If you pay close attention to food choice, chances are you might discover the foods you unconsciously avoid eating – you may dislike certain foods. For example, salami, red wine, aged cheese, dark chocolate, kimchi, bananas, oranges, strawberries, papaya, tomatoes, pineapple, shellfish, cow’s milk, cashews, energy drinks, alcohol, yogurt, kefir, mayonnaise, kombucha, raisins, green tea, or leftover dinner? For a long time, I did not know what contains histamine but I was avoiding almost all histamine-contained foods even though I have never had major histamine reaction moments like getting hives, sneezing, teary eyes, running nose, etc.

Histamine is a chemical involved in your immune system, proper digestion, and your central nervous system. As a neurotransmitter, it communicates important messages from your body to your brain. It is also a component of stomach acid, which is what helps you break down food in your stomach. Yes, histamine is related to your GI status means you have enough good bacterias or harmful, autoimmune bacterias, fungus, yeast, and parasites play a big role.

You might be most familiar with histamine as it relates to the immune system. If you’ve suffered from seasonal allergies or food allergies, you may have noticed that antihistamine medications like Zyrtec, Allegra, or Benedryl provide quick relief of your symptoms. Many doctors prescribe these medications with over-the-counter anti-acid medication like Pepcid to calm down the symptoms. Symptoms subside but it is almost always coming back because the root cause is never addressed.

Histamine’s role in the body is to cause an immediate inflammatory response. It serves as a red flag in your immune system, notifying your body of any potential attackers.

There are so many symptoms related to Histamine Intolerance!!!!!

Histamine causes your blood vessels to swell, or dilate so that your white blood cells can quickly find and attack the infection or problem. The histamine buildup is what gives you a headache and leaves you feeling flushed, itchy, and miserable. This is part of the body’s natural immune response, but if you don’t break down histamine properly, you could develop what we call histamine intolerance.

Because it travels throughout your bloodstream, histamine can affect your gut, lungs, skin, brain, and entire cardiovascular system, contributing to a wide range of problems often making it difficult to pinpoint and diagnose.

Chart and List – Histamine Contained Foods: Master List, Food List, List 1, List 2 (with chart), List 3

Anything to do with Histamine Intolerance – Great Blogs – Fact vs Fitness

For more information about causes, symptoms, treatments, and great recipes, check out the following list:

#1 Low Histamine Chef! and her podcast

#2 Histamine Intolerance Q&A (Dr. Joneja)

#3 Histamine Intolerance.

#4 Histamine Intolerance and GAP diet.

#5 Bone Broth for Histamine Intolerance people (use bone marrow, not cartilage or knucklebones. These bones will cause bloating).

and Histamine related links:

 

 

 

 

Histamine Intolerance
From Return 2 Health

Low Histamine Modifications you can make today by:

  • Avoid Spinach: I assume Popeye did not have histamine problems! It is one of HIGH histamine food and is widely taken as a “Healthy Foods” for a lot of people. If you are making a green smoothie with a handful of baby spinach or a bowl of spinach salad for lunch? You may substitute with Romaine lettuce or baby kales instead.
  • Avoid eating leftover meat: The longer the meat sitting on the fridge, the more histamine will be produced. If you have leftovers, you may eat as lunch the next day.
  • Avoid Seeds: Especially pumpkin seeds might be triggering histamine reactions.
  • Avoid Bone Broth: This is what I experienced in the past. I had a major bloating for an hour after eating a small bowl of soup.  I thought eating bone broth is so healthy! I purchased a couple of cartilage bones at the local whole foods and put carrots, ACV, black peppercorns, celery, bay leaves, onion and garlic in and cooked 18 hours by using a slow cooker. Avoid pre-made bone broth and use Marrow Bone instead (avoid Cartilage Bone). And most importantly, avoid adding onion & garlic when you make your own. 12 hours of cooking will be long enough.
  • Avoid canned coconuts milk: I do not have any problems (I like Natural Value Brand -BPA Carrageenan free) but many people have a problem with it. Use Coconuts Butter (I like Nutiva’s Coconuts Manna) mix with coconuts oil instead.
  • Pay attention to the fact that cooked foods vs raw foods and the amount of food intake at the time of the histamine attack – histamine reactions vary from the person to person. You may ok with freshly picked tomato but not do well with tomato sauce etc.

Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) 

Similar to Histamine Intolerance but the disease called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) includes a wide variety of acute to chronic symptoms similar to histamine intolerance. There is no specific lab test to be diagnosed as MCAS. It seems my patients are diagnosed as seen by the MCAS specialist M.D. to get medicated. However these individuals almost always complain about the gut and the GI test (I use GI-MAP) shows they have an array of gut bugs from fungus, yeast, bacterias, and parasites. It is very important to know the fact you just can not detox these bugs but you need the proper guidance to learn how to heal your gut leads to the remission of MCAS otherwise, leaky gut is always leaky and the leakage gets worse. Most of my patient came to see me after seeing doctors specialized in MCAS or the patients who think they might have MCAS has severe food intolerance level. This might have just happened in my clinic but most of my patients react to the foods, chemicals, noises, smells, light, medications, supplements, etc… just super “hypersensitive” to almost everything.

Click HERE to read more about Histamine Intolerance.

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