How Full Is Your Histamine Bucket? Are You Ready For Spring?

By Amanda Downsborough - Holistic Child Health.

BSc, PGDip, GCert, MSc, ACAAM

I have to admit, I love spring and all the beautiful colours the landscape offers. I love going hiking, rain or shine, and inhaling the magnificent perfumes of native blooms. But some of my patients do not. They come to me choked up, sneezing, itchy and plain miserable.

Hay fever season is upon us once again, so I'm jumping in to offer help. Be sure to download the Histamine Intolerance handout before you go. You can find it at the bottom of this page. It's a handy one!

Histamine is released by mast cells in the body to combat allergies, causing hives and swelling. It is also an important brain chemical that is related to alertness. It is produced by gut bacteria, and it’s in some foods. Treating hay fever is most effective when we identify the source of histamine excess, and can be helped significantly with supplements that work to stabilise mast cells.

Quite simply, we all have our own histamine bucket. How big that bucket is, will be determined by genetics, diet, and gut bacteria. When springtime comes along with all the pollen in the air, it can make that bucket overflow, resulting in hay fever symptoms.

Some people have genetic variations, particularly diamine oxidase (DAO), that mean they don't break down histamine as fast as other people. This allows histamine to accumulate more than people who have a normally functioning gene. The best way to combat this, is to reduce your exposure to dietary histamines and support DAO enzyme function.

Certain gut bacteria also produce histamines. These include Klebsiella, some Lactobacillus strains, Citrobacter and others. When these bacteria are found in high numbers in the gut, they can be treated, the gut rebalanced, and symptoms should resolve - hopefully for good! This does require microbiome testing, so if other strategies don't help enough, this might be a very good option for you.

Some foods contain higher levels of histamine, while others increase histamine levels during processing methods. Some foods encourage the release of histamine from mast cells, but are not high in histamine themselves. A full list of foods is in the Histamine Intolerance handout below. Reducing dietary histamines might be all you need to do to get through spring!

Basic rules for reducing histamines in food -

• Meats must be fresh with no preservatives or additives.

• Fruits and vegetables must be fresh. Less ripe is better.

• Avoid dried, canned, and preserved fruits and vegetables.

• Dairy must be fresh and free of additives.

• Grain products must be free of vinegar, yeast, and preservatives.

Wishing you all a beautiful, sneeze-free spring.

Amanda

Histamine Handout.pdf

Download PDF • 198KB

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