Brain Fog, Fatigue, And Bloating: Is Histamine Sabotaging Your Health?

Introduction to the summit and histamine issues 0:00

Hi, everyone. This is Doctor Joseph Anton. Welcome today to a new episode of the Fasting and Longevity Summit. We promise to change your lives here. And we do it every time with one of the top experts in the field of fasting and or longevity and or interesting, you know, interesting and just health, the health issue that can be connected to fasting and longevity. And this is what we're doing today. A lot of us are suffering from this. I would call it always subclinical. Like we feel weak. We feel where we have gut health issues.

We feel we have brain fog. We feel we go to our doctor in the back is like, well, you know, your blood bloodwork looks good. Maybe you're just going through this phase. And we go back home and we keep we keep feeling the same. And what's happening to us in a lot of cases is where we have a little bit of higher inflammation. We have a little bit of a subclinical health condition and or syndrome or symptoms. Some of them are driven by histamine, which is a one of the biggest epidemic in the last ten, 20 years with with what we eat, where we get exposed to the toxins, the the, the, the additives, the microbiome change, the leaky gut is getting a lot of if you want foreign ingredients into our body, plus the stress plus how our body is behave.

This all of this is creating a high level of irritability, of histamine, of inflammation in the blood, in the body. And we don't want that because it's just accelerating our aging. Today we brought to you one of the top experts in the field, doctor Meg, the farm doctor, a certified functional medicine practitioner. She has focused her career on histamine issues, helping a lot of women and men. You know, getting off that subclinical by the very importance and, syndrome.

Doctor Meg's background and functional medicine practice 1:58

And we wanted to bring this to you today because as part of part of the 360 view of longevity, it's very important. Thank you for your time today, Doctor Meg, and welcome to the Fasting and Longevity Summit. Hi. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Thank you. I want you to elaborate a little bit. You have a very long experience and successful career and and media appearances and books and the topic. Can you brag a little bit so that the listeners understand this is a very credible expert in here?

Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Yes. You know, I think like all of us, I just I'm a researcher at nature. And so when something doesn't go right or like you're saying, you're not getting the answers that you want, you start researching. And that's really what happened to me about 20 years ago. I was really having some of my own health issues. And here I am in the health care system and not able to get the answers that I needed to get to actually feel better. So I started doing my own research, which just snowballed into, okay, now I need to learn this.

Now I need to learn this. I'm in really opened my own functional medicine practice. I have a virtual practice where I see people all over the world. We've been able to reach thousands of people. We ran a summit last year on histamine and mast cell activation syndrome, because this is something that really, I think, especially in our conventional system, that people just aren't getting answers for. They're really like just like you mentioned, being told all the time, you're fine, everything looks good.

And you're like, I have full body symptoms. I'm reacting to things. I, you know, I'm bloated all the time. I'm low energy, I'm brain fog, I've rashes, I have migraines. We'll get into all of these things and why they happen. But we're seeing people really suffering and not getting answers. So up through a lot of my research, I just found that really once you look at it from this perspective, it's a little bit of a different perspective. But we can bring so many things back into place. It's one of those root causes that can affect a lot of different symptoms and systems.

At the same time. No, that's a perfect segue to like what is histamine and what are the signs of hysteria intolerance? A lot of people listening today might might feel the symptoms,

What histamine is and why it matters 4:08

but they never knew that it was related to histamine. So can you a little bit tell us what is histamine and what is what is histamine intolerance and what are the symptoms. Yeah sure. So histamine is actually a what we call a biogenic amine. So when your immune system detects an allergen or an invader, histamines actually release primarily from your mast cells in your base of cells as part of your immune system. So it's part of this innate immune system. You have two parts of your immune system.

You have your innate immune system and then your adaptive immune system. So the innate immune system is just ready to go, ready to get any of those invaders. So when we see something that comes in, histamines release to increase permeability of blood vessels, it allows immune cells to reach areas more quickly. So it actually gets a bad rap. We'll talk about when it gets out of balance that causes symptoms. But it really is important for our immune defense. It helps protects against pathogens. It actually helps regulate your gastric acid secretion to digest your food.

It affects your neurotransmitters like serotonin or norepinephrine acetylcholine. So it can be involved in your wakefulness, your alertness, your cognitive function, your brain function, your mood. It's part of our allergic response. It constricts your bronchial, bronchial constriction whenever you breathe in a harmful airborne pathogen. And it actually purposefully creates an inflammatory response. So we're going to talk, you know, about inflammation and the effects of inflammation. But histamine actually creates inflammation on purpose because it's recruiting immune cells to the site of infection or injury.

Through this increase vascular permeability and blood flow, it just becomes a problem. When we get excessive amounts, it's poorly regulated. Then it can create this chronic inflammation where where it really becomes a problem. And how do people feel that when it becomes chronic, when there's always that irritability happening. Right. So to explain to people, it's part of the normal reaction of immunity to support the body. The problem is when the body's always getting, you know, hit by toxins by, by a leaky gut and foreign, you know, increasing the body's and being under stress.

It's like we're in a high histamine for all the time, and we start not tolerating. Well, what are the symptoms? How how somebody can think about it. Think, say, say, maybe I have this, you know, syndrome. And what what are those symptoms? How they can feel it. This is where it gets interesting because a lot of us just think allergies. So I think the most common thing you think of is like oh histamine allergy season. And there actually are four different types of histamine receptors in the body. So yes you can have nasal congestion.

You can have sneezing. You can have difficulty breathing like asthma. We can see rashes high skin issues, things like that. But then we also see headaches and migraines. We see fatigue. We can see heart palpitations, dizziness, anxiety, difficulty concentrating. We can see irregular periods flushing, joint pain, difficulty sleeping. You know, all of these things start to happen. Even when we said anxiety, depression, mood

Symptoms of histamine intolerance 7:22

because of the different types of receptors. So that's why I think it is like we need to take a vision of okay, yeah, allergy symptoms are one thing, but this is a whole body issue. And sometimes you can even categorize it by I think a lot of people just explain like even feeling a little bit hypersensitive. So they'd be maybe more sensitive than someone else to the same thing. Fantastic. And how can since we're talking about longevity and I'm going to go back to fasting after, how does having these symptoms and histamine intolerance impact longevity?

Yeah. So really when we're looking at longevity, we need to look at our the healthy body. You know what keeps us healthy. And so when we're seeing these high levels of histamine, we're there's there's different things going on. But one of them is that chronic inflammation. So we're getting this because like we said the the point of histamine, one of the things it does is create inflammation. So if you're having these chronic levels of inflammation then we're seeing issues with all sorts of health issues.

You know. So really I'm going to like even take a step back here to help kind of explain some of the other things too, because we have we have to see like why histamine gets out of balance. So for this, I like to just use the analogy of a bathtub. So if you are, if you have a bathtub and you have a drink, you're draining out the water all the time and you're pouring water in your night, you know, it's flowing out. You never overflow. Your body's working like it should, and that's where we should all be.

So we want to look at this in two places. We want to look at the plug, and we want to look at how much is coming in. So we need to make sure that we're metabolizing the histamine that we bring in. So we do that in two pathways. We have our diamine oxidase pathway in the gut. And then we have our histamine and methyltransferase pathway. So we need to be able to digest histamine. And we need to be able to methylated in our cells. So if either one of those pathways get blocked you have the overload.

How histamine affects longevity 9:20

Then we need to look at all the things that are coming in. And these are the same things that affect longevity, affect toxicity, affect aging in other ways. And so we're like okay, we can have we can have heavy metals, we can have toxic exposure, we can have mold, we can have viruses and bacteria and has high histamine foods and mast cell activation syndrome and all of these things that are filling this bathtub up. And then that's when we're starting. Got that are actually histamine producing a mast cell activating.

So it's a really interesting thing when you're really going through some of this. And look at are we controlling our body or are microbes controlling our body. And even if you're if you have good pathways, if you're working on decreasing toxins, maybe you even have microbes here that are produced that are high in histamine like histamine producers. And we also need to look at gut health, make sure that you're digesting the histamine and that we're clearing any underlying infections. So that's another thing that we really need to focus on long term.

When we're looking even at both longevity and at really reducing these has I mean, let's I know I kind of went in a lot of directions there, but it's all, you know, there's so many aspects here when we're looking at the immune system, when we're looking at the, you know, inflammation, we're looking at our gut health that kind of all connect. And and so what do you when somebody is coming with this with these symptoms you're suspecting they might have a an intolerance or a high histamine. What what are the questions you ask?

What are the top three four root causes that you think about. And and then I'll, I'll, I'll go to fasting after that to see if we can help some of the root causes. Yeah. So we have a lot of things that we'll see are like one, I would say one of the root causes is the imbalance in the, the gut bacteria. So we need to make sure that you, that you actually have a good healthy microbiome, that your immune system and your microbiome is working and that you're able to that you have a healthy brush border in your immune system so that you have a healthy brush for an immune system so that you are able to digest the histamine.

We also have to be able to digest and absorb our nutrients because we can see nutrient efficient deficiencies affecting this. So we need to make sure of that. Then we also, you know, want to look at our environment and our toxic exposures. So are you exposed to mold? Sometimes when we're have this underlying mold exposure, we see this immune activation. And we have this constant immune activation becoming. So so big and underdiagnosed. Right. A lot of people and a lot of physicians do not look into mold and toxins and ends up being a lot of cases.

And, you know, that's the primary reason. And this is something I had to learn going from my traditional

Root causes: gut health, toxins, and genetics 12:28

training in medicine to, to to now nutrition and functional medicine. And it's just it's amazing how many people actually end up and end up getting their primary diagnosis. I had someone this week who just I mean within two weeks of starting, she hadn't been able to breathe for four years. She was like I literally half and don't feel like I've been able to take. She just had so many issues going on. I don't think I've been able to take a breath for four years. And she's like, you sent this little vial of blood away, and within two weeks, like, I'm a different like I'm a different person.

How did you even do it? I was like, because no one else is looking for the things that we're looking for here because, you know, it's just you need to get to the right, the right underlying causes. And then the combination of things generally there's more than one. So we're seeing, you know, maybe we're seeing some mold, which is huge in this area where we're maybe seeing some heavy metals, maybe seeing some just environmental things, but then maybe a this like a dysregulated microbiome not being your nutrients, we might see some genetic factors.

So you can have mutations in your diamine oxidase pathways. You can have them in your methylation pathways. But I have to say honestly I don't feel that, you know, when we're looking at the whole person, even when we have these genetic factors, you're not having these symptoms when you're very little, when you're a baby, there's there's things that build, you know, we're really looking at like, okay, we're putting this on and then we're putting this on and them and they're building over time. So once we get everything else in balance, we can we can get you feeling much better.

Even if you have some of these genetic I think people label that like I can't feel better because of my genetics. Well, we just need to do the things to optimize you and then people use it on the problem. I always say when people bring up genetics, especially in diabetes, right? Which is like, hey, if I'm good genetics, it would be the same proportion or probability, it doesn't multiply or by five and ten and 20 falls within 2 or 3 generations. So it's definitely related to to lifestyle or exposure and other stuff.

There is yes, definitely genetic predisposition. But that explains a portion of it. A lot of it is acquired now through our lifestyles or environment or where we live, etc.. Absolutely. So I know you've tried fasting as part of, probably the building microbiome and cells. And can you talk a little bit about your experience with fasting and how do you recommend fasting to support people? From a nutritional standpoint, this is not a, a treatment for histamine intolerance per se, or, or tested for, but how can it support people with, with this kind of syndrome to, to to from a nutritional perspective?

Yeah, we've seen a lot of research here, positive fasting. And I actually just even in my practice, we'll see the benefit of the way people feel. So, you know, fasting is something I use regularly for people with, with all sorts of the not even just my histamine patients, but like everyone, can benefit in different ways. But when we're looking at it through this histamine perspective, we see that, you know, there are studies showing that that fasting can decrease histamine release in your body in general.

So we know that, like, it can actually there are some studies showing that actually fasting can reduce mast cell granulation. So like we talked about the histamines released from the mast cells. When the mast cells the granules they are releasing it. You're getting the symptoms. So we're looking at you know really just trying to reduce the granulation. We see that it lowers inflammation. So fasting in general has anti inflammatory effects. So it can lower the pro-inflammatory cytokines. It can reduce the systemic inflammation.

So when we're bringing the overall inflammation down it's also helping our symptoms. There is there's studies with gut health and even the improvement in gut gut health when fasting. So as we said that a lot of histamine intolerance is an underlying issue with gut health. We also see that, you know, the extended fasts particularly can help reset the parts of our immune system. So we're saying, okay, well, if you're having faulty immune cells, including these hypersensitive mast cells. So sometimes when we have like a mast cell activation syndrome

Fasting as a tool for histamine and inflammation 16:58

and we're going through the autophagy and we're reducing these cells, we can actually see benefit. So we can see this regeneration or our immune system that can also help. So we're you know we see it in a lot of different ways. And what I think, you know, it's interesting with the research and looking at that. And then also just really seeing I love just seeing how people respond, you know, when you're when you're doing these things and you're saying, okay, I have this positive response, I feel better, I feel I feel better when I fast than when I don't fast.

And so it's something that we can build in as a tool for people to use. So, you know, I use it myself. I do recommend it. I think it's something that that's really good. Everyone listen to your body. And I think that we're getting there. Sometimes people have this. I would say most people I work with don't anymore. But you know, we have this ingrained in our head like, I have to eat breakfast, you know, from like what, the 80s or something. So it's like being open to change. And it's some of it's a mental capacity to be able to realize like, yes, this is health, this has health benefits.

This is good. You can do this. You just have to be able to wrap your head around doing it, especially for prolonged fasting. Yeah. And, those who follow me, they know the one thing that I'm mostly proud of when it comes to prolonged fasting is that the doctors and the experts do them all the time before breakfast, right? I always say, you know, when you ask doctors, hey, do you do this diet? I don't want to name names. They know I sometimes recommended you do this pill yourself. Now, I sometimes prescribe it right when it comes to proven fasting, mimicking diet every day is like, well, you were the number one customer that I still we still have the most prolonged use is a 34 cycle, after all.

It's an okay and physician. They still the physician leading the charge as consumers of the prolonged fasting. And this is testimony for science. And I'm saying this just for the listeners to understand, this is something that your doctor and the experts believe in. They did the trials and they believe it's clean, ingredients, longevity formulation such enough that they, they do with themselves. And that's, that's something I want to translate to to and, and inspire people to understand when your doctor does it, it means it's good enough.

Yes. Yeah. And I think another thing that you've done that you and I have discussed is when we're looking at the histamine population, there is a special like the generation three is low histamine. I know we've done and I've worked with your team on really researching that for people, because people can be sensitive to a lot of foods. So when you're doing something you're worried like, okay, but can I tolerate this? And I find it very easy for people to tolerate, which is important to. Yeah. So, final question from my side.

Do, do you do fasting in, in like the first intervention phase or you ask them to continue to do it, as, you know, within their as part of their lifestyle? Is it part of the detox initial screening or it's, it's a it's a longer protocol. So it whatever. It depends. Really for me where each person is. So you know, it can be that initial tool right away to, to stabilize the mast cells so we can use that initially for someone. But, you know, if they're coming in like, you know, mindset is also a big deal.

So it kind of will depend on who who's who the person is. But I do feel like it's a good tool to bring down and stabilize the mast cells. We do use it there. And then we're using it something ongoing. So it is something that you can do and you're your recommend. And I have followed that once a quarter for the for the Pro line is the ideal. Yeah. Is that correct. Yeah. No this is what we have tested. Right. Once a month for three months and or for maintenance

Closing thoughts and where to find Doctor Meg 21:08

once every quarter is, is all we have tested the most. And maybe in between, if you still have outside of the five days, maybe what you mentioned that control intermittent fasting to keep the the external excitement to the white blood cells a little bit lower so they don't keep bursting in and increase the spikes of insulin IGF body. So that's the connectivity between what I call inflammation, the inflammation and breaking that down so that we don't we're not in a high inflammatory process and we're not aging faster.

That's of. That. Yes. This is why we we're all doing everything we can to prevent that. Right. Yeah. Well I appreciate you so much. Thanks for your wisdom today. I know a lot of people today listening to this like, wait a second. I was feeling these symptoms for a while. Maybe I should check for it. And and hopefully they do. And hopefully somebody is going to find an answer in here and try to try to enhance their life. Yes, yes. Need to. Yes. Yes. No. Thank you for having me I do, I do like talk about this a lot so you can always find me.

It's Meg Malcolm. I have a podcast called A Little Bit Healthier that we we bring all of this information and I love sharing this. And I love spreading the word for people to know that, you know, there's and I think that's what we're on a mission to show. Like there's things you can do every day that improve your health. And we want to share. You know, thank you very, very much. Thank you for having me.