How to deal with histamine intolerance during eczema & TSW – (S5E23)

What Can Cause High Histamine Levels?

• DAO Deficiency

Since we naturally produce histamine along with an enzyme called diamine oxidase (DAO). DAO is responsible for breaking down histamines that you take from food. If you have a DAO deficiency and are unable to break down histamine, you could develop an intolerance.

• Stress

Stress also releases histamines and causes mast cells to explode, causing more histamine to be released.

• Mold Exposure

Mold exposure can affect our entire immune system and lower the body’s ability to protect itself against viral infection, bacterial infection, and much more. It also causes an inflammatory response in the body.

• Medications

Some people take medications that can trigger a histamine response. Histamine intolerance can be the side effect of the medication.

• Genetics

We can also have histamine overload if your parents have it (but the expression of this gene can be altered through our diet and by getting to the root of the issue).

Four Histamine Receptors

• Histamine Receptor 1 – Face (Eyes and Nose)
• Histamine Receptor 2 – Guts (Belly)
• Histamine Receptor 3 – Brain
• Histamine Receptor 4 – Immune System

How Do You Know What Causes Your Histamine Intolerance?

In this podcast episode, Dr. Temple highly recommends keeping a calendar of their symptoms. Mark the calendar whenever you have belly pain, headaches, mood issues, allergies and other symptoms. Mark X when your experiencing flare.

“I would say 80-90% of patients figure out the issues all by themselves. So the calendar, where I was starting to kind of get an awareness are histamine problems. And then we could take a look at your diet, because we can decrease the histamine overload by diet,” stated by Dr. Temple.

Controlling Histamine Levels by Diet

High Histamine Foods

• Processed Foods with food coloring, TBHQ, BHT, and artificial flavors
• Gluten Foods
• Dairy
• Red Wine
• Kombucha
• Fermented Foods
• Dried Fruits
• avocados
• eggplant
• spinach
• processed or smoked meats
• shellfish
• aged cheese

Unfortunately, healthy foods that are excellent for their anti-inflammatory properties can be high in histamine. Histamine can be controlled through eliminating high histamine foods and replacing them with low histamine ones (substitution can also help to replace the deprivation).

In one study, a young individual had almost complete resolution of his atopic dermatitis symptoms by following a low-histamine diet. Listen to the podcast episode below to learn more about histamines, histamine intolerance, and whether a low histamine diet can help your skin.

The Issue with Low Histamine Diet

Tips to Deal with Histamine Intolerance Naturally

• Be conscious on everything you put into your body. Change those high gluten and high dairy meals to low ones. Substitute high histamine foods with other alternatives.
• Mark your calendar whenever you experience some of its symptoms. At the end of the month, observe your calendar and the marks. From this, you can tell why experience those symptoms in those days.
• Check your histamine levels, and if you experience the symptoms more often than ever, it is highly recommended to see medical professional.
• Get to the root cause of your issue instead of solely relying on a low histamine diet

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Dr. Ana-Maria Temple is a functional medicine doctor, an integrative pediatrician, a best-selling author, and an award-winning speaker at the Harvard Club of Boston. She is also a frequent guest on TV news and talk shows.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Abby:

Welcome to the podcast today, we are talking all about histamine intolerance. I know that so many of you have asked me for an episode like this. A lot of you are also avoiding high histamine foods, so I thought that this episode could really help you. I have my guest, Dr. Anna Maria temple, back on the show.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Histamines – especially this time of the year when we have everything blooming and it’s beautiful, but allergies is a perfect time to talk about histamine. And what happens is that in our bodies, we have, the cells are called mast cells, and they look like little piñata and inside the piñata, there’s not candy, there’s histamines. And when the mast cells explode, the histamines explode and, but the mast cells are created by our body to protect us from viruses, bacteria, fungi, mold, pollen, because you don’t want to have too much pollen in the body because that detrimentally affects. So the body protects itself with the mast cells and the histamines design, the mast cells. So, we have pollen coming at us and the histamine, the muscles are patrolling. They see the pollen, the piñata explodes, the histamines go everywhere. And now they have to go into specific receptors to cause a specific reaction to get rid of the pollen.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

So for example, we have histamine one receptors in our nose and in our eyes. So when pollen comes in, you start smearing and your water eyes and your itchy, and it’s all like regular and your face that’s histamine, one receptor. And the way mast cells protect us is that sneezing in the snot is helping us expel the pollen. So it’s a defense mechanism against pollen. However, some people, when we use upon example, they have another receptor H two receptor, and that is in our guts and in our bellies. And I’ll have patients who during pollen season get belly aches. They vomit, they they’re nauseated. And when they eat certain foods that cross-react with the pollen, they get even more belly sensitive. And then we have histamine number three receptor, which is in our brain. Those kids and adults are usually brain fog, tired, headaches, irritable, more ADHD symptoms more behavioral problems because the histamines have now attached to the brain receptors and are irritating the system.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

I can’t tell you how that’s protective, but that’s what happens. And then for histamine, number four, that’s located through the rest of our body and our skin. And that’s when we have eczema, flaring, psoriasis, flaring, and other things because the histamines have exploded, but it’s not just pollen. That was just an example. We can have histamines overload because genetically, you can have it. Like we said, because of pollen. Stress, stress releases, tons of histamines and makes those mast cells explode. Mold exposure, because we said, that’s the body’s way of trying to protect us viral infection, bacterial infection, and even some foods there’s foods that contain histamines. And when we eat them, it causes a triggering effect of histamines to name a few things. And don’t forget medications. You can be taking medications that trigger a histamine response.

Abby:

And, from what I know, everyone actually has histamines, but then when we have an overload, we’re not able to actually how do I say, break it down properly. Then that’s when we have the histamine intolerance happen and the flare ups can happen as well. Right?

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Right. Because you have too much because you have the histamines explode. And then we have an enzyme called diamine oxidase enzyme (DOA), and that breaks down the histamine. So, when you eat it, that that enzyme is in our bellies. And when we eat food that is high in histamine, that enzyme supposed to work and chop up any of the existing means from the food. And then the rest of your digestive enzymes through your body are supposed to tone that down. But if you don’t have enough of that enzyme or you have a sick belly, the bacteria in our gut, and we have 3.3 trillion bacteria in our gut for every one human cell or 10 bacteria cells, your body weight as an adult, three to four pounds of that is gut bacteria. Anyway. So we have bacteria in our gut that when the balance is off, produce histamines and can make the histamine issue even worse.

Abby:

That’s a big one. And I know a lot of people deal with that. So what are your recommendations? Do you recommend people to get tested for histamine or they usually can tell if they have a histamine intolerance, especially if they flare up or if they have allergies to pollen. Things like that.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

First thing I would do is I would keep a calendar of your symptoms. I love calendar. What does he have? Belly pain. You have headache, you have mood issues, keep a calendar and don’t make it complicated. Print out a white peeling up from Google. You can print out June and put on your refrigerator. And when you have flare, just put an X and see what they have in common. And you’re like, oh my gosh, every time I go to my son’s soccer game, my skin falls off. Oh my gosh, every time I work out, I have migraines. Oh my gosh. Every time that I eat gluten, or I go out to restaurants is when my belly hurts. The calendar, I would say helps like 80 to 90% of my patients figure out the issue all by themselves. So calendars, where I was starting to kind of get an awareness are histamines a problem. And then I would take a look at your diet because we can decrease the histamine load with a diet. And, you know, high histamine foods are going to be processed foods with preservatives food coloring, TBHQ, BHT, artificial flavors. Often times, gluten and dairy are high histamine foods, red wine kids. I’m sorry, everyone’s going to click off, but red wine is a big histamine food. Kombucha and fermented foods are high histamines and bull smoked cheese. So basically your favorite shark food to replatter is like your worst nightmare. If you have a histamine issue.

Abby:

Oh no. I’m just saying all the people in their minds thinking like this is so overwhelming,

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Overwhelming the dried fruit. I mean, so, but just kind of having an awareness, I always tell people there’s no reason to jump in and start making drastic, just be aware. Is this a problem for you?

Abby:

Yeah. Because, I know people who do have high histamine or they have either been tested that they have high histamine and they cut out a lot of foods. And so it’s, it’s tough because almost every single food out there, or at least a lot of foods out there are high histamine. So what do you recommend in those cases when that happens?

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

That I would really like for them to work with somebody like you, because I think we have become people that are isolationists, Simon word, but we’re now we’ve taught to be isolated. And now Google has made us think we’re isolated. So when I don’t need help, I’ll Google it. And we will become nutritionally deficient. When we go on various diets without proper help from somebody who’s trained in this, it seems like food is no big deal. Food is a huge deal. And we can create so many issues. I cannot tell you how many patients. I haven’t practiced who came because ADA did a food sensitivity test or Googled their symptoms and decided to go on various diets and their children have become so picky and so afraid of food. And so nutritionally deficient, because they didn’t have somebody to guide them.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Because when you take something away, you have to put something back. You can’t just go and then I’m not going to have any of this stuff. And yet in our practice, you know, when I deal, I don’t deal with adults, but I’ll have some college kids and let’s say they drink red wine. And they’re like, well, I’m going to go. I’m going to live life. I’m advocacy, going to a frat party. I’m like, okay, well, instead of the red wine, you’re going to drink this drink. You know? So you ha even in that case, we’re doing substance continuous substitutions because we don’t want to live a life of deprivation. And you don’t, you’re not going to be malnourished from lack of alcohol, but for others things, every time you take a food, that’s high in histamines, you’re going to put one in that is low in histamines. And it’s hard because when you use eating a certain way, all you know is remove, remove your brain. Doesn’t go. And now we’re going to have daikon radishes and how we’re going to eat. You know, Barbara Mundey fish from Australia now we’re good. You don’t know how to do that because you’re not a trained nutritionist. And even if you are, you can’t treat yourself because you can’t treat yourself.

Abby:

I love that. Do you ever recommend people have like small exposures to the food because I’ve heard of cases where some people become Anna Filactic to the food after moving in for a certain amount of time, or either they develop a sensitivity to it where they might flare more often than before when they removed the food.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Yeah. So that is a true story. And what I usually see happen is people remove the food and they do it without guidance. And they remove the food without healing, the gut. And when you remove the food, the antibodies are still circulating. Because you haven’t summed down the inflammation and then you bring back the food a month later, or three months later, you haven’t done anything for the gut. Now the system is still inflamed. And now the body’s like, oh, I haven’t seen this in a while. And now it’s a massive reaction. So yes, we see that happen. However, in my practice we do food eliminations all the time and we heal the guts all the time. And the majority of the time, what I see is that this food sensitivities drop off horrible food allergies get better. And you know, it’s like coincidence. It’s not coincidence when we work on healing, the gut, that’s where the food allergies and intolerance happen. So yes, it is a true thing. It can absolutely happen. I see it happening in minority of patients that we heal the gut. What I usually see is that food sensitivities and tolerance actually get better as we heal the gut.

Abby:

That’s awesome. And I agree with you. I’ve seen that happen a lot and it just a testament to healing the body from the inside out rather than using topicals or medications to suppress the issue.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Right. And I usually say like, if you remove food and you’re not, so people that have not allergy like peanut allergy, and you’re not, that’s telling us your gut, you have a leaky gut. We have to work on it. If you don’t do anything about it, then it’s like tree nuts become an issue. Suddenly eggs are an issue, that it’s like the whole cascade because the body is like, I’m still trying to tell you something. So trying to tell you something, I’m certain, you know, and they’re like, oh no, you just now a food allergy person. And there’s just a kind of what happens. I cannot deal with that answer.

Abby:

What are your thoughts on people taking a histamine blocker for,

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Yeah. Sometimes you need to be a histamine blocker and that’s okay. But again, you know, that there’s, this is a temporary thing until we fix the gut. Because just taking Zyrtec, which is a histamine blocker is not the answer to your seasonal allergies. I mean, if you have like four days of seasonal allergies and not a big deal, you take a couple of Zyrtec. That’s not what I’m saying, but people that are cannot walk out of the house and they have to be on Zyrtec year round. My husband is a perfect example. He’s been on Zyrtec like his entire life. And he had Dermal Graphism. So it’s like, you could write your name on somebody’s skin and then like he wrotes up and, so because he, as he calls it, he got put into, to radical dictatorship and had to survive this household of clean eating and low gluten and low dairy without him volunteering for. But anyways, so now that he’s lived this life, he goes, it’s like, I’m gone. You know, like I don’t take Zyrtec sometimes and I don’t break out in hives anymore and I don’t have the Dermal Graphism. Huh? My joints don’t hurt either. I’m like, that’s a miracle. It’s amazing.

Abby:

It’s like, you’ve healed your whole entire household. Well, it’s like,

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

And you know, but that’s what I tell everybody. I was like, it’s not about the one person that’s suffering. Everyone has to do the plan together. The end will be amazed when the whole family does the plan together. People that didn’t even know had issues. All of a sudden are like, I dropped some weight. I didn’t, oh, you know, oh, I’m sleeping better. I didn’t even realize I could sleep better. I have energy. I have dads in our eczema course all the time. They’re like I had horrible season allergies. I don’t have seasonal allergies anymore. You know, I had dad that had acne on his back and he’s like, taste something. That’s gone thought that was just like an old guy thing, you know?

Abby:

And this is not related, but my dad, he does have a little bit of eczema, but he has like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, things like that. And then he removed like refined carbs from his diet and his blood pressure dropped from 150 to one 120, right away.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

The power of food. Yeah. The power of food. Yeah.

Abby:

Yeah, exactly. So, okay. When people have histamine intolerance, how do you get to the root cause to solve that? If they’ve already removed certain foods or done the calendar, what happens after?

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Well, that’s probably, when you look and see, you know, a stool test, it would be very helpful. Like what bacteria do you have to, you have bacteria that is not supposed to be there that is causing histamines. Are you taking probiotics that could make your histamine situation worse? Because not all probiotics are created equal, just because you pay a lot of money for it doesn’t mean it’s a good fit. So, you can be taking a probiotic. You can have a lot of dysbiosis which means a lot like an infection in your gut that needs to be treated. We’ve gotta look at mold, are you living in a moldy environment? Is that why you can get your histamines under control? Stress? Can I say enough? I don’t think I can say enough. Stress is like so huge and such a trigger of histamines, you know, and I talked to families and yeah, yeah, we do it.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

And then I could hear like the tension and I’m like, you are not, no, you’ve got to be into the Zen mode. You know, that’s like when you become like basically a yoga instructor, Zen mode and then, you know, you can certainly do intestinal permeability test that tells you, are you dealing with a lot of histamines? Do you have an enzyme deficiency? And how bad is your leaky gut? Those would be the two tests. Oh, let me actually three. So like stool testing, intestinal permeability, and, or mold testing.

Abby:

So once people get those tests done what are the big recommendations you usually see? I know there’s going to be so many because it depends on each person, but let’s say like from a high level summary, just for people who are listening and struggling with it, what can they usually do after they get those tests done?

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Sure. Well, if you have mold, you have to remove the mold or you have to move and go somewhere else because the mold is not your friend. Or if you can move, you get an air doctor. And it is like truly the best air filter to get you out of. Even if you live in a moldy environment, it makes a huge difference. Then you have, if you have mold, then you have to go through detox. If you have high histamines, you’re going to have to go on a low histamine diet. And if you have a deficiency in enzymes, you’re going to have to take the DOA enzyme. If you have leaky gut, you have to remove the foods that keep irritating the gut and you have to do specific minerals Vitamin D, Zinc, Omegas sometimes Vitamin C, you got to do specific probiotics, digestive, enzymes herbals to help balance. So, if you have dysbiosis and when you do your stool tests, you have a lot of critters are not supposed to be there. We got to get rid of them using herbals. If you have a lot of yeast overgrowth, which can be a big problem for eczema, got to get that under control with antifungal herbals, there’s antifungal medications and the specific probiotics that prevent it from coming back.

Abby:

I love that you just somehow put everything in such a high level summary with like narrows of what you do into like a condensed sentences. That’s amazing.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Thank you. Yeah. And then, and then you get…

Abby:

Awesome. I think you’ve shared so much great information about where people can get started, how they can get started, because there’s so much to it. And I really love the way you teach and the analogies that you give are so good, so succinct and easy to understand. So, thank you for that.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Sure. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I try to put out as much information as I can, obviously. I just can’t do free consults for everybody, which could, but that’s why, you know, we’re doing these podcasts and on Instagram. I try to put out as much content on our blog, my YouTube channel, trying to put as much out there as I can, when not in clinic or on my online courses.

Abby:

So, for babies who go through this, if they have histamine intolerance what do you usually do in that case?

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Yeah. I have several in my online eczema course and the mamas and the babies are nursed. And so of course, the mamas have to go on the diet that helps the baby and the mom’s going on. The elimination diet actually makes a huge difference in the babies. And then when the babies begin solid food introduction, we begin with low histamine foods. And then we were generally able to stay out of trouble.

Abby:

That’s great. I love that. And yeah, I’ve heard a lot of parents who do go on elimination diets and it does help the kids as well.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

It does, but you know, my mom has need to do, to be able to do an elimination diet, even with food replacements. Because as a mom, we’re tired, we’re exhausted. We’re the nursing. So we’re the food for the baby. We have to wipe the baby’s butt and now we’ve got to make sure the baby sleeping. We have to be sleeping. We have to wipe our own butt, we have to make sure we’re eating. So it’s like, it’s so much extra. So I’m always getting really worried about my, my nursing mammas can like there’s too much pressure. Please get the help of a nutritionist to help you in this journey because you can’t do it. It’s not make you a lesser woman or a lesser mama. It’s just too much. And you there’s too much at stake.

Abby:

Yeah. I totally agree with that. And everything you said it’s yeah. Bang on. So thanks for sharing that. I have had one client where his doctor was able to get him a histamine intolerance test, but that’s so rare. And I guess that doesn’t happened, right?

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

It doesn’t even have to work with a functional medicine doctor. Yeah.

Abby:

Well, I guess I always tell my client how lucky he is because he gets it for free.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

It’s amazing.

Abby:

Yeah, for sure. So Dr. Anna Maria temple any last words or encouragement that you want to give people who are listening, who might be dealing with this

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

Eczema is so hard. It’s so stressful when we went, especially when it’s happening to our children, you know, because we will take any pain for ourselves, but when it’s happening to our babies, it is gut-wrenching. So just know that there is hope and that there’s help. And then what, if whatever you’re doing is not working, you’ve got to try something else. It doesn’t mean that your child is the case that no one has heard of. Because, when we’re in our suffering, we feel like we’re the only one and the folks that are in my online eczema course. And I’m sure the folks that you work with, they’re like, but you don’t understand, have you ever seen this? And you’re like, well actually, unfortunately, yes, I see this all the time. But when you are the person suffering, you feel like you’re the only one.

Dr. Ana Maria Temple:

You’re the only one. That’s not eating processed foods. You’ve given up sugar. You’ve read about vitamin D and you’ve read about not putting creams and lotions on your child. You’ve done all this and your child is still suffering. Therefore you need to find another plant. There’s doesn’t mean that’s the end of the road. It just means that there’s something else you’re not thinking of because most of us are not trained in this. Like we spent years, right? How many years do we spend learning about it? So please just know that there’s hope. And if what you’re doing is not working, try something else and don’t rely on medications as the first step.

Abby:

Thank you for sharing that. I think everything you shared is so important and you gave a lot of wise words and I appreciate everything that you do.