Solving your histamine intolerance could
be as simple as taking the right
supplements. And that's what we're
going to talk about today.
Hi. I'm Dr. Chris Masterjohn of chrismasterjohnphd.com.
And this is Chris Masterjohn Lite, where
the name of the game is
"Details? Shmeetails. Just tell me what works!"
And today we're going to talk about
supplementing with diamine oxidase or kidney extract
to solve your histamine intolerance.
Now, if you're not caught up to speed on
histamine intolerance, briefly, histamine
intolerance is symptoms such as
headaches, diarrhea, or anything
reminiscent of allergies in response to
histamine in foods. I listed out the
foods and the symptoms in more detail in
a previous episode, and I will link to
that in the description of this episode.
When you eat foods that have histamine,
the normal response is for diamine
oxidase, an enzyme that is made in many
places in your body, but is extremely—
it is found in extremely high amounts in the gut,
where your intestinal cells just keep
pumping diamine oxidase into your
intestines, and so it neutralizes all the
histamine before you absorb it, normally
when you're healthy. If you eat foods and
the histamine gets through into your
system to increase your systemic
histamine levels and contribute to
symptoms, such as headache, or diarrhea,
or any of the allergies, flushing,
itching, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that suggests that
the histamine is not being fully
neutralized in your gut and suggests
that you may have low diamine oxidase activity.
A quick and simple test of this,
and also a way to get rid of the
symptoms acutely while you try to figure
out what might be going on underneath
the surface, is to supplement with
diamine oxidase. And there are two
supplements that I'll recommend. You can
try either of them and see which one is
more effective for you. The first is
Seeking Health Histamine Block, which is
a diamine oxidase activity supplement,
and Ancestral Supplements Kidney Extract,
which is not specifically diamine
oxidase, but it is the extract of kidney tissue,
as if you were eating kidneys, which is
something our ancestors did, and kidney
has the highest amount of diamine
oxidase activity, so out of the organ
meats, eating kidney is where you get the
most of that. I will link in the
description to each of these products,
and you can use chrismasterjohnphd.com/dao
for the histamine block, or
chrismasterjohnphd.com/kidney
for the ancestral kidney supplement.
Those are affiliate links, and if you use
them at no extra cost to you, I will get
a small commission that will support all
the free work that I do. If you do not
want to use affiliate links, just google
these products, and you'll be able to
find them. For full disclosure, Ancestral
Supplements is also a sponsor of this
podcast, although they played no role in
the decision for me to recommend
their supplement or play any role in any of
the content that I put out.
When you take these supplements, for the
Seeking Health Histamine Block,
I would use one capsule per meal or per
histamine-rich meal. And for the
Ancestral kidney, I would try two. And
I would take them within 15 minutes or so
before the meal so that when the food is
incoming, the DAO is in your gut. And see
if it helps. If it does help, that
does two things. Number one, you found a
quick fix. You can manage your symptoms
without knowing anything further.
And then number two, it gives you a big clue
to the problem because if taking DAO so
that it's in your gut helps get rid of
that histamine so that it doesn't cause
a problem, that means, or at least
strongly suggests, that one of the
underlying problems is that you don't
have enough DAO in your gut. If that's
the case, then you can look now to
long-term strategies. So first of all, the
cofactors for diamine oxidase are
vitamin B6, copper, and vitamin C.
I had previously done episodes on how to
manage your status for each of those.
I'll link to those episodes in the
description of this one, but looking at those
makes special sense when your DAO
activity appears to be low because you
might have a vitamin C, B6, or copper
deficiency that if you fix it will
support your DAO and will allow you to
not have to use these supplements as often.
On the other hand, sometimes the
reason that DAO activity is low is
because there's damage to the gut.
In that case, you might need to focus on
healing your gut, and that can be a very
nuanced picture that is very specific to
you as an individual, and you should
probably work with a healthcare
practitioner who specializes in gut
healing to do that. But some of the
approaches that might be most helpful
would include focusing on foods that do
not cause GI distress for you, focusing
on a nutrient-dense diet to make sure
that you're getting everything that you
need, and using collagen or bone broth
and glutamine supplementation and
perhaps the right probiotic. Figuring out
exactly the cause of low DAO activity
and fixing it could be a long road and
perhaps a complicated one. I hope the
tips that I've offered make it a slower
and easier road, but in the meantime, if
the DAO supplementation does work, then
at least you have a short-term fix that
can improve your quality of life while
you're figuring the other things out.
This episode is brought to you by
of chrismasterjohnphd.com.
This has been Chris Masterjohn Lite.