You’ve seen the word histamine before on anti-histamine medications and creams for allergies and allergic reactions. Have you ever wondered what are histamines and what is their role in allergies?
In this article, I will explain what histamines are and how the allergy response works. You will learn about the role of histamine when it comes to food and insect bites. If you are curious about histamine intolerance, along with a quick explanation, I will direct you to some resources and my 4-Phase Histamine Reset Plan to help you regain your health, improve your well-being, and reclaim your happiness.
What Are Histamines?
Histamines are chemicals in your body that are responsible for a variety of functions. They are your personal security guard. When your body encounters an allergen, they get rid of them to protect you. This is one doctor commonly recommend anti-histamines for allergies and allergic reactions.
The thing about allergies is that some things you are allergic to, such as pollen, dust, or pet dander, may seem harmless and are completely harmless to many people. But your personal immune system views them as a threat, gets triggered, and quickly responds with an allergic reaction leading to an array of allergy symptoms.
Histamines trigger the process that gets allergens off your skin or out of your body. Sneezing, redness, tearing up, swelling, or itching is often part of this process. This is how your body’s defense system works. It’s all normal and created for your health and safety (1, 2, 3).
How the Histamine Allergy Response Works
When you encounter an allergen, such as pollen or dust, your immune system gets triggered. To protect you, it launches a serious of events to keep you safe and healthy.
The first step of this reaction is signaling the mast cells in your lungs, nose, skin, mouth, gut, and blood to release histamines immediately. The histamines immediately increase blood flow to the affected area causing acute inflammation to start repair. The inflammation triggers other chemicals from your immune system to help with healing and recovery. The histamines end up at certain receptors in your body and eventually get removed from your system.
These chain of event lead to allergic reactions and symptoms. For example, if you are allergic to pollen, histamines in your body will prompt membranes in your respiratory system to make more mucus leading to a stuffy or runny nose. All the mucus may also cause sneezing, scratchy nose, or coughing. Additionally, histamines may make your eyes and nose itch and your eyes water. If you encounter a skin allergy, the histamine reaction may lead to redness, swelling, or itching (1, 2).
Foods and Histamine
If you have food allergies, you are very familiar with these processes. When you eat or drink food that you are allergic to, histamines will trigger an immediate allergic reaction. Unlike food sensitivities that lead to chronic, gradual, and more subtle symptoms, food allergies trigger an immediate and often serious response, including wheezing, swelling of the face, lips, or tongue, hives, itching, tingling, dizziness, vomiting, or abdominal pain.
Some foods are also naturally high in histamine that causes problems in some people. Some people are simply sensitive to certain histamine-containing foods. Others have histamine intolerance and have to avoid high-histamine foods.
Histamine Intolerance
Histamine intolerance means that your body has too much histamine and it is unable to properly break down the excess histamine leading to a list of symptoms, including headaches, migraines, fatigue, anxiety, runny nose, eczema, hormonal issues, digestive issues, and more. High-histamine foods include aged cheese, citrus fruit, cured and canned meat, dried fruits, fermented foods, fermented alcohol, soured foods, legumes, cashews, walnuts, avocadoes, eggplants, spinach, tomatoes, smoked fish, anchovies, mackerel, mahi-mahi, sardines, tuna, fish sauces, and vinegar-containing foods. If you have histamine intolerance, you need to avoid high-histamine foods (3).
Histamine Poisoning
You may also experience histamine poisoning if you eat fish that was not kept at a safe temperature and got spoiled before you were served and ate them. There is a higher risk of histamine poisoning with fish that are high in histamines, such as mackerel, sardines, tuna, anchovies, and smoked fish. Histamine poisoning from fish is also called scombrotoxin fish poisoning, or SFP. However, with good food safety practices, you don’t have to worry about SFP (4).
Histamine and Insects
Not only humans but many animals and plants have histamines too. For example, histamine can be found in some insect venom. If you are stung or bitten by certain insects, such as bees, hornets, wasps, yellow-jackets, or fire aunts, your own histamines will get to work as well triggering a histamine response to protect you. As you know, this will lead to swelling, redness, itching, or pain (5).
Recommendations for Histamine Intolerance
If you have histamine intolerance, I recommend the following options to improve your health naturally:
Follow an Anti-Inflammatory and Low-Histamine Diet
Following an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant-rich, and nutrient-dense diet is important for your health. Reducing histamine may help to decrease histamine-related symptoms.
Remove inflammatory foods, including refined sugar, refined oils, canned and processed meat, artificial ingredients, junk food, and highly processed foods. Avoid high-histamine foods, such as fermented food (e.g., sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented vegetables, kombucha, etc.), aged food (e.g., aged cheese, processed meat, canned fish, etc.), over-ripe fruits and vegetables, leftovers, and foods that are naturally high in histamine (e.g., avocadoes, eggplant, spinach, dried fruits, etc.). Avoid foods that may trigger histamine releases, such as tomatoes, most citrus, bananas, most nuts, and dairy. Avoid foods that may block the DAO enzyme, including black tea, green tea, alcohol, and energy drinks.
Eat a nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory, and low-histamine diet rich in greens, vegetables, herbs, spices, fruits, healthy fats, and organic meat. Low-histamine foods include most fresh leafy greens and vegetables, non-citrus fruits, such as apples, pear, papaya, and grapes, fresh grass-fed meat, pasture-raised poultry and eggs, and wild-caught fish, olives, extra-virgin olive oil, ghee, coconut oil, leafy herbs, and herbal tea. My book, The 4-Phase Histamine Reset Plan includes an extensive list of foods that you can eat and should avoid on a low-histamine diet.
If you are new to a low-histamine diet, remember to have fun experimenting with new foods and recipes. I promise low-histamine meals can be delicious. I recommend all the low-histamine recipes in The 4-Phase Histamine Reset Plan and my new recipe book, Fifty One Low Histamine Air Fryer Recipes. They are all simple, easy to make, low-histamine, gluten-free, Paleo-friendly, and super healthy. Not to mention how delicious they are — your family will love them too.
Reduce Your Histamine Bucket
If you are dealing with symptoms of histamine intolerance, reducing high-histamine foods is not enough. High stress, poor sleep, not moving your body, and high toxin exposure may add to your histamine load. Improving these areas of your lifestyle may help to reduce your histamine bucket and lower the risk of histamine-related issues.
I recommend that you reduce your stress levels, improve your sleep, and move your body:
- I recommend practicing breathwork, meditation, positive affirmation, journaling, yoga, grounding, and time in nature for stress and anxiety reduction.
- Taking an Epsom salt bath is another great way to relax your muscles, calm your mind, and detoxify your body.
- Your goal should be to sleep at least 7 to 9 hours a night.
- Lower your stress levels throughout the day but especially in the evening time to support sleep. Take a bath, read a good book, listen to some music, journal, try coloring, and spend time with your family. Avoid sugar, alcohol, and heavy food in the evening.
- Sleep on a supportive mattress with comfortable and supportive pillows and blankets, and quality, organic cotton sheets.
- Move your body throughout the day and stretch regularly.
- Exercise at least 20 to 30 minutes five days a week and move your body regularly. I recommend getting 10 to 15K steps in a day if you can. Add resistance and strength training to your routine.
Recommend that you reduce your exposure to environmental toxins:
- Choose purified water over tap water. Use a high-quality air filtration system for better indoor air.
- Choose natural, organic, and homemade cleaning, personal hygiene, and beauty products instead of conventional brands loaded with chemicals.
- Choose glass, bamboo, wood, organic cotton, silicon, and other natural alternatives instead of plastic.
- Avoid BPA plastic completely.
- Choose organic food whenever possible and avoid overly processed packaged foods. If you must buy non-organic produce, follow the Dirty Dozen, Clean 15 list, and always wash and peel non-organic vegetables and fruits.
Support Your Gut
Your gut health affects your entire body. Gut flora imbalance can trigger histamine intolerance and cause related symptoms. Supporting your gut health is critical for your recovery. Along with a gut-friendly, low-histamine, anti-inflammatory diet, I recommend that you take a high-quality probiotics supplement, to support your gut microbiome balance.
Try Some Supplements
I recommend HistoRelief. It is a synergistic blend of nutrients that provides natural support to balance your immune response. This blend features Tinofend®, a patented and clinically researched extract derived from the plant Tinospora cordifolia, which has a powerful ability to support immune regulation and immune response. As a result, it boosts your body’s ability to fight histamine-related symptoms. It includes quercetin, nettle leaf, vitamin C, and bicarbonate salt to help inhibit histamine release, support normal histamine metabolism, and improve immune health.
Final Thoughts
Histamines are chemicals that are part of your immune system. They are there for your protection and play a very important role in your health.
Problems only arise with histamine, if you have histamine intolerance. Histamine intolerance means that your body has too much histamine, it can’t keep up with it, which results in an array of symptoms. The good news is that through simple natural strategies, you can overcome your symptoms of histamine intolerance and live a healthy life. To learn more about histamine intolerance, read this article.
If you are dealing with symptoms of histamine intolerance, I invite you to schedule a consultation with us. We can help identify the root cause of your condition and recommend a personalized treatment plan to repair your body and regain your health and well-being. Schedule your consultation here. I also recommend that you check out my Histamine Online Program.
Sources:
1. Histamine defined. American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. Link Here
2. Histamine: The stuff allergies are made of. MedlinePlus. Link Here
3. Maintz L, Novak N, Histamine and histamine intolerance, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 85, Issue 5, May 2007, Pages 1185–1196. Link Here
4. Histamine poisoning. American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, Immunology. Link Here
5. Insect allergies. Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Link Here
