What is histamine intolerance?
Histamine intolerance is not a sensitivity to histamine, but an indication that you’ve developed too much of it.
Histamine is a chemical responsible for a few major functions:
communicates messages to your brain
triggers release of stomach acid to help digestion
releases after injury or allergic reaction as part of your immune response
When histamine levels get too high or when it can’t break down properly, it can affect your normal bodily functions.
Symptoms of histamine intolerance
Histamine is associated with common allergic responses and symptoms. Many of these are similar to those from a
histamine intolerance.
While they may vary, some common reactions associated with this intolerance include:
headaches or migraines
nasal congestion or sinus issues
fatigue
hives
digestive issues
irregular menstrual cycle
nausea
vomiting
In more severe cases of histamine intolerance, you may experience:
abdominal cramping
tissue swelling
high blood pressure
irregular heart rate
anxiety
difficulty regulating body temperature
dizziness
What causes high histamine levels?
You naturally produce histamine along with the enzyme diamine oxidase (DAO). DAO is responsible for breaking down
histamine that you take in from foods.
If you develop a DAO deficiency and are unable to break down histamine, you could develop an intolerance.
Some reasons your DAO enzyme levels could be affected include:
medications that block DAO functions or prevent production
gastrointestinal disorders, such as leaky gut syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease
histamine-rich foods that cause DAO enzymes to function improperly
foods that block DAO enzymes or trigger histamine release
Bacterial overgrowth is another contributing factor for developing a histamine intolerance. Bacteria grows when food
isn’t digested properly, causing histamine overproduction. Normal levels of DAO enzymes can’t break down the
increased levels of histamine in your body, causing a reaction.
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Controlling histamine levels with diet
Foods to avoid
A healthy diet contains moderate levels of histamine. However, there are some foods high in histamine that can trigger
inflammatory reactions and other negative symptoms.
Histamine-rich foods are:
alcohol and other fermented beverages
fermented foods and dairy products, such as yogurt and sauerkraut
dried fruits
avocados
eggplant
spinach
processed or smoked meats
shellfish
aged cheese
There are also a number of foods that trigger histamine release in the body, such as:
alcohol
bananas
tomatoes
wheat germ
beans
papaya
chocolate
citrus fruits
nuts, specifically walnuts, cashews and peanuts
food dyes and other additives
Foods that block DAO production include:
alcohol
black tea
mate tea
green tea
energy drinks
Foods to eat
If you have a histamine intolerance, incorporating low-histamine foods into your diet can help reduce symptoms. There’s
no such thing as a histamine-free diet. Consult with a dietician before you eliminate foods from your diet.
Some foods low in histamine include:
fresh meat and freshly caught fish
non-citrus fruits
eggs
gluten-free grains, such as quinoa and rice
dairy substitutes, such as coconut milk and almond milk
fresh vegetables except tomatoes, avocados, spinach, and eggplant
cooking oils, such as olive oil
Diagnosing histamine intolerance
Before reaching a diagnosis, your doctor will eliminate other possible disorders or allergies that cause similar symptoms.
Doctors may also suggest following an elimination diet for 14 to 30 days. This diet requires you to remove any foods high
in histamine or histamine triggers, and slowly reintroduce them to watch for new reactions.
Your doctor might also take a blood sample to analyze if you have a DAO deficiency.
Another way to diagnose histamine intolerance is through a prick test. A 2011 studyTrusted Source examined the
effectiveness of a prick test to diagnose histamine intolerance. Researchers pricked the skin of 156 people and applied a
1 percent histamine solution. For those with suspected histamine intolerance, the prick test was positive for 79 percent,
revealing a small red, itchy bump on the tested area that didn’t resolve within 50 minutes.
Outlook
Histamine intolerance can cause uncomfortable symptoms, but it can be treated with a low-histamine diet.
Histamine intolerance shouldn’t be self-diagnosed since symptoms are similar to other allergens, disorders, or infections.
If you think you might have an intolerance or are experiencing irregular symptoms, talk with your doctor.
I Don’t Like Meditating. Here’s Why I Do It
Anyway
I don’t like meditating. But when I do it regularly, life is better. Stress is lower.
My health improves. Problems seem smaller. I seem bigger.
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As much as I’m loath to admit it, I’m not a fan of meditation. It comes unnaturally to me, despite my 36 years of martial
arts study and interest in self-improvement, health-hacking, and general enlightenment.
I realize this speaks poorly of me as a person, kind of like my opinions on aikido, jazz music, pumpkin pie, and “A Prairie
Home Companion.” That I’m not fond of them doesn’t mean they’re bad, it means I’m not as good as I could be.
Worse yet, when I do regularly meditate, I find my life is better. Stress is lower, my health improves. I can focus more on
my work, and am less likely to say things I regret to my friends, colleagues, and loved ones. Problems seem smaller. I
seem bigger.
And I’m not alone. Over the past few decades, a host of researchTrusted Source has supported the conclusion that
meditation is good for us, and that we should all meditate a few minutes each day.
Meditation has been found again, and again (and again) to reduce stress, with all the physical, social, and emotional
benefits that provides.
Multiple studies have found meditation can reduce feelings of depressionTrusted Source and anxietyTrusted
Source.
In 2003, researchers learned that regular meditation helped to boost immune function.
Meditation can help control pain, according to several studies, including these in 2016 and 2017Trusted Source.
That’s just the tip of that particular iceberg. Bottom line: meditation is good for me, and for you, no matter
how much we might not want to do it. Kind of like eating a vegetarian meal once or twice a week.
So, from one resistant but learning meditator to others, here’s what I’ve learned about meditation and how to make it
part of improving your life.
You don’t have to just sit around
Non-practitioners sometimes imagine meditation to be boring — and perhaps if not done a certain way, it can be. But
there’s more than one kind of meditation available, so you can easily find one that suits you. Here are just a few
alternatives:
Walking meditation calms your mind when you focus on your strides and movement of taking steps (rather than, say,
focusing on your breath). Walking in a labyrinth is a centuries-old practice of contemplation common among many
spiritual faiths, including Catholicism.
Kata is the formal practice of martial arts, including tai chi. The motions of this practice are so complex it becomes
impossible to think of other things, allowing for profound meditative focus. See also yoga.
Listening mindfully to music, especially music without lyrics, produces the same impacts of meditation by allowing
you to be transported by the sounds, away from stray and extraneous thoughts.
Daily task meditation iswhere you take the process of a task — like doing dishes, cooking a meal, or getting dressed
— and focus on it the way a kung fu master might focus on her forms.
Those are just a few examples. Other options for meditation include loving-kindness meditation, guided relaxation,
breathing meditation, zazen sitting meditation, awareness meditation, Kundalini, pranayama…
The point is there’s a kind of meditation that works well with your needs, tastes, and general outlook. It’s just a matter of
finding the right match.
Your brain might mess with you
Meditating is supposed to be a quieting of the mind, where you think about nothing in particular (or nothing other than
the actions of the meditation) to allow that background noise to filter out and let you rest. That’s why exercise can be
meditative: at a certain point you’re only able to think about the exercise.
But along the way, throughout each session of meditation, your thoughts are going to keep zooming in and trying to
distract you. This happens all the time in the beginning, but here’s a secret: It happens all the time to the masters,
too.
The trick with meditation isn’t to totally eliminate those stray thoughts. It’s to let them pass through your mind without
you grabbing hold of them.
In the first stages of learning, you’ll fail a lot of the time. You’ll be meditating for a while and suddenly realize you
stopped somewhere along the way to think about your to-do list and what you’re making for dinner that night.
Eventually, that will happen less and less, and you’ll start distracting yourself by getting frustrated that the thoughts
intrude at all. You will ultimately be able to let them pass through and over you without taking root, so you can continue
your meditation for as long as you wish.
Speaking of “as long as you wish….”
It doesn’t have to be for very long
Yes, I read the stories about Gichin Funakoshi (aka The Father of Modern Day Karate) meditating for an entire day
while standing under a waterfall, and about retreats where people spend the entire weekend in some kind of a trance.
And probably, some of those stories are true.
No, they don’t mean you have to meditate for hours to get anything out of meditation.
The studies I mentioned above had subjects meditate for less than an hour, in most cases less than 15 minutes, and even
those sessions resulted in significant improvements to physical, emotional, and psychological health.
Some of the masters I’ve personally spoken with go one further, advising us to start with just one minute of
meditation per day. That won’t be enough to reap huge, long-lasting benefits, but it has two advantages:
You will succeed. Anybody can meditate for a minute, no matter how busy or distractible they are.
You’ll be pleasantly surprised how much of a difference it makes for the next 10 minutes of your life.
I personally found those two factors combined to be an excellent motivator. Under the powerful motivation of
immediate success and feeling the short-term impact of that minute, I committed more fully to learning how to
meditate.
You don’t have to be a certain ‘type’ of person to meditate
Meditation has shed the new age or ‘hippie’ reputation it once had. Anyone can do it. Here’s an incomplete list of groups
that actively practice meditation or encourage their people to meditate regularly:
professional athletes in the NFL, NHL, and UFC
actors including Hugh Jackman, Clint Eastwood, and Arnold Schwarzenegger
SEAL Team Six and other special forces branches of U.S. and worldwide militaries
an impossibly long list of CEOs and entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Elon Musk
If Randy Couture and the guy who plays Wolverine meditate, you can do it too. It only takes a minute — literally — and
you can start today.
Jason Brick is a freelance writer and journalist who came to that career after over a decade in the health and
wellness industry. When not writing, he cooks, practices martial arts, and spoils his wife and two fine sons. He
lives in Oregon.
