Greetings.
Eric Bakker, naturopath from New Zealand.
Thanks for coming back.
I often get asked by people about histamine reactions, about feeling sick or flushed in
the face or nauseous and brain fog and many people think that they've got a problem with
the histamine reaction.
In fact, they could have a reaction with sulfur in their body.
Sulfur is quite a natural compound found in a whole bunch of different foods.
It's found especially in foods like garlic and onions.
It's found in brassicas.
You find it a lot in cauliflower and broccoli.
You can even find it and watermelon.
A quick Google search will show you a whole list of sulfur-containing foods.
Eggs, for example, contain a lot of sulfur in them.
Some people know that they react to these foods, other people don't.
If we look at the structure of amino acids, or if you look in the amino acids, protein
break down to building blocks.
We've got carbohydrates, we've got proteins, we've got fats.
But if we look at proteins and break them down, we've got 21 different amino acids.
Now, two of these amino acids contain sulfur, methionine and cystine.
All right?
If we try and understand this, we're gonna go a little bit into chemistry here to explain,
by chemistry to explain a few things to you.
Sulfur's very important for the body, particularly for detoxification, because methionine and
cystine drive three main detoxification pathways in your liver.
Your liver has two main ways how it breaks foods down to detoxify, two filtration stages,
phase one and phase two.
Phase one works by virtue of a whole bunch of different enzyme systems called P450 enzymes.
Phase two works with five different regulatory systems, five different pathways, I think,
how it breaks foods down, or breaks toxins down.
Three of those pathways rely on methionine and cystine to really help to drive them properly.
Let's just have a look at those three systems.
I wonder if you can see my chart here.
Here we've got phase one and phase two.
Sulfation, glucorodiation, and glutathione as transference.
Those three pathways rely on cystine and methionine.
They plug into that system.
If you've got a problem with sulfur, you can have a problem with detoxification, and it
can make you feel quite sick.
How do you get around this?
What are we gonna do about all this?
What's the solution?
Well, you can't really completely avoid sulfur.
It's very hard to get it out of your diet.
There are a couple of reasons why sulfur could be playing up with you.
Let me just go back to my notes here.
What you could be looking at, for example, is a genetic mutation.
Some people have this.
We know that, for example, with B12, we've got the MTHFR gene, so you can be homozygous
or have two bad copies of the gene and that can cause a problem called CBS, or cystathionine
beta-synthase.
You can actually do an online search for CBS to see if you've got a problem with this particular
pathway.
And then, if you have, you can do that test, I believe, online, and it will allow you then
to make up your mind if you wanna avoid the highest sulfur containing foods or not, which
is probably not a bad idea.
But, one of the most common ways people get a sulfur sensitivity is through heavy metal
toxicity.
If we look at the four main metals that affect people, if they've got a sulfur problem, lead,
arsenic, cadmium, and mercury.
These are sulfhydryl metals.
These metals, in particular, can make some people really sick if they've got a buildup
of them, due to their sulfur sensitivity.
You can do a hair analysis to determine what your level of heavy metals are like in the
body, and particularly mercury can be a really big problem if you got a sensitivity towards
sulfur.
That's something that you might wanna have a look at.
One way you can test, if you've got a big sulfur problem, is through the organic acids
test, so the O test, that's a urinary metabolite test.
That will give you an idea.
And the markers you're gonna find that could come back could be high sulfates, ammonia,
orotate, citrate, isocitrate, or vitamin B6.
These could be really affected if you've got a sulfur problem.
I mentioned about the genetic test.
You can do those.
What do you do if you got a sulfur sensitivity?
How do you get this fixed up?
Well, go to Google and then do a Google search for the list of the highest sulfur-containing
foods, and then try and eliminate some of those from your diet to see if it does really
make a difference.
If it does, and that's the only thing that you've done, you can put some of the higher
sulfur-containing foods back in to see if you get aggravated and feel sick again.
Let's look at some of the symptoms here; itchiness, hives, asthma, headache, nausea, fatigue,
flushing, brain fog.
These are all particular symptoms that can happen with sulfur sensitivity.
How do you eliminate sulfur from your body if it builds up too much?
Well, the last step in sulfur detoxification is an enzyme system called sulfide oxidase.
So, if you take a [inaudible 00:05:27] called molybdenum, it helps that enzyme system work
effectively, and then later, excrete more sulfur from the body.
The other thing you can do is take chlorophyll drinks or green sort of alkalizing detoxifying
drinks.
There are so many of them out there, the green drinks.
You probably know some of these.
For example, green barley grass, spirulina, and you can get a liquid chlorophyll drink
on its own.
You can also eat the deep, leafy greens like spinach, for example, might be a good one
to help you.
But, also, chard and collard, as in kale.
These are drinks you can make up just to pour that chlorophyll into the body to help cleanse
the system.
But the thing I recommend you do is to do a heavy metal analysis.
All right?
Do a hair test through either Doctor's Data or Genova Diagnostics and have a look if you've
got any of those four metals; cadmium, arsenic, mercury, or lead.
Particularly, mercury.
If these are elevated, you may want to get onto that and remove those from the body to
a higher extent 'cause that will allow sulfur to work more effectively in the body and stop
clashing with these heavy metals.
But give it a try, it might be worth it.
You may not have a histamine sensitivity after all.
You may have a sulfur sensitivity.
I hope that answers a few questions.
Thanks for tuning in.