Histamine intolerance is easiest to understand as a bucket. Histamine is exactly like a bucket that fills throughout the day. The problem is yours never gets emptied. It fills and fills until it overflows. Then it's sat at nearly full capacity waiting for the next strawberry or aged food you eat.
What Does the Histamine Bucket Actually Mean?
Histamine is exactly like a bucket that fills throughout the day. The problem is yours never gets emptied. It fills and fills until it overflows. Then it's sat at nearly full capacity waiting for the next strawberry or aged food you eat.
Wired. Anxious. Can't Sleep. Bloated.
You see people without histamine issues can eat large amounts of histamine and be fine. Why? Because both their gut lining and bacteria produce adequate levels of DAO to break it down. When your gut lining is broken down your body literally can't empty the bucket nearly as fast. It fills up faster than it can be emptied.
Why Are Your Mast Cells So Sensitive?
On top of this a thinned mucus lining and damaged gut lining leaves your mast cells sensitive. These histamine storage sites contain nearly all of the histamine in your body. When they're sensitive even boring old foods like wheat can "liberate" massive amounts and cause big reactions.
What Keeps Filling the Bucket from the Inside?
An often overlooked piece of the puzzle is histamine-producing bacteria which are often overgrown. Klebsiella Aerogenes is the main culprit. Responsible for up to 100x more histamine production than other bacteria in your gut.
Your bucket never empties because it keeps getting filled up from the inside.
Bacterial histamine then draws mast cells to the surface, which then burst and release even more histamine. Creating a massive flow of histamine that is almost certain to overflow your bucket.
Why Are Histamine-Producing Bacteria So Overgrown?
Why are these histamine producers so overgrown? And why are the histamine degraders so lacking?
It's the environment.
Low stomach acid. Poor bile flow. High oxygen environment due to a broken down gut lining. All of these factors allow histamine producers to bloom massively. In fact IBS patients on average had 8x higher urinary histamine levels than a healthy control.
How Do You Support DAO and Start Emptying the Bucket?
Omega-9s have been shown to increase DAO secretion by up to 500x. Meaning if you've got issues breaking it down this can be extremely helpful as a support mechanism. You'll find this in extra virgin olive oil.
Zinc is an essential co factor for DAO to break down histamine. Zinc L-carnosine serves the double benefit of healing the gut lining and providing this essential co-factor.
But let's say you've worked on the gut lining. Even supplemented DAO itself and things still haven't improved. What now?
What Is the Full Protocol for Fixing Histamine at the Root?
Now we know the WHY. The HOW to fix it is quite simple.
The gut lining and mast cells:
- Zinc L-Carnosine (heals the gut lining)
- N-Acetyl Glucosamine (building block for mucus lining)
- PEA (stabilises mast cells)
- Boswellia (Thickens mucus lining meaning more time for DAO producing cells to heal)
- PQQ (mito function in the gut lining creating a low oxygen environment)
- Vitamin B1 (mito function in the gut lining creating a low oxygen environment)
The environment:
- Digestive Enzymes + Betaine HCL (Replaces what's missing)
- DGL + Aloe Vera (Heals the stomach lining allowing for self-regulation)
- Digestive Bitters (improves digestion and bile flow, creating a less favourable environment for histamine producers)
- Taurine, Glycine and Phosphatidylcholine (Creates a strong healthy bile that can do its job at digesting fat and as an antimicrobial)
- Ox bile (Short term replacement bile)
- Ginger + Chen pi (motility)
The bacteria:
- S Boulardii (Increases DAO production, Lowers histamine producing bacteria, Creates a more acidic environment that favours beneficial bacteria)
- Lactoferrin (Nearly all of these histamine producers are gram negative and feast on iron, lactoferrin starves them of that)
- Green Tea/EGCG (Actively disables the bacterial enzyme that produces large quantities of histamine)
What Can You Expect When the Bucket Starts Emptying?
High-Histamine foods may be back on the table in a month or two. Anxiety may be down. Getting to bed at night becomes easier.
All because you understood WHY, and that brought us the natural HOW.
Do you have issues with low stomach acid? Do you have issues with fatty foods, if so bile supplements would be appropriate? Do you have excess systemic inflammation? If so gut lining compounds are better suited. You wouldn't use all those supplements, you'd tailor and choose the ones to your specific issues.
