Healing With Histamine Intolerance

Beverley Rider, PhD

Thank you so much, Beth. I’m so honored to be with you today and speaking on histamine intolerance.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Well, and so many people who get into these areas, it’s really a labor of love. And I know that was the case for you as well with your daughter. Can you just share with us a little bit more about how you got into working with histamine intolerance and the shift that you made in your career?

Beverley Rider, PhD

Sure. Like you said, I was a PhD in biotech research, working for more than 10 years. And when I had my daughter, I was climbing the corporate ladder, thinking I was a big wig, I know my immunology. But when she started having immune responses, all my training didn’t help. And I felt humbled, I felt I needed to know more. So I turned to a lot of different practitioners, functional medicine, holistic, and many traditional doctors. To summarize a lot of information and a lot of experience, it turns out that she was having reactions to many different foods and it was worsened by stress. And when we figured it out, we removed these foods, improved her diet, reduced her stress, and a lot of these things combined helped her to feel better. But then I realized that I needed to know this stuff. 

So I asked these practitioners, where could I go to learn more? Because my training hasn’t helped me. Not that it was not useful, it was in many situations, but I needed to know this for myself and my daughter. And so I went to Bowman College and got a diploma in nutrition, nutrition consultant, and opened my own practice for many years to help others having these type of reactions. And now I come full circle and I’m back teaching at Bowman College on histamine and many other nutrition related conditions, et cetera. So that’s my journey.

Beth O’Hara, FN

And that’s one of the things I love about your work, is you’re really about both educating practitioners and also helping people understand for themselves what’s going on. And you have a real gift for breaking things down into language that people can wrap their heads around and understand and take action on. So why don’t we start with just the basics? What is histamine intolerance? What are the symptoms? When should people start suspecting this?

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yeah. Great question. It’s good to start with the basics. Because when we think of histamine, we envision allergic misery. Histamine is been equated with allergic reactions, but it’s actually involved in so many more different things. Everything from it’s a neurotransmitter, so mood, sleep, it’s involved in digesting our food, it’s involved in immunity. So it’s in good things too. We think of histamine as negative, it gets a bad rap, but it’s actually vital. We wouldn’t survive without histamine. Even the most primitive animals have histamine. So it’s quite essential. And because it’s used across so many different functions, it’s actually, histamine intolerance, the symptoms, have a wide variety of potential signs and symptoms.

Beth O’Hara, FN

And what are some of the most common symptoms that you see with histamine intolerance? I’m just thinking people are gonna be thinking, well how do I know if I should look further into this?

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yeah, absolutely. So like I said, because histamine is involved in so many different systems that could be really varied and there are many unexplained symptoms, such as when you eat something, you can get an itchy tongue, or a cough, or a runny nose, or digestive issues, bloating, diarrhea, things like that. Also, sensitive skin, rashes, eczema, and things like that. After eating a certain food or drinking wine, especially red wine. And histamine is also found all over the body, so it can pop up in these different areas. Like I said, the skin, the digestive system, the mouth. But there are certain patterns of symptoms, and I think a big clue is someone’s who’s quite allergic or feels like they have allergies to a lot of different things, they can’t explain why they’re allergic to so many things, and only sometimes allergic to certain things, that’s a clue. Also, a lot of inflammation all over the body is a clue. 

There are typical foods that are involved in increasing histamine, so that would be a clue if those are the foods that people feel worse afterwards. And to back up, I didn’t answer your question about what is histamine intolerance. I think I skipped straight to symptoms, because a lot people wanna know first, do I have this? So maybe I can explain what it is. It isn’t intolerance, it’s kind of a misleading term. It’s not really an intolerance per se, but it’s actually a buildup of histamine above your body’s ability to get rid of it or excrete it. So there’s really two parts to it. You have histamine coming into the body, say from your foods, and your drinks, and other sources, and we’ll talk about those. And then there’s also too little going out, or being processed or excreted. So you have this, if you have elevated histamine coming into the body and less histamine getting excreted, you have this buildup above a certain threshold. And once you reach this threshold, it overflows and you start to react. 

You could think of it as a sink analogy. And I think you used this analogy too. I might have even got it from you originally. Where if you think about the histamine coming into the body, it’s like the faucet is turned on, how much histamine is coming into the body. And the histamine going out is a little bit like the drain. It’s draining or emptying that sink full of histamine. And if that drain is clogged, for many reasons, there’s a variety of reasons it could be clogged, then that sink overflows and that’s where you get a reaction. It’s also, I wanted to point out the importance, it’s different than a food allergy. A food allergy is a very specific reaction. For example, toward peanuts. When someone eats even a trace amount of peanut, if they have a peanut allergy, then they get almost an immediate reaction to that specific allergen at a small amount and it’s immune mediated. 

Mast cells will release and other cells will release histamine, so the histamine is also involved. However, histamine intolerance is not necessarily an allergic mediated condition. We call it a hypersensitivity, and it’s, like I said, a buildup, so it’s not a specific tiny little amount of the allergen. You could have red wine, you could have another histamine food and another histamine food, and then suddenly you’re at your threshold. And it may not be right away, it could be within a few hours, it could be the next day. So those are some of the differences. But, you can have food allergies as well as histamine intolerance, and those two can actually worsen each other. So, yeah.

Beth O’Hara, FN

So you bring up some great points. So many people are like, well, I did a IgE and IgG food panel and these foods didn’t show up, so why not? But that’s what you’re talking about. There are different ways that we can have reactions to foods. We’ve got this immune mediated, which could be IgE, a true food allergy, or IgG, people often call food sensitivities, but this histamine intolerance, we’re talking about too much histamine. And then the degrading enzymes are overloaded and that’s that clog in the drain there. So I’m really glad you bring up these differences in these kinds of food reactions, because I think it’s much easier to find out, as long as you have good quality testing, and that’s its own challenge, it is off topic for us. But as long as you have good quality testing, it’s easier to find out what those IgE IgGs are. 

It can be more tricky for people to track down these histamine intolerances. And one of the other clues I often think about is that nighttime waking between about 2 and 4:00 a.m.. You talked about histamine being a neurotransmitter, and I’ll find that people tend to get that waking when the histamine’s getting cleared at that period of time. And it’s interesting, is in Chinese medicine that’s the liver clearing time. And then anxiety, depression. But so many symptoms are very similar with mast cell activation syndrome. Can you get into, for our listeners, the difference between mast cell activation syndrome and histamine intolerance, ’cause there’s so much overlap in our population where people have both, but they are different conditions.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Mast cell activation syndrome is, mast cells actually store histamine and release it when they’re triggered, and they also are triggered by histamine. So it can be a little bit of a vicious cycle. And when mast cells are super sensitive, they will be more easily triggered by histamine. And we have mast cells in a lot of the areas in our body where we come into contact with potential invader or something harmful, such as the entire digestive tract and also the mouth and the nose and the eyes. So these are areas that are typically areas where we get the symptoms of too much histamine, or even a mast cell activation syndrome like you were alluding to. There’s a spectrum of histamine intolerance from very mild to moderate, whereas that mast cell activation syndrome seems to be more moderate and above, because those mast cells are there and they can continue to react for a longer time, react to more things, have other mediators besides histamine. So they can release histamine, but then a number of other mediators. So you have the histamine symptoms that overlap with histamine intolerance, but all these other symptoms of the other mediators. So our histamine intolerance seems to be a little bit more, I would say it might be much more common and easier to reverse, or at least to deal with.

Beth O’Hara, FN

And then there’s people like me that have both. And then that’s an even more significant version. If you’ve got the mast cell involvement and the histamine intolerance, then like you were saying, the histamine intolerance, that excess histamine’s gonna keep triggering those mast cells, those mast cells are gonna release more histamine and you get those spirals down. What causes histamine intolerance? Let’s go there next. What are some of the most common causes?

Beverley Rider, PhD

Sure. So there’s actually a strict definition of a cause, but these are causes and contributors that all worsen the histamine intolerance. So I’ll start by saying that. The first one is genetics, your genes, especially genes for these enzymes that help clear histamine. DAO is one that you mentioned, diamine oxidase. HNMT is another one. But genes are not your destiny, because you were born with these genes doesn’t mean that you are going to have any guarantee of having histamine intolerance. There are many things you can do to regulate these genes. It just gives you a predisposition or a little bit more of a risk. So that’s the good news. Other ones, a big one is diet, what we eat. And I think people, when they have histamine intolerance, when they hear histamine intolerance, they focus on things like, ooh, avocado has histamine, or can release histamines, I better avoid that. 

So I like to shift that and think about the artificial, the processed foods that are inflammatory in general and raise that histamine in the body. Because anything inflammatory, or inflammation means histamine, so those processed foods, those artificial foods, artificial sugars or sweeteners, all these things are affecting us on a deeper level. And then that is more easily triggered by histamine. So when the avocado or the other whole nutritious food comes along, then the scale tips over, but it was really the processed foods, those standard American diet, those inflammatory artificial foods that are the bigger problem. So I wanted to make that point. And I have a list in my book of a lot of the typical foods. There are many lists, and we could talk about that afterwards, and almost all of them differ slightly. And I’ve heard this question, is why do these lists all differ so much? Because it was usually based on one person or a few people’s reactions, and each person is unique. Just talking more about the foods, I would say the top foods that are the histamine, either a contained histamine or release histamine, don’t change. Those ones are the ones to focus on. The ones that are on some lists and not others, those ones I think would come last to eliminate or to at least avoid short term. Okay, so –

Beth O’Hara, FN

I just wanna really encourage people to use your list, or Janice Joneja. She has really good research. Friend who’s no longer with us, Yasmina Ykelenstam’s website, Healing Histamine was really good. We have a well researched list. But what I’ve also noticed is that many lists copied mistakes and omissions. And so we just want people to make sure they’re getting good info and use one of those lists.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yes. Thank you. Those are all very reliable sources. And I will say that my list, it’s for more mild histamine intolerance, but then it includes some whole foods. It actually emphasizes eliminating the unhealthy foods versus the healthy foods that are providing nutrients to help you overcome the histamine intolerance long term. So, the other causes and contributors, a huge one is your digestive system health, or what we call gut health. So some bacteria in your stomach actually make histamine and some can degrade histamine. And so we have a nice balance, normally, not too many making histamine and more degrading histamine. But when we have an imbalance, due to many reasons, processed foods, maybe antibiotics, things like that, we know artificial sweeteners also imbalance this microbiome or microbiota. So your gut health is really important, and how to balance that we can talk about later, but really focusing on digestion, a good strong digestion would really, really help prevent and even help reverse this. 

And as we age, our digestion actually weakens. We don’t have as much hydrochloric acid or other enzymes to help digest our food. That food that’s not digested and being absorbed and feeding us, then feeds bacteria and other microbes that then can overgrow and cause bloating and issues with, I don’t wanna get into, I think you might know SIBO and SIFO a little bit, but we won’t get into that, just cause histamine release, histamine production, as well as inflammation, and even intestinal permeability, which could be another problem. So gut health is big. Stress is another factor. And stress plays into that digestion, because when we’re stressed and in what we call a sympathetic mode of fight and flight, the energy, the blood goes to our muscles because we’re stressed and not digesting our food and our nutrients. So the stress is a big factor. And our mast cells actually have receptors to sense stress, something called CRH receptors. And these receptors can sense when we’re terrified, when we’re upset, when we’re just under stress and then they become more reactive. We can’t hide our stress. We can’t grin and pretend we’re not stressed. Our mast cells will see it.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Yeah, we’ve talked a lot about that on this summit, that there’s mast cells all along those nerve sheets, the nerve endings, and they literally sense every thought we have, which I find just incredible. And looking for that safety, are we safe right now? And let’s talk about nutrients. I know this is one of your big areas, but so many people that we see, and in this community, have gotten down to low foods. And I love how you’re talking about keeping the nutrient dense foods in. And I talk a lot about, let’s not just keep whittling down, let’s look at replacements instead of reducing, reducing. But so many people when they get to us have already limited diets and they’re low in nutrients. So I know that can be a trigger too. Anything you wanna add there on that side?

Beverley Rider, PhD

Sure. When we have good digestion, and it’s all back to the gut, but we have good digestion we can extract or we can absorb those nutrients from our foods. When we don’t have good digestion, or imbalanced microbiota in our gut, then we’re not absorbing those nutrients. And that’s when those nutrient deficiencies can occur. And we need nutrients to not react, to nourish our enzymes, to produce the DAO enzyme, the HNMT and other enzymes, including other methylation enzymes like HNMT, there are other ones. So when we are digesting well and absorbing well, we get enough vitamin B2, vitamin B6, magnesium, copper, a lot of different nutrients that are all needed to produce these enzymes and to keep that clog of that sink open so that we can actually degrade histamine. I actually have a list in my book of nutrients that are necessary, and I am going to take a peak to see if I’ve missed any, if you don’t mind, because vitamin C is a great one. Actually, it’s a natural antihistamine. It binds to histamine directly. And it’s also required for DAO production. There’s also vitamin D3, basically balances the immune system overall. It’s a steroid hormone, it’s critical for immune regulation.

Beth O’Hara, FN

I just wanna show people that there’s a whole checklist here in this book. So if you pick up Beverley’s book, we’re on page 21, and this is just such a wonderful resource with what the nutrient is, what it’s used for, how you can take it, and then what kind of foods that it’s in and other tips. So this, I just love this resource.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Thank you so much. And then I have some foods and some herbs and spices. And at the end, the very last one, on page 24 is the DAO enzyme. There’s actually a supplement that’s a DAO enzyme that you can take just before you eat. So it should be 15 to 20 minutes before you eat. You can take a supplement that will help support your own DAO enzyme. So if you don’t have enough, then taking a supplement could help. It’s short lived, so do take it just before. And I think you know a little bit more about the DAO enzyme than I do.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Yeah, I can add a little bit here. It’s been a game changer for me. And I started taking it back with the old formulas that had talc, and shellac, and all these things in there that we didn’t really wanna take, but there weren’t other options. That’s all been reformulated fortunately. And I was able to work with a distributor for DAO for North America to develop a sensitive formula called Histamine Digest 360. And it has none of the triggering inactive ingredients. And a little fairy dusting of that B6, just a little one milligram that activates DAO. We put that in there because so many people that we work with in the mast cell population have been restricted in their foods, they have these nutrient imbalances, and if you don’t have B6, DAO won’t turn on to work. So we’ll link to that over at the summit resources page, at mastcell360.com/summit, if anybody wants to take a look at it. Anything else on triggers that you wanna make sure that we cover? I know you talked about SIBO and SIFO, and anytime we have that gut inflammation that’s gonna affect our ability, just to tie it in with the DAO, anything that causes inflammation in the intestines makes it much more challenging for the gut to make DAO.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yeah. I will say alcohol is a big one.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Mm.

Beverley Rider, PhD

I know that comes as bad news to a lot of people. And there are certain alcohols, alcohol types. If you absolutely have to have the alcohol, some are better than others. And I won’t go into that just yet, but I’m happy to answer questions. A big one I’ve noticed, being in California with the forest fires, is the environment really affects how we react. When we have that forest fire smoke, it tends to really up our histamine sink, really fill the histamine sink. I start getting headaches and even moodiness. It really has an effect. Cigarettes, another one. Harsh chemicals. And Dr. Olle Johansson, a researcher in Sweden who I met at a environmental conference, has been doing some research on EMF and histamine, and believes that there’s a direct link. He looked at the skin of students that were studying in front of a computer, and getting that EMF exposure versus reading a hard copy book and found differences in the skin mast cells and the amount of histamine. So that’s something that was really interesting. So EMF might have a causative role too, pretty causative role.

Beth O’Hara, FN

And we have a lot of research on EMS triggering mast cells, so if it’s triggering those mast cells, we know we’re getting some histamine release there.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Absolutely, absolutely. Also, there’s a big thing that I haven’t spoken about yet. Certain medications are a huge trigger of histamine. So, by strict definition I’m going outside of the histamine intolerance definition, necessarily. This is actually being released from mast cells and the mast cells are really where it’s come from. And where that definition actually delineated between histamine intolerance and mast cell reactivity, which I’m using as a big umbrella term, it’s a little bit gray. So I will say that the overall effect of too much histamine, the end result is from medications too. It’s a big one.

Beth O’Hara, FN

And some of them do inhibit DAO directly.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Absolutely. There’s a few different ways they inhibit, they can cause too much histamine. Some directly inhibit DAO, directly HNMT. They act on the mast cell and things like that. Another one is taking the wrong supplement. I’ve seen in many, many clients that they’re trying to do the right thing, they’re trying to feel better, support their bodies, and they’re taking what we’ve all been told to take, probiotics, or some other supplements. But there are probiotics that absolutely are the wrong ones to take, because they do contain the strains that produce the histamine. So it’s actually adding fuel to the fire where you’re repopulating your gut with good bacteria, but that good bacteria is also producing histamine and so now you’re at bigger problem. But there are supplements that are histamine sensitive, or histamine negative, and ones that actually reduce the histamine. So just be aware of that.

Beth O’Hara, FN

That’s such a great point, too. In addition to probiotics, a lot of killing protocols have clove in them that’s histamine liberating, or cinnamon that’s histamine liberating. And that’s okay for some people who have milder histamine intolerance, but I’ve seen that really trigger people. Or high dose niacin, that flush people get is that histamine response after you chew up all your methyl groups and your HNMT doesn’t have the co-factors from methylation. I see people doing these meal replacements that have a lot of strawberry, pineapple, and spinach powder in them, or people doing the spinach smoothies sometimes ’cause they were put on green smoothies. And we have a whole other talk just in oxalates, but I think that spinach should be a condiment, not a main course.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Absolutely. Yes. Spinach does contain a lot of oxalates, which is a big trigger, it’s the main trigger for some people. And unfortunately they’re in a lot of healthy foods, but everything in moderation. It’s not necessary that you can’t have any. And also the replacement that you talked about. So replace it with the dinosaur kale, or arugula, which is a nice antihistamine food. So there are direct replacements that are pretty easy.

Beth O’Hara, FN

So before we move on to one of your other specialty areas, which is headaches, and migraine, anything else on the triggers you wanna make sure we hit on?

Beverley Rider, PhD

Also hormones, hormone imbalances, especially women who are in perimenopause, are getting toward the age of menopause. Mast cells have estrogen and progesterone receptors and are sensitive to changes, so it’s kind of like the perfect storm for some women. But the good news is it doesn’t have to be, but we have the weakened digestion and the hormone fluctuations, and some other changes, and so really midlife women seem to be commonly seen for histamine intolerance. So those hormone imbalances, there are some things to do too. Immune responses, so any inflammation such as surgeries, injuries, infections. That can all contribute as well. And how much just depends on the person. The amount a histamine person can tolerate, it’s very specific or individual to the person. Like you, I have histamine intolerance too. I only know this after my daughter was ill, and I actually measured the DAO genes and the HNMT genes, lots of SNPs, or specific single polynucleotide, single nucleotide polymorphisms. Little changes in the genes. And I have those. So I have it too. So knowing this, I’ve had to make some changes and try to avoid any inflammation that’s not necessary.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Oh, I did wanna touch on. You were talking about hormones, and that made me also think about just toxin load in general. And there’s so many enzymes that breakdown histamine that we don’t often talk about. One of them is UGT1A1 in the glucuronidation pathway, and that’s our primary pathway for a lot of chemicals for our steroidal hormones like estrogens, and progesterones, and mold toxins. So this is where we get a lot of histamine intolerance with mold toxicity as well. We put so much load just across the board on all of these enzymes, and it’s hard to break that down. Let’s talk about one of your areas, which is headaches and migraines. Can you share how histamine has a role in headaches and migraines? I’m really versed in migraines in terms of being triggered hormonally and being triggered structurally from issues here. But I really wanna dive into what you know about this on the histamine side.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Sure. And I absolutely agree that the liver health of those detox pathways, including glucuronidation to deal with the toxins, is absolutely essential. I meant to mention that under the environment, so what’s coming in from the environment chemicals, harsh cleaners, mold is a big one too, like you said. Absolutely, thank you for filling that in. As for migraines. Well, that’s really what my biggest symptom is, is the neurological inflammation of migraines. So histamine research began over a century ago, believe it or not. Over a hundred years ago scientists started working on histamine. And we know a lot, but it wasn’t for about 20 years before it was really linked to headaches. But we’ve known it’s been linked to headaches for a long time. In fact, I don’t know who the volunteers were, but researchers gave a group of people histamine and it induced headache. And there were a lot of variability between the people. 

There was a group that it didn’t induce much of a headache, and then some people were very sensitive. And we also know that migraineurs, or people that do get migraines, are more susceptible to histamine induced headaches. So this research has been done many years ago. But it didn’t go very far, because histamine was really pigeonholed into allergy, and migraines were neurological and that connection wasn’t made. So there’s definitely a link between migraines, neurogenic inflammation, and mast cell degranulations. There’s lot of histamine in the brain, and for a good reason, it helps us think and remember and sleep. There’s a lot of things. It’s a neurotransmitter. There’s also mast cells in the brain. And we’re just learning about how these interplay to create a migraine. But I do know for, in my sake, that for me, personally, that when I eat histamine foods, the migraine is one of the first things that occur.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Let’s transition to some of the top tips people wanna know. Okay, I think I have histamine intolerance or I know I have histamine intolerance, how do you help people determine, what are your favorite ways to help people determine if they have histamine intolerance or not? And then once they know they do have it, what are your starting points?

Beverley Rider, PhD

Great question. Yeah. That’s a really common one is that, how would I know? There’s a lot of frustration and confusion with how to know, and many years can go by before even a person suspects, but here are some steps that I take that would give you a really good, a strong suggestion that you have it. So number one would be, is if you look at your signs and symptoms, and if you line them up with things that can typically occur, then that’s a clue. And the triggers won’t make sense at first, there will be patterns at first, but when you look in terms of histamine intolerance, maybe you can actually connect the dots. And that’s what happened for me. But I didn’t realize migraines could be connected with motion sickness. Motion sickness is a histamine thing. In fact, there’s even a book called “Pigs Don’t Get Seasick.” Sorry, my cat is enjoying the seminar.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Your cat can join us. He may have something to say.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yeah.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Well Dramamine’s an antihistamine,

Beverley Rider, PhD

That’s right.

Beth O’Hara, FN

used for motion sickness.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Absolutely. And pigs don’t get seasick because they have high levels of DAO, DAO enzyme.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Yeah. That’s why pig kidney is the main source for DAO.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yeah, so sea sickness. So when your signs and symptoms and triggers don’t make sense, they may start to when you read about histamine tolerance. So that would be the first thing. And the second thing is look at a food list. From the book, or Janice Joneja’s, or ones that are on the histamine intolerance Facebook site with Yasmina’s group, rest in peace to them. And if those foods tend to sound like the foods that typically trigger you or cause more symptoms, then that’s another clue. After that, then we can think about, have you ever taken antihistamines? And do you feel better after taking those antihistamines? It could be an antihistamine food if you don’t like taking the medication, like possibly arugula, like I mentioned, moringa is another plant that can come a powder as well. There are many different antihistamine foods and supplements. And if that helps you, it’s another clue. And so another clue might be a low histamine diet short term if you want to eliminate the very top histamine containing foods and histamine releasing foods, and processed foods as well on top of it. Then if that helps you, that’s another clue. So those are four, and then the fifth thing would be to take a DAO supplement. And if that DAO supplement also helps you, that’s a pretty definite clue, because the DAO supplement helps, that’s a direct intervention, or direct lowering of that histamine.

Beth O’Hara, FN

And I wanna share just quickly that people sometimes need to get up too because their load is so high. Anywhere from two to four capsules for each meal for a couple weeks, just to get that load down. Don’t expect to take one capsule once and then have a big response. You may have to give it some time. I did just think about

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yeah.

Beth O’Hara, FN

another potential clue. It’s a tricky one, but some women feel so much better during pregnancy.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yes, absolutely. The reason for this is that the placenta actually produces DAO, and so some women feel so much better when they’re pregnant. But I don’t recommend that as a solution, necessarily. I think that comes with other issues.

Beth O’Hara, FN

And some people who have mast cell activation get triggered during pregnancy, so it’s not definitive black or white, but if you did feel substantially better during pregnancy, you might consider histamine intolerance and it comes back after you deliver.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Exactly. Personally, I felt so much worse and I felt terrible because I not only have DAO, SNPs, but also HNMT and other things. So it wasn’t a clue for me, but it can be a clue for some people if it’s just the DAO enzyme. So that’s a great suggestion. Other clues would be, there’s a certain profile of a person. And it’s not necessarily saying a person has to be a middle aged female that has some allergies, or allergy like symptoms, or inflammation and eats a standard American diet. That’s a general profile that would actually make me think, hmm, this person might have a little high, their history might be a little too high.

Beth O’Hara, FN

So it’s a great representation of things to look for. And when they do a low histamine trial, I usually have people do about six weeks in my own population, just because they have such massive loads to give time for that to come down. And then if they had a dramatic change, that’s pretty clear. If they’re not sure then they can reintroduce, for three days, some higher histamine, as long as they don’t have anaphylaxis or problems with that, ’cause we don’t wanna trigger anything like that. But if they can safely do it. That’s how we do it in our super sensitive population. How do you do a histamine elimination?

Beverley Rider, PhD

Very similar. It also depends on the person. If I know that they are a lifelong sufferer, maybe even some other family members that have it and a lot of symptoms that are quite moderate to severe, then I would go longer, but also taper with how many foods. So I find that a lot of people seem to have a little food fear. They’re a little afraid of foods. When they have the histamine intolerance or food reactivities of any sort, they become afraid and start to limit their foods more and more. And I really want to help people to expand their foods and not only eat a small number of foods. So we start with only the top histamine triggers, the aged foods, the cultured, the fermented, and also adding in the process. I mean, adding out, eliminating the processed, the inflammatory foods that I really think the artificial foods are the bigger triggers. 

And then that is for at least a week. If there’s no improvement, then we go to the next level and maybe limit a few other things. But generally what I see, because it’s an additive effect of buildup or accumulation, that first week people tend to drop and feel better. That’s a really aha moment in that first week. I know it’s a little soon, but if a person really does eliminate these things a week, maybe even two weeks. But we do go two months, maybe even three months with the top top ones, and then at the end, something that isn’t a big trigger, we don’t do alcohol because alcohol affects so many different things on the level of liver, to thyroid, to histamine. We do something that they may want to add back in that is a whole food. But if they react, then that’s a clue that was histamine.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Maybe like strawberries. That was my first one. That was my big goal, was to get the strawberries back in.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yeah. And my daughter once ate strawberries in the supermarket, she just wanted to taste one. So she picked one up and she snuck a strawberry and she turned around and she had all this red around her lips from the strawberry. But she also had a tickly tongue. Not swelling like an anaphylaxis swelling, but she was itchy.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Yeah.

Beverley Rider, PhD

She was coughing and flem, itching. And so it was limited reaction. So she can’t sneak strawberries.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Oh. Well I’ve gotten the strawberries back, and I’m so thrilled because I had such severe histamine intolerance and I unknowingly made my load super high by trying to do the best for my health. And about 20 years ago the first thing I was getting into was the Weston A. Price movement, which I love, and I love their philosophy, and it’s all about going back to our traditional foods. I was making all my own kefir, I was making all my fermented veggies, I was making kombucha, I was making sourdough breads, and I was eating a lot of grass fed beef. And I was itching head to toe. I used to actually keep a flashlight next to my bed, and I’m gonna share this ’cause I know people are gonna relate to it. I would itch so badly at night I thought, where I got that histamine dumping, which normally wakes people up, I would be itching so bad I thought I had bed bugs. And I’d have to jump out, use the flashlight, check the bed to feel comfortable enough to go back to sleep. But that’s all gone now. And I can even have, I just had some oyster mushrooms today, which was a big one for me. So I just wanna share some hope for people, they can get these foods back and we don’t necessarily have to have this life long, or we may be able, I do still take my DAO enzymes and we may have to support some of the pathways.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yeah, that’s great. The nighttime waking is a big one. And I’m noticing, I don’t see myself very well because my little icon is small, but my hair brushed my face and I itched and I think I have red around my mouth now, which is interesting.

Beth O’Hara, FN

No, you don’t look red.

Beverley Rider, PhD

But the redness in the skin is also another sign when you itch or… Any itchiness is a histamine things. ‘Cause the histamine causes that itchiness. So you had asked about tips to feel better. The number one thing I would say is take a supplement vacation for just a short time and the supplements that aren’t doctor recommended. A trend or a common denominator I see with a lot of clients is they’re taking a lot of different supplements to try to feel better. And it’s a nice thing to be able to just take a break from the ones that you can and see if you feel better, because there’s a lot of additives, there’s a lot of ingredients that can cause histamine intolerance that could increase your histamine, especially probiotics, and you may feel better. So that would be the number one easy thing. The other thing would be, when you have the faucet on the sink, turn the faucet down. You don’t have to turn it off completely with, and this represents the histamine foods that you’re consuming. Just turn it down with the top histamine offenders. And I think we went over a lot of those. And add in a little antihistamine foods, such as. I’m little stuck on arugula.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Arugula is one of my big ones. Well, even all the cruciferous veggies.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Absolutely.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Think about quercetin rich foods. So onions, one of my favorites is garlic chives, ’cause they’re one of the highest quercetin foods, sometimes called Chinese chives. Apples.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yeah, absolutely. Those are good. And I can peek in my book again and have a look. So, there’re also nettle, holy basil, turmeric for some people, garlic, chamomile, watercress is a great one. Broccoli sprouts. There’s so many.

Beth O’Hara, FN

What do you know about mango? I get this question a lot, and I know mango has some antihistamine properties and then people come to me and they’re like, why do you allow mango on your list? These other lists say no mango. But I don’t think mango’s a histamine liberator. Have you seen anything on this?

Beverley Rider, PhD

I’ve seen lists that do include it, and me personally, I like to try everything before I recommend it. Me personally, if a mango is over ripe it’s too sweet, it’s too soft-

Beth O’Hara, FN

Yeah.

Beverley Rider, PhD

It could be a little bit more irritating. It’s got higher sugar content when it’s really, really ripe and soft and squishy, and may have-

Beth O’Hara, FN

It’s gonna be the same with all the soft fruits, but yeah. Yeah.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Yes, exactly.

Beth O’Hara, FN

No, they but they get high histamine when they get over ripe.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Exactly. But if you were to eat mango where it is not imported and kept for weeks, and it’s a good seasonal source, I don’t see a problem with mango. I think it’s so bio-individual and that’s why each person needs their own list ultimately, based off a reliable list, but then they’ll have their own foods that may trigger them in certain times.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Yeah.

Beverley Rider, PhD

For example, I have people that react to tomatoes in the winter because tomato’s not a winter fruit, ’cause it’s a fruit, but not in the summer. They can eat tomatoes in the summer, they can’t eat it in the winter. So it’s seasonal too, there’s a lot that goes into it.

Beth O’Hara, FN

That’s a great tip, because I also, I thought I was reacting to carrots, and at one point I was down to 10 foods. I was so limited because I was reacting to everything and I didn’t know how to swap. I just was making the mistake of whittling, which was good learning for me. But I was reacting carrots in the winter, and then I learned that the carrots are in long storage if you get the ones in the bins or the bags. But to buy them with the tops on them so you can see how fresh they are. And when I did that, I was fine with carrots. Same with apples or turnips, if I’m out of season, they’ve sat in those bins for too long. So they will gain some histamine. And it’s not that their naturally high histamine foods, it’s just anything sits for four months it’s gonna have some histamine development.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Absolutely, Beth, that’s a great point that I haven’t mentioned. And so thank you for prompting me. That time is the enemy of histamine intolerance. So what I mean by that is, if something is picked and kept for a long time and not kept well, especially in the cold, then it can increase in histamine. So leftovers, for example. So if you have fish, you don’t eat it that night, you cook it, don’t eat it that night, it’s not gonna be your friend the next day. Fish can contain a lot of histamine and get above your threshold and cause a spill over. Also, if you have meat we’ve not cooked that’s sitting in the fridge, put that meat in the freezer, put everything that can go bad, things like meat, fish, in the freezer. And then when you thaw it, cook it right away, maybe in a pressure cooker because it’s faster, you can cook even from frozen with the correct timing and recipe. So really time and bacteria growth and temperature are three key things to look at. So how you prepare food is going to be important too. Vitamin C is lost really fast. 

If you take a cucumber and you chop it up, that vitamin C starts to decline. And so if you go with a processed food or even a precut food for a long time, that vitamin C is then much lower, and vitamin C is a natural antihistamine. So you may not react to a cucumber fresh cut, but cucumber’s not a histamine food generally anyway. But then another food, let’s say strawberries, already cut up, or sitting out, or not seasonal, or not organic, then doesn’t have as much vitamin C to counteract your reaction to histamine. So that sounded like a lot of words to say, eat fresh.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Eat fresh, and nutrient dense. I was saying too about raspberries. A lot of times people don’t put raspberries on their list ’cause they can be a little higher histamine, but they’ve got vitamin C and quercetin that counteract it, and that’s why I leave it on there. So we have more variety, and that’s your approach too, which I really like about your book and your work. This has been just a wonderful wealth of information, and you’ve mentioned the food fears. I wanna let people know we have, actually, a whole interview on today’s summit interviews on navigating food fears. So do check that out with Dr. Lauryn Lax. On what you’re talking about with the supplement break, there’s great tips in Dr. Beverley’s book, “Hives, Headaches, and Heartburn: Heal Your Histamine Hangover.” So check that out for those supplement tips. And then we have a lot also in our top eight mast cell supporting supplements master class, you might be interested in checking out. I just really wanna thank you so much for your work in the world, what you bring for people. And to have that from your immunology background is quite invaluable. Can you please let people know where they can find you?

Beverley Rider, PhD

Sure. Thank you, Beth, this has been a pleasure. To find me, I’m at, mainly on Instagram @thehistaminehangover is my handle. A little bit on Facebook as well. And also I do help monitor the histamine intolerance Facebook site with Yasmina, and Beth does too. But I think the Instagram handle is the best, thehistaminehangover.

Beth O’Hara, FN

Thank you again, so much, for joining us.

Beverley Rider, PhD

Okay. Thank you, Beth, for having me. Been a pleasure.