Episode 1: Histamine

Episode Transcript

Allie McLane's video record (00:02):
Hey y'all, it's Dr.
Allie McLane here.
Today we're going to be talkingabout histamine.
Histamine is something that isbeing discussed a lot right now
and for good reason.
Histamine is a chemical that isreleased when your cells called
mast cells start to degranulate.
When they degranulate, theysecrete histamine.

(00:23):
Histamine has receptors all overyour body, it can impact your
brain, blood vessels, yourheart, your adrenals, your
immune cells, your gut, all overyour body, there are histamine
receptors.
So knowing that I'm the doctorthat works with people who have

(00:45):
hormone issues, anxiety, mentalhealth concerns, and gut
concerns.
Why am I talking abouthistamine?
histamine touches all three ofthose categories.
Histamine is something weabsolutely have to address.
If we're not adequatelyaddressing it, then we're gonna

(01:06):
be stuck.
I often see histamine issues inclients who struggle with PMS
PMDD, painful periods, jointpain, allergies, eczema,
anxiety, OCD, and gut issues Isee histamine across the board.

(01:31):
All of those issues playing arole.
So let's talk about whathistamine is or what histamine
can do.
When it's high in the body, whatare some of those symptoms?
Remember when I said there arehistamine receptors all over
your body?
Well, because there arehistamine receptors on your gut,

(01:51):
we can see diarrhea, bloating,nausea, vomiting.
Because there are histaminereceptors In your cardiovascular
system, on your blood vessels,we can see low blood pressure.
We can also see an irregular orfast heart rate, tachycardia.
We can see traditional allergicsymptoms, like runny or stuffy

(02:11):
nose, shortness of breath,itching, rashes or hives.
We can also see painful periods.
When it comes to the hormonesymptoms and histamine,
specifically, let's focus onpainful periods.
Typically, when somebody haspainful periods, they might also
have heavy periods or heavy tonormal periods, but the pain,

(02:34):
the inflammation is intense.
And usually what precedes thatis a really intense luteal
phase.
that phase that goes before yourmenstrual cycle.
maybe even ovulation is atrigger.
histamine and the hormoneestrogen are best friends.
They tend to increase together.

(02:56):
So when you have high histaminesymptoms as a woman, you might
also have excess estrogen.
Because histamine is triggeringestrogen, oftentimes women will
be trying to treat theirestrogen dominance working with
a functional medicine doctor andtaking progesterone for example,

(03:17):
but not exactly addressing thehistamine component.
they may or may not feel better.
progesterone is like theoppositional force to estrogen.
Progesterone is the hormone thatyou have to take if you're
taking any form of estrogen tooppose estrogen's effect on the
uterus.
progesterone is also going tonaturally be antihistamine while

(03:37):
estrogen is going to beprohistamine, Histamine is a
normal chemical in our body.
We need it.
It's part of our physiology.
It's part of our biochemistryThe issue with histamine is that
number one?
Sometimes we have too much of itbecause it can't be cleared from

(03:57):
the peripheral system of ourbody or we have too much or too
little of it in the centralsystem.
So there's this concept thatgoes like this.
Peripheral histamine isreferring to the histamine that
is in your body, all over yourbody.

(04:20):
Central histamine is referringto the histamine that is in your
brain.
the brain histamine is going tobe more responsible for the
symptoms like insomnia, anxiety,OCD, whereas the peripheral
histamine is going to be moreresponsible for rashes, the
diarrhea, the bloating, the gas,the low blood pressure, the

(04:42):
hives.
The painful periods, all ofthat, so you may have an issue
with one.
You may have an issue with both.
You might not have an issue witheither.
This is why it's important toassess How do you determine if
histamine is an issue for you?
Is there a test?

(05:02):
There is one for centralhistamine for peripheral
histamine.
MCAS, is a related issue thatI'm not going to get into on
this podcast, we're keeping itmore simple, but for peripheral
histamine, if you have theissues, with joint pain, rashes,

(05:23):
painful periods, Diarrhea,constipation.
If you're curious if histamineis impacting those symptoms, the
gold standard way of figuringthat out or the best way to test
that is to So the first thing Iwant you to think about when you

(05:43):
think about histamine is thisanalogy of a bathtub.
You have a bathtub.
You have a faucet, a waterfaucet, that's going into the
bathtub.
You have the actual bathtubitself with the space to hold
the water.
And then you have the drain.
Histamine is flooding into yourbathtub when you have symptoms,

(06:06):
overflowing the bathtub andhitting the floor.
It is that act of hitting thefloor where you feel the
symptoms.
If histamine is not turned offat the faucet level, it doesn't
really matter.
Even if the drain is clogged, wehave a mess to clean up first,
right?
So we want to turn off thefaucet and mop up the mess while
we're working on the drain.

(06:27):
We don't want to neglect thedrain, but if we're just working
on the drain and not turning offthe faucet and cleaning up the
Then it's going to be reallyhard to feel better.
So, we're speaking of peripheralhistamine now.
If you want to feel better andsee if histamine is the issue,

(06:47):
then what you'll want to do istrial a low histamine diet.
This does not mean thathistamine foods are bad or high
histamine foods are bad.
In fact, high, high histaminefoods, many of them are very
healthy foods.
But you have to think about yourhistamine tolerance as a bucket.

(07:12):
The bucket empties every 24 orplus or minus some hours that
your liver takes to metabolizethe histamine.
So you only have so much spaceto hold all the histamine.
Once that space gets occupied,then that bucket will start

(07:35):
overflowing and that's when youget symptoms.
So your job is to be a detectiveand to figure out how much
histamine can your body toleratewhen it's in this acute flared
state.
Now when you heal, you won'tneed to be as careful with a low
histamine diet.
But in the beginning of it,you're having really painful
periods.
You're having a lot ofgastrointestinal symptoms.

(07:59):
You're having stuff related toexcess estrogen or fluctuating
levels of estrogen and thehistamine is making that worse.
We have to turn off the faucet.
We have to turn down theinundation of the thing that is
exacerbating the issue.
So experimenting with a lowhistamine diet can look like

(08:21):
this.
You can start by saying, hey, Ican tolerate, for example,
avocados.
If you don't know what foods arehigh in histamine, Google.
Aged foods, fermented foods,canned foods, leftovers,
avocados.
cheeses, kombuchas.

(08:42):
you can start by saying, okay,I'm gonna do little to no
histamine in my diet for threedays.
Okay, cool.
Here's my baseline.
How do I feel here?
Maybe five days, if you cantolerate it.
And then on day one, you have anavocado for breakfast.
You feel okay.
So day two, you have an avocadofor breakfast, and maybe you
have some Kimchi and kombuchafor lunch and you feel a little

(09:07):
weird, but you're like, I feellike I'm okay So the third day
you have avocado Kimchi kombuchafor lunch and then dinner you
have a glass of wine and thatjust sends you over now, you
know What your histaminethreshold is looking like You
can reverse engineer that andsay, okay, I see.

(09:31):
I can probably handle an avocadofor breakfast and maybe one of
those high histamine foods forlunch, like a kombucha.
And that's probably it for myhigh histamine foods for the day
until I fix the root cause ofthis issue.
So you want to start there.
Figure out what your histaminethreshold is.
Everyone is going to bedifferent.
If you're really sick and reallystruggling, that might be pretty

(09:52):
low.
we talked about, how to assessfor a peripheral histamine
issue, using an eliminationdiet, trial and error, and also
just based off of your symptoms.
Is there estrogen dominance?
Have you been told you haveestrogen dominance?
How do we assess for a centralhistamine issue?
that's going to be anxiety,sleep, or insomnia, OCD.

(10:16):
Well, what we will look at issomething in your blood called a
whole blood histamine?
Whole blood histamine is aninverse marker of something
called methylation or yourglobal levels of methylation.
So your whole blood histamine isgoing to be inversely correlated
with methylation.

(10:36):
If your whole blood histaminelevel is high, You are under
methylated.
And if you're under methylated,you're going to need some
methylation support.
And guess what?
That's going to help clear thecentral histamine.
Interesting fact is that SSRIsare serotonin promoting drugs
used to treat anxiety, insomnia,OCD.
these drugs also can act asantihistamines, it makes a lot

(10:59):
of sense that under methylationis a low serotonin activity
state.
taking a drug to artificiallyincrease your.
Serotonin, if you are undermethylated, might help you feel
better.
Doesn't account for the sideeffects you'll get with the
antidepressant drugs.
You might still get the feelinglike you can't really feel or
experience a full range ofemotions, right?

(11:20):
you might get a lowered libidoor a lack of desire, but you
might feel less anxious.
we also know thatantidepressants are working on
the gut.
there are histamine receptors inour gut as well.
So they're not just centrallyacting in the brain.
when we're talking about centralhistamine and brain histamine
and its ability to affect how wefeel from an insomnia or anxiety

(11:44):
perspective, we really want tothink about how are we going to
support methylation.
So if you do the blood test, youconfirm that you are indeed an
under methylator and have highcentral levels.
if we can work on that andsupport methylation to clear it,

(12:06):
I am not a fan of, in mostcases, looking at genetics for
methylation because genetics donot describe epigenetically what
is happening.
Genetics are not a measure ofwhat's happening in real time.
Genetics are basically asidestep away from that because

(12:28):
our genetics may or may not beexpressed based on our
environment.
So we talked about how toaddress histamine or how to
assess histamine peripherally ifyou have a histamine issue, and
we talked about how to assess itcentrally.
Let's get into addressinghistamine.
I touched a little bit on it.

(12:49):
with central histamine issues.
We know that methylation supportis needed.
That looks like targetednutrient therapies and protocols
specific to the person.
You do not want to start doingthis until you test it because
If you have low whole bloodhistamine and you are over
methylated, and you start to dosome of these pro methylation

(13:11):
therapies, it can make you feelreally bad.
It can make anxiety worse.
It can worsen depression.
This is why SSRIs have black boxwarnings.
This is why SSRIs are known tocause suicidality in some
people.
We don't test people's wholeblood histamine before giving
them an SSRI.
What if they're an undermethylator and we give them an
SSRI?
What happens?

(13:32):
It's not pretty.
So we have to assess andunderstand what's going on.
So how are we addressing highhistamine?
I'm going to give you someaction steps here.
The first thing you want to dois trial a low histamine diet
and challenge varying levels ofhistamine.

(13:53):
See what your tolerancethreshold is.
Stay below that threshold soyou're not creating more
inflammation in your body.
until you fix the issues.
The next thing that you want tothink about is your gut and how
your gut is going to beresponsible for your body's
ability to process histamine.

(14:14):
And this is more related to theperipheral histamine.
So there is this enzyme calledDow or diamine oxidase breaks
down histamine in your gut.
It's, it's, It's produced by gutbacteria.
However, many people are walkingaround with dysbiosis and
they're not actually able todegrade histamine properly

(14:34):
because of their dysbiotic gutbacteria.
So, what's the root cause?
How do we fix that?
We treat the gut.
And I'm not just talking abouttreating a parasite.
I do a test that looks at notjust the pathogens that we want

(14:55):
to kill and zap, but also whatcommensal and probiotic bacteria
we have and in what abundance,if somebody is low in, for
example, bifidobacteria that'sgoing to impact their immune
system, right?
so because we know that thesebacteria can affect the enzyme

(15:17):
that is produced to break downhistamine, we have to feed those
bugs.
the first thing we want to do istest and assess because if there
is a bug that is in excess andit's creating more inflammation,
That can create more of ahistamine release.
So we want to treat that first.
And then we want to feed thebugs that do the good things.
They produce the short chainfatty acids, they produce the

(15:38):
Dow.
There is a supplement called Dowthat you can take with food,
especially higher histaminemeals.
It's derived from the kidney ofan animal.
I don't have any gripes with itother than it is a Band Aid.
It's a Band Aid and I don'tbelieve in Band Aids long term,
but when people are suffering,sometimes you need short term
relief.
if you do those things and younotice that your gut symptoms

(16:00):
get better, you might've had ahistamine intolerance.
usually histamine intolerance inthe gut is not a standalone
issue.
It'll probably coincide withsomething like SIBO or another
kind of intolerance.
Your large intestinal microbiomeis probably damaged.
So that's really where we lookand where we start.
The next thing is, and this goeshand in hand, to support the

(16:22):
liver, the first way we supportthe liver is we stop inundating
the liver with things that areslowing it down.
So the more drugs andsupplements you are taking that
are not necessary are just goingto create more difficulty.
Hormone replacement, if you'reon hormone replacement and it's
not doing anything, whichhappens sometimes and it could

(16:45):
be for a number of reasons.
I'm not against hormonereplacement, but it needs to be
in the right stage of someone'slife for the right reason.
And if it's not doing anythingbut just clogging up your
liver's detoxificationcapabilities.
That's something to look at.
So getting histamine to breakdown in the liver also looks

(17:08):
like supporting estrogen detox,right?
Because estrogen is going toincrease histamine.
And this brings me back to themicrobiome, but also ties into
the liver and the microbiome, wehave the estrobilone.
We have the bacteria that willhelp us degrade our estrogen or
get rid of our estrogen.
Glucuronidation is a processthat happens in the liver, but

(17:29):
there's this beta glucuronidaseenzyme.
That can get produced when wehave dysbiosis in our gut, that
will deglucuronidate, which isjust a fancy way of saying
there's a little tag that wasattached to the estrogen before
it was sent out into ourintestines so we could poop it
out because we don't want toomuch estrogen, but the beta
glucuronidase enzyme cuts offthat tag.

(17:49):
So now that estrogen getsrecirculated into our liver,
into a entero hepaticrecirculation.
So, the more things that aretaxing our liver, the harder it
is for us to detox estrogen, Andalso, the shittier of a diet
we're eating, the harder it isfor us to detox estrogen.
What do I mean by shitty diet?
I mean, in this context, a dietthat is devoid of soluble fiber.

(18:14):
Soluble fiber.
What's soluble fiber in?
Beans, legumes, oats.
Soluble fiber is what binds tobile.
Bile is what your liverproduces.
And that will have the estrogenin it as it's coming out of your
body.
So soluble fiber will grab ontothat and stick onto it and get

(18:36):
it out of your body.
So when you eat a diet that hasadequate amounts of soluble
fiber, You're binding to all ofthe excess estrogen and getting
it out in your poop.
So if you're not eating enoughsoluble fiber, you're not
getting rid of the estrogen.
Therefore, everything that yourliver did is just going back up

(18:57):
to be done again.
The other ways you can supportyour liver are using liver
specific nutrients, but thisshould be tailored to the
individual We have phase one andphase two of detoxification.
We know that estrogen detox usesthings like NAC, sulforaphane,
sulforaphane being high inbroccoli sprouts.

(19:17):
And so when people take DIM orcalcium deglucorate, which is
the one that impairs that betaglucuronidase enzyme, this might
be over some of your heads,that's okay.
What I'm saying is there's asupplement for everything, but
My preference is that we fix themain issue, which is the gut.
You can take the liversupportive supplements with the

(19:38):
guidance of a practitioner whounderstands how to utilize these
things correctly, but it shouldreally only be temporary.
Estrogen excess symptoms arereally, in my opinion, Just a
manifestation of poor gut healthand when you can really heal the
gut you don't have to worryabout that anymore So that's how

(20:00):
to address histamine from thegut health and liver health
standpoint.
The next thing is we canstabilize those mast cells
remember I said that mast cellsare what are secreting the
histamine.
we can make them less cranky andless wanting to to You So what
are some nutrients we can use?
Nettle.

(20:21):
Nettle is an herb.
I love drinking nettle tea.
I drink it all the time,especially in my luteal phase
and on my period.
It is actually my secret weaponbecause I do get period cramps.
And I am pretty healthy and Itake good care of myself, but I
do get period cramps because myuterus is actively expelling
blood and I don't think that, ofcourse, you shouldn't have

(20:44):
debilitating period cramps whereyou can't walk around, but I
don't think any woman is able tosay, I don't have any kind of
cramping at all.
I don't feel, I don't feelanything, going to feel it,
right?
So there is a level ofdiscomfort that is a spectrum So
if you have really painfulperiods and you really want
support in this area, becausenettles are stabilizing mast
cells from secreting histamine,you're getting a really good

(21:06):
effect on the pain in youruterus.
There are these chemicals calledprostaglandins that impact pain
levels.
They are responsible for thepain levels in your uterus, but
histamine And then they'lltrigger histamine and it's a
vicious cycle.
So nettle tea is a great way tomitigate that.
Now, what I want to say abouttea as it relates to herbal

(21:31):
medicine is we have to thinkabout the medicine in the dose,
just like the poison is in thedose.
when you're drinking tea, youneed to understand that it is
not a very strong standardizedextract of the active
constituent that has the desiredeffect that you want.
Tea is rather weak.

(21:52):
So in order to drink enough teato have a therapeutic medical
You have to drink a good amountof tea.
So what I like to do is make awhole bunch of tea.
With nettle tea, you can eitherget it in baggies or loose leaf.
The baggies would be thetraditional medicinals.

(22:14):
the nettle, loose leaf, I wouldeither get from Mountain Rose
Herbals or Star West Botanicals.
let's say for example, we'redoing the tea baggies.
on the day of my period.
Or any days where I'm feelingparticularly histamine y or
before my period when the brainfog starts to set in and I'm
feeling a little, feeling alittle gross is I take the

(22:35):
nettle teabags, I take two ofthem and I brew a cup and then I
brew another cup from those sametwo teabags and then I toss
those teabags out.
I grab two new teabags, brew acup, brew another cup, toss the
two teabags out.
I do that three to four times inone day.
Nettle, luckily, is a reallysafe herb.
Always check with your doctor tosee if anything is

(22:56):
contraindicated.
None of this is medical advice.
I'm a doctor, but I'm not yourdoctor, if you decide to use
nettle as a plant ally in yourperiod, or in your luteal phase,
then just know that the dosetends to need to be higher
because people will say to me,Oh, I tried that.
I drank one teabag of that and Ididn't notice anything.
I'm like, that's because tea isweak.

(23:17):
You got to drink a lot, whichalso makes it really safe.
nettle also has a lot of greateffects on your body.
it's a nutritive herb, so itgives you minerals.
It's very mineral rich.
It's also, supportive of yourkidneys.
So all around a great tea todrink.
It's kind of grassy tasting.
You can mix it with otherthings.
If you're on your period, likered raspberry would be one.

(23:38):
Red raspberry leaf or ginger.
Ginger is also great forInflammation and it's also a
great mass cell stabilizer Onthe topic of mast cell
stabilizers vitamin C is a greatone and kind of back to nettle.
They say that the freeze driedstinging nettle is the best if
you get the encapsulated freezedried ones and you're not making

(23:59):
a tea, that's great, too But itworks in tea as well couple of
different, herbs that could alsobe helpful.
Like I said, ginger,bioflavonoids, like quercetin,
also bromelain, which is anenzyme.
So digestive enzymes, when takenin absence of food, will be anti

(24:20):
inflammatory.
If you take them with food, theywill go towards digesting your
food.
black cumin seed oil, NAC, Allof these kind of nutrients and
herbs can be utilized asantihistamines rather than
popping an antihistamine pillwhich have their own set of
issues.
Antihistamine pills work ashistamine blockers.

(24:42):
H1 and H2 blockers.
when you're taking anantihistamine, it's blocking
histamine's activity at thereceptor level.
It's not stopping thedegranulation of mast cells.
because it's blocking thestimulation of histamine, that
means you're not really gettingthat much stimulation at all.
And that can have side effects,especially long term use, right?
If you're taking an acidsuppressant, medicine, you're

(25:05):
blocking the histamine receptorsin your gut, then you're going
to have nutrient deficiencieslong term because your stomach
acid is suppressed and you needstomach acid to absorb
nutrients.
You need stomach acid to evadepathogens that you're taking in.
So that's not a good long termsolution.
The other thing with histamineand taking long term

(25:27):
antihistamines, especially thecentrally acting antihistamines
can lead to dementia and we haveresearch on that So if you're
using an antihistamine becauseyour histamine issues are just
so bad I think there's a timeand a place for that but having
a long term plan to address thatlong term without having to use
that would be great.

(25:48):
Another thing I want to talkabout is probiotics because some
probiotics can be histamineproducing, others can be
histamine degrading.
And so if you're taking aprobiotic because you think that
probiotics are good for yourgut, Which they can be, but they
can also be more inflammatory.
I would assess what's going onin your gut first before you
take a probiotic.

(26:08):
Also, probiotics have atransitory effect.
They're not colonizing your gut.
The real medicine comes in theprebiotics.
Soluble fiber, right?
I talked about how soluble fiberbinds to bile, but it's also
feeding the healthy bugs in yourgut, which is so important.
We also have resistant starch,which comes from cooked and
cooled starch, so potatoes, orrice, or green bananas, or green

(26:32):
plantain, all great sources ofresistant starch.
Cooked and cooled lentils aswell.
and then polyphenols.
So think bright red berries likepomegranate, for example, would
be a really great source.
Those are all things that youcan do eating those prebiotics
to help feed the good gutbacteria, but you want to eat

(26:54):
them in enough abundance towhere they're actually effective
and reduce the things that aregoing to slow down the secretion
of bile or gunk up the bile.
Because if you gunk up the bile,you're gunking up your estrogen.
One of the best ways to gunk upyour bile is eat a lot of fat,
eat a lot of saturated fat.
That's one of the best ways.
And also, one of the best waysto feed More inflammatory

(27:15):
bacteria.
If you eat saturated fat, bemindful of the amount that
you're eating and combine itwith fiber.
So, let's see.
So we talked about nutrients.
We talked about gut and liver.
We talked about diet.
We talked about methylationsupport.

(27:36):
The last thing I want to talkabout here is nervous system
regulation and how nervoussystem regulation is going to
impact your body's ability tomonitor mast cell degranulation.
Too much stimulation ordysregulation in your nervous
system will make your mast cellsdegranulate, will increase your

(27:59):
histamine and therefore willincrease your body wide
symptoms.
You have to learn how toregulate your nervous system.
If you've never done any kind ofnervous system regulation, the
first thing to think about is toobserve maybe where you are.
If you're stuck in that fight orflight state or you're stuck in
hypervigilance, take note ofthat and recognize that there's

(28:20):
no way to reason yourself out ofthat with your brain.
That has to be done throughsomatic work.
What is somatic work?
It's work that helps reprogramyour brain through your body.
the body comes first before thecortex, before the rational
brain.
The body will always interpretinformation first.

(28:42):
Goes right to your amygdala,hippocampus amygdala, to your
cells, and then to your rationalbrain.
So if you're doing talk therapy,to address your trauma, you're
probably going to be stuck.
Somatic experiencing, somaticinternal family systems, or
somatically informed internalfamily systems.
Both of these would be greatoptions for somatic therapies to

(29:03):
help you actually resolve thedysregulated nervous system.
The other thing is Doing theinner work to understand why
your nervous system isdysregulated in the first place.
Why are you perceiving threateverywhere?
if you don't do the somaticwork, then it's going to be hard
alone if you just do the innerwork.
But if you do the inner work andthe somatic work, you're going

(29:25):
to be set up for success.
One of the things I found to bethe most useful is IFS, or parts
work.
Understanding yourself from theperspective of you have all of
these parts that are all workinghard to keep you safe, to keep
you alive.
Using that modality can bereally helpful.

(29:45):
Family constellations modalitythat will help if a lot of your
dysregulation comes from yourfamily of origin.
Both are great tools.
the last thing I want to say isif you are somebody who's
dealing with a dysregulatednervous system, all of the
basics apply, Making sure thatyour circadian rhythm is

(30:06):
healthy, which I'll do anotherdeep dive on that.
Making sure that you'renourishing your body and not
pushing yourself in areas whereyou don't operate optimally.
I really like human design forthis.
Probably do another deep dive onthat.
Understanding your human design,understanding your strengths and

(30:27):
your weaknesses.
and leveraging both of those sothat you can live a life that
doesn't feel like you'reswimming upstream.
if you are somebody who isreally burnt out and you have a
lot of trauma, learning how toslow down.
that really has to come fromwhat you're doing in your day.
If you're doing crazy, highintensity things, you got to

(30:48):
tone it down.
If you really want to see thebenefit of Not having histamine
flare ups and crazy PMDDsymptoms or perimenopausal
symptoms.
By the way, perimenopause is thetime where your body will tell
you, if you haven't beenlistening to it, that's the time
where everything will come tothe surface.

(31:08):
So it's not that these thingsjust came out of nowhere.
If you're starting to experiencethese symptoms and you're like,
what the hell?
In my 20s, I was fine.
This was always a problem, thiswas always an issue, but now
your body can't hide it anymore.
Your body did a really good jobof doing everything that it
could, but now it's overwhelmed,and now it's screaming for your
support.

(31:29):
I hope this helps.
Please let me know if you haveany requests for any podcast you
would like me to do in thefuture.
And as always, thank you forbeing here.
Until next time.