can also be taken as a treatment for histamine intolerance, since a greater amount of DAO will break down more free histamine. However, please don't see this as a long-term solution either—instead, address the root causes of your histamine intolerance.
To optimally support DAO enzyme activity, you should ensure adequate intake of copper and vitamin B6, as they are the cofactors of the enzyme and thus essential for it to function at all.
If the cause of the intolerance lies in the gut as previously described, it makes sense to include gut health in the treatment plan. Supplementation with prebiotics and probiotics as well as substances that support the intestinal barrier can help restore balance to your gut. But lifestyle changes to reduce daily stress are also important factors for our digestive health.
When choosing a probiotic, it should especially contain the following histamine-reducing strains: Bifidobacteria, particularly Bifidobacterium infantis and Bifidobacterium longum, Lactobacillus gasseri, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Lactobacillus salivarius.
In summary, sensitivity to histamine depends on four major factors:
The body's ability to break down histamine
The composition of the microbiome and the associated histamine production
The amount of histamine consumed through food
The strength of the reaction to histamine liberators
