Here are seven steps to curing
histamine intolerance.
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 are going to tie together all the different
approaches to histamine intolerance into
one seven-step path.
Now, histamine intolerance, once again, is diarrhea,
migraines or other headaches, nasal
congestion, asthma, wheezing,
low blood pressure, heart palpitations, hives,
itching, flushing in response to foods
that contain histamine, which is
especially fermented foods, aged and
preserved foods, as well as a number of others.
Now, in histamine intolerance, we can
look at seven ways to approach it.
Way number 1: endogenous diamine
oxidase, or DAO, meaning support your own
production of DAO, the enzyme in your gut
that is supposed to clear all the
histamine from your foods.
That means making sure your copper, vitamin C, and
vitamin B6 status is good.
I have covered how to manage your copper, vitamin C,
and B6 status in previous episodes, and I'll
link to those in the description of this one.
In addition, estrogen and pregnancy
are important, so keep in mind that your
DAO is naturally going to go up in
pregnancy, and your DAO is naturally
going to go down when estrogen peaks
during your menstrual cycle during
ovulation and in the few days before you
start menstruating if you are
a menstruating woman.
Number 2: supplemental DAO.
DAO is naturally found in some of the
foods that we eat, particularly the organs of animals.
I'm sure placenta is very rich; that's
why it goes up in pregnant women, but
kidney, more commonly eaten as an organ meat,
is a very good source of DAO. You can eat
kidney. You can also eat liverwurst.
For example, I like US Wellness Meats
liverwurst, and that liverwurst has a
significant amount of kidney ground into it.
And then there are the kidney supplements.
So, I do recommend Ancestral kidney supplements.
Ancestral is an advertiser with this podcast.
And I also recommend Seeking Health
Histamine Block, which is a DAO enzyme supplement
that you can use in strategic spots before
the meals that contain histamine.
I've covered how to use those
supplements in more detail in a previous
episode. I'll link to it in the description.
Number 3: support your methylation.
Methylation is one of the
principal ways that you get rid of histamine.
DAO is more important in the gut, and
it's more important outside of
your cells in general, whereas
methylation is more important inside
your cells. But if you're thinking about cells
of the immune system, such as mast cells
and basophils, that are likely to
release histamine and contribute to your
histamine bucket, then you can reduce the
amount of histamine they're carrying
around by making sure you're supporting
your methylation. I've covered
methylation in many episodes and other
resources. All of my methylation
resources can be found at
chrismasterjohnphd.com/methylation.
And I will put that link as well in the
description of this episode.
Number 4: mast cell control. Now, from a
nutritional perspective, you want to
focus on nutrients where their
deficiencies have been shown to increase
the burden of mast cells, and the
principal deficiencies to look out for
are selenium and vitamin A. So, I will put
selenium and vitamin A, the episodes that
I made about those nutrients, I will link
to those as well in the description so
you can make sure you know how to
control and manage and investigate your
status of those nutrients. It's also
possible that you could have an
inflammatory disease increasing mast
cell burden that needs to be dealt with
directly with your doctor, but these
nutritional approaches could be holes
that you need to look for in managing
your histamine balance.
Number 5: the histamine in your diet.
If you need to, you should cut
out the worst offending foods. As a
general principle, the worst offending
foods are things that are fermented, aged,
or preserved, especially hard or
semi-hard cheese, canned anchovies, smoked
fish, deli meats, but also curry, mustard,
soy sauce, yeast, avocado, banana, dried
fruit, dried nuts, lemon, mandarin, and pineapple
are the foods that are most consistently high
in histamine. You're not really curing
histamine intolerance if you need to get
rid of these foods; you're just managing it.
So, the other steps that I'm listing
out are ideally helping you to tolerate
these foods, but to the extent that you
need to take them out short-term, those
would be the foods to target in the
process of getting over histamine
intolerance to make sure that in the
moment, you feel good.
If you need to cut out the foods, I would
start kind of cold turkey cutting out the worst offenders.
I wouldn't get obsessive about many of the
other foods that I didn't just list
there because there are many others where
there's conflicting evidence about
histamine, but once you get your symptoms
down to something that is manageable or
ideally to zero or close to zero, then
you can start reintroducing foods and
test where your boundaries are to see
how well you tolerate those different foods.
Number 6: alcohol and other drugs
that interfere with histamine clearance.
As I mentioned in the previous episode,
there might be some dose of alcohol
that's beneficial. It's probably
something small, on the order of a half a
drink three times per week. In general
though, you can expect the more alcohol
you consume, the less likely you are to
tolerate histamine. So either get rid of the
alcohol or find whatever that sweet spot
is that helps give you the best
control of your symptoms. And then
the many other drugs are too many to list
in this episode. So I'll link to the
episode where I cover the drugs.
Go back to that episode if you're on any
medications. See if any of the
medications line up, and if they do, talk
to your doctor about it and see whether
there's a way you can get off them or transfer to
another one that doesn't disrupt
histamine metabolism.
Number 7: fix the gut. Gut problems could
involve poor production of the DAO
enzyme because your intestinal cells are damaged,
an increased mast cell burden contributing
to histamine there, or microbial
dysbiosis, meaning the wrong mix of
bacteria are leading to the
overproduction or under-degradation of
histamine in the gut. And healing from
any of these problems could be central
to fixing your tolerance of histamine.
I think this topic is way too big to
address in any comprehensive fashion
here, but some of the things that could
be important are focusing on foods that
lead to healthy stool quality, focusing
on foods that don't upset your GI tract,
supplementation with gut-healing
supplements, such as glutamine, or
collagen, or bone broth, and in general,
rest can all be super important.
But again, if you have a serious problem with
your gut, you may well need to work on a
detailed protocol with an experienced