Histamine - Is is causing food alergies

Histamines are chemicals in your body. They control a host of functions, including immunity and digestion.

Could histamine intolerance be the reason you have poor digestion?

Let’s step back and understand the role of histamines.

Histamines cause your blood vessels to dilate. They help in signalling the release of hydrochloric acid, which helps you digest.

In the brain, it helps regulate sleep, waking and rest. In your colon, it helps regulate your inflammatory response.

Yet, like everything in your body, there can be an excessive amount. When your body produces too much for long periods, you develop histamine intolerance.

Now you develop allergies to food.

But what is the connection you ask?

Many foods have histamines.

Fermented alcohol. Foods that are fermented such as vinegar, soy, kefir, pickles or yoghurt. Dried fruits. Cheese and so on.

There are foods that stimulate histamine production. Milk and tomatoes, for example.

When you consume these foods, it appears that you have an intolerance. You might imagine that you can’t tolerate dairy. Or fermented foods cause you allergies.

But we need to ask why your body is over-producing histamine?

Several reasons. When you have bacterial over growth in your intestines. When you are constantly taking pain killers. When your intestine walls are damaged and leak food into your blood stream. There are several others.

All of these create an inflammatory response. One of the outcomes is the over production of histamines. Repeated over weeks and months, you develop an intolerance to histamines.

Now a little more will throw you over the cliff. You have “food allergies.”

It is not my intent to trivialize food allergies or claim you might not have them. Instead, I want to point you in the direction of looking at alternate probable causes.

When solving a problem, it really helps to look in the right place.

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