May 22, 2025 • 52 mins
Why Women Are More Vulnerable—and What You Can Do Clinically
Could histamine intolerance be the hidden driver behind your patient’s anxiety, bloating, headaches, or skin flares? In this episode, nutritionist and epigenetics expert Zelda Graham breaks down the complex interplay between histamine, methylation dysfunction, gut health, and hormonal imbalances—especially in women.
You’ll gain critical insights into the role of DAO and HNMT enzymes, estrogen’s impact on histamine load, and why symptoms often worsen during ovulation and perimenopause.
Zelda also shares clinical strategies to identify and address root causes like mould exposure, gut dysbiosis, and methylation SNPS—plus targeted therapies using nutrients like quercetin, NAC, liposomal glutathione, and calcium D-glucarate.
This episode is essential listening for practitioners managing complex, multisystem female presentations—from hormone imbalances to unresolved histamine-related inflammation.
Connect with Zelda:
Website: www.byronhealthandnutrition.com
Shownotes and references are available on the Designs for Health website
Register as a Designs for Health Practitioner and discover quality practitioner- only supplements at www.designsforhealth.com.au
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DISCLAIMER: The Information provided in the Wellness by Designs podcast is for educational purposes only; the information presented is not intended to be used as medical advice; please seek the advice of a qualified healthcare professional if what you have heard here today raises questions or concerns relating to your health
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is Wellness by Designs, and I'm your host, amy
Skilton, and joining us today isZelda Graham, an accredited
nutritionist, naturopath andepigenetics practitioner.
Zelda has a special interest inepigenetics and, in particular,
the management of MTHFRpolymorphisms, and, as an
(00:32):
accredited practitioner whoconstantly stays up to date with
health advancements anddiagnoses, zelda believes the
body can absolutely heal itselfwhen given the right tools.
By constantly keeping up todate with the most recent
evidence-based science onepigenetics, naturopathic health
and nutrition, she can help youget your body back to health
(00:55):
and vitality.
Her key areas of focus includeMTHFR, genetic disorders,
medical procedure reactions,metabolic issues like diabetes
and cardiovascular disease,hormone things, also
gastrointestinal issues like IBSand FODMAPs and celiac disease,
detoxification, insomnia, lowenergy levels, anxiety and
(01:20):
fatigue, just to name a few.
She certainly has a lot oftools in her toolkit and a lot
of experience, and it's a realpleasure to be speaking with you
today, zelda, ahead of yourupcoming webinar on the link
between histamine intoleranceand methylation.
So welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Thank you.
Yes, it's great to be back andhelp share some knowledge.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Thank you.
Yes, it's great to be back and,yeah, help share some knowledge
.
Yes, oh, we can't wait.
This is such a big area and therole in which histamine plays
with various health disorders.
And I know at the time ofrecording you're a week out from
delivering the webinar forDesigns for Health, but at the
time this comes out it'sprobably already going to be
available.
So if anyone's interested inthat, we'll certainly put the
(02:06):
link in the show notes so thatyou can dive a bit deeper and
that particular webinar is goingto really deep dive into what
histamine intolerance is, thebidirectional relationship with
methylation as a process, aswell as the connection with the
HPO axis and the role estrogenand ovulation play in that
(02:30):
metabolic storm, if you like.
But before we dive intodefining what histamine
intolerance is, I think it'simportant that we start the
conversation off around the factthat histamine actually plays
some really important and vitalroles in our body and has a bit
of a rap as the bad boy ofhormones, but actually histamine
(02:55):
is really important for basicphysiological functions.
So, zelda, will you share someinsights with us on what
histamine actually does for us?
That is beneficial.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, well, I like to call it the good, the bad and
the ugly.
So it's needed very importantlyin our body.
It's actually one of our majorbiochemicals that affects our
immune response, so we needhistamine to stimulate our
immune response.
So we need histamine tostimulate our immune response.
If we don't have the rightlevel of histamine inside our
(03:29):
system, then we have a lowimmune response.
We also need the histamine forour good gut function, which is
also why the gut biome and thehealth of the gut biome is
extremely important.
But we need that histaminethere to help break down our
food and also make sure ourhydrochloric acid levels are at
(03:50):
the optimal level, and we alsoneed it as a neurotransmitter.
It also actually helpsstimulate our sleep and wake
cycle, so it's extremelyimportant for that, and we also
need it to help us, as females,to ovulate properly as well.
So it does a lot.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, it really does.
It forms so many functions and,you know, as an arousal
neurotransmitter with sleep andwake cycles.
It's also really important formemory formation and stress
responses as well, and I thinkyou could almost write a book on
the list of things that it doesin terms of its various
activities.
(04:30):
And I think you know, when wedive into what histamine
intolerance is shortly, we'llbegin to understand why having
too much of it is an issue.
But one of the reasons why whenwe have an issue with histamine
, or an excess of it, it causesso many different symptoms, is
because of how widespreadhistamine receptors are around
(04:54):
the body, and I think it wouldbe great to hear from you you
know, generally speaking, wherethe location of all these
histamine receptors even are.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yes, we have quite a few, but the main ones are the
H1, h2, h3 and the H4 receptors.
The H1 is normally located inand around our eyes and on our
skin inside our blood vessels,so it's linking into our
vasodilation as well and ourrespiratory tract.
(05:28):
So this is why some people canactually suffer asthma attacks
through the respiratory tractreceptor if their histamine
levels in their blood are toohigh.
This is why other people canget exercise-induced asthma as
well because of that specifichistamine receptor.
Then the H2 receptor is locatedin our stomach and it sort of
(05:52):
plays a huge part in breakingdown the histamine from our food
, along with another enzyme thatwe need, the Dow enzyme.
And then we have the H3receptor.
That one is more located insidethe brain and that's the one I
would link more to things likepanic attacks, anxiety and
(06:13):
depression.
And then we've got the H4receptor, which is actually
attached to our mast cells.
So this is where histamine andmast cell activation also can
play a massive role in thehealth of our body.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yes, and I think that really does explain why, when
histamine is out of balance andwe're really speaking more
specifically to elevated levelshere that they can cause such
wide-ranging symptoms,especially if all of those
receptors are being impacted,you start to see a laundry list
(06:49):
of suffering in humans that havegot histamine intolerance.
So histamine intolerance thename almost suggests that you're
not tolerating appropriatebiological levels of histamine,
but what it really means isthere is either an excess of
histamine production or an issuewith histamine clearance, or a
(07:12):
combination of the two, andthere can certainly be many
different underlying causes ofthat and, clinically speaking,
sometimes there's more than oneas well.
But I'd love to hear, like,what you typically think of when
you're looking for the rootcauses of histamine intolerance
(07:34):
and how you like to explainhistamine intolerance to your
clients.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And this is where you have to ask so many questions.
And this is where you have toask so many questions.
You have to ask everything fromlifestyle what type of house do
they live in?
Is there a mold issue?
Is there any recurrent UTIs?
Is there a candida overgrowth?
You have to look at the healthof the gut biome, the foods that
(08:02):
they eat.
I mean, yeah, it's interesting.
Then you know, a lot of foodhave a lot of histamine in them.
All foods have histamine, bythe way, but some have obviously
more than others.
I've recently just had a casewhere someone was having a panic
attack and we were actuallyable to pinpoint it to the
avocado and spinach smoothiethey were having at lunchtime,
(08:25):
because that histamine bucketwas already full and then it was
just overflowing by thatsmoothing of the smoothie.
Not a big fan of smoothiesbecause we really should eat our
food, not blend it, but anyway,that's another conversation.
But yeah, yeah, it's abouttrying to not have the full
(08:46):
bucket of histamine.
We want to have it at a nice,acceptable level.
This is why it's good to do ablood histamine test, um, which
unfortunately usually has to beordered privately.
There is some gps will order itbut it's good to see where that
blood histamine level issitting at.
We want to see something around0.5 as the level.
(09:06):
Anything higher than that meanstoo much histamine in the blood
.
But then that also is a hugeindication on not methylating.
So if you've got a highhistamine blood level, it means
you're an under-methylator.
So it's like opposite.
And then the ironic thing ishistamine will also suffocate
the methylation pathway and whenthe methylation pathway doesn't
(09:28):
work, then that causes a wholeother myriad of issues.
So it's just important to tryand have that balance.
So some people will blame eatingthe banana, for example, to
break out in a rash or hives.
Or some people have differentissues a sinus issue, dripping
nose, as I said before, we'vegot the asthma.
(09:53):
We can also have heartpalpitations, blood pressure
issues, pms especially whenabout to ovulate migraines,
headaches.
You know the myriad of issues.
It's really huge.
So it's just asking so manyquestions to try to establish is
(10:14):
there a histamine issue or isthere other issues.
But usually during the factthere's about 50 different
symptoms of histamine.
Usually it's in there in thebackground as a bit of a problem
.
Okay, so, and then obviouslywe've got the genetics.
So we're born with our genes.
We can't change them, okay so.
But they're born and they caneither be.
(10:36):
You can have a small cheekymutation on some of your genetic
SNPs and some of those areinvolved in breaking down
histamine inside the body or wecan make our genetics very dirty
again from our lifestyle, ourchoices of food and what we're
doing as well.
So you just got to ask a lot ofquestions, basically to try and
(10:59):
get to the bottom of thehistamine.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Well, certainly genetics kind of set up your
default baseline and ability totolerate things, don't they?
And, as you said, furtherlifestyle and other elements can
down regulate enzyme activityeven further.
How much of an influence do yousee diet having on this or any
(11:24):
other kind of pathologiesplaying into the body's ability
to maintain histamine balance?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Diet's got a major role to play and we have been
sort of infiltrated now withbone broths and sauerkraut and
kombucha and you know fermentedfoods are great for the gut
biome and you know it seems tobe a massive, huge trick.
That's been happening over thelast few years and I'm not
(11:55):
denying the health benefits ofthose foods, but also we must be
aware that all of those foodsare extremely high in histamine.
So diet has a big thing to playand if you take a look at you
know a lot of the recent dietslike everyone sorry goes, for
you know I love the paleo diet,so the paleo diets vary, based
(12:17):
on lots of seeds and nuts, andthey're all really high on
histamine.
So yeah, so diet can be a hugeculprit.
It can tip the bucket over.
So it means the histamine isalready possibly a little bit
high and then the diet cancompletely exaggerate all the
symptoms right down to peoplewake up, very even at a young
(12:40):
age, and wake up and feel likethey've got flu-like symptoms,
their body aches, massiveinflammation.
These are all also indicatorsof high histamine inside our
blood.
So diet's a big thing.
So it's one of the big thingsthat I talk to people about is.
We must remove the massive highlevel foods with the histamine.
(13:01):
So strawberries massive culpritwatermelon, and everyone's
going to hate this one, butmango, yeah, we all love a good
mango, but it's actually reallyhigh in histamine.
It's a lot of.
The fruits are quite high.
Nuts, seeds, um, and thenprocessed meats, all fermented
(13:21):
things like cheese, um, and, asI said, all of those sauerkrauts
and bone broths.
Actually, I just recently hadanother case where they had
honestly one of the highestblood histamine levels I had
seen, but they had been drinkingbone broth every day for three
years and it was just completelytipping the bucket right over
(13:43):
and had a parade of a lot ofhistamine symptoms.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah, Well, I guess, certainly when you take a case
as a practitioner, that'ssomething to be looking out for.
And, as you said, the emergenceof the popularity of fermented
foods in recent years is a bitof a double-edged sword.
And if you're metabolizinghistamine, just fine sword.
(14:08):
And if you're metabolizinghistamine, just fine.
Maybe you can get away with ajump in dietary histamines.
But generally speaking, ifsomeone is not overindulging in
those areas, a low histaminediet isn't the solution to
histamine issues.
It's like a temporary reprievewhile you identify the
underlying causes.
So, for anyone who was readyjust to click out of this
(14:29):
conversation and say I'm notgiving up my mango, it is a
short term thing we promise andI think maybe it would help to
understand, you know, like, whatis actually really going on.
And there's kind of two elementsto this.
There is, of course, what'sstimulating histamines outside
(14:50):
of dietary histamines?
What is stimulating the immune,innate immune response
unnecessarily or in an overlyaggressive way?
And also, where is the body notmetabolizing histamine
appropriately If it's not sortof a major external source?
Where is the bottleneck inhistamine being cleared from the
(15:12):
blood and allowing it to remainin a more healthy reference
range, if you like?
And this is really your area ofexpertise, but there's two main
genes that do histaminemetabolism.
Do you want to take us throughthose two?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, well, the main one, obviously intracellular, is
the HN sorry, hnmt and sohistidine and methy transferase.
And again, just as the namestates, it's a methyl
transferase.
So this is a methylation gene.
(15:51):
It needs methyl donors to beable to do its job, so it's
intracellularly breaking downthe histamine so that that
histamine doesn't get releasedinto our blood, whereas the Dow
enzyme that we have to produceinside our gut is
extracellularly produced.
And this is where,unfortunately, estrogen and Dow
(16:13):
can have a little bit of a fight, because estrogen can
downregulate our body's abilityto produce the Dow enzyme.
And this is again interesting.
Interesting, though, whenpeople fall pregnant, all of a
sudden all of their apparenthistamine issues just disappear,
and this is because the bodyknows that estrogen can damage
(16:34):
the fetus.
So what it will do, and thathistamine will, it will actually
produce five to 600 times moreof the usual amount of the Dow
enzyme to combat the effects ofthat estrogen inside the system,
because estrogen stimulatesmore production of histamine as
well.
So this is where the HNMT willtake over from Dow if Dow is not
(16:58):
able to do its job.
But back to the original issueof methylation HNMT cannot
function unless you're actuallymethylating correctly, so you
need to be making enoughS-adenyl metathionine to have
that methyl donor available forHNMT to actually do its job and
break down histamine inside thebody.
(17:19):
And there's also other genes toplay um.
We've got um, comt as well andmao a as well.
They're very important inbreaking down um and balancing
histamine inside the blood aswell.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
but I will be digging deeper into that in the
histamine webinar on all thegenetics yeah, that's great,
because certainly histamine,being an arousal
neurotransmitter and part of thestress response, means if there
are issues with the enzymesthat clear stress hormones cycle
, we're going to see acompromised level of methyl
(18:08):
donors being produced, whichmeans histamine and
methyltransferase doesn't havethe conjugates to be able to
clear histamine in the firstplace.
So it is a bit of a wicked webto go down and just before we
move on to clinically assessingthings outside of blood
histamine, I did want to justask you to share the why
(18:31):
histamine intolerance is oftenmore challenging or more
prevalent in women, and you'vekind of hinted at the estrogen
connection there.
But can you just give us alittle bit more detail around
that?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Usually the HIT 80% are usuallyexperienced by females because
of the estrogen connection.
So estrogen stimulates theproduction of histamine.
So when we ovulate day 14 or 15of our cycle and we're making
(19:04):
more estrogen, we also will makemore histamine, naturally,
because it stimulates the body'sability to make that.
And this is why females canunfortunately experience high
levels of PMS, headaches,migraines and extra
sensitivities, yeah, and they'llalways blame their cycle, not
(19:27):
realizing that actually theirbucket of histamine is just too
high.
And if they could just lowerthat a little bit.
As we said, we don't have toremove the histamine foods for
your whole life.
It's about balancing the bucket.
So you know, having thatavocado twice a week is fine,
but having it every single daytwice a day probably not.
(19:48):
That's all.
And estrogen will thenstimulate extra histamine
production, especially in ourovaries.
So this is where women,unfortunately, will experience
higher issues with histaminethan men will.
And you know men can experiencethe histamine issue with, yeah,
(20:09):
when they're being sexualbecause it can cause premature
ejaculation if they've got highlevels of histamine inside their
blood.
When it comes to estrogen aswell and histamine, we also have
to be aware of the littleoxalate issue there too, so
there's another little rabbithole you can go down into.
(20:30):
But basically, oxalates meansthat they will also cause extra
histamine.
So we have to make sure thatwe're not having a massive
oxalate overload inside oursystem as well along with the
estrogen, especially at thattime of ovulation.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, that certainly explains why women's buckets
tend to overflow a lot quickerand a lot more frequently than
it does for men.
And certainly, again, you know,with sensitivity of the nervous
system and you knowcatecholamines and potentially
SNPs and COMPT and other things,it can really get away from
(21:11):
someone pretty quickly.
But can I ask, when you'reclinically assessing someone?
Obviously you mentioned bloodhistamine.
You want that level to be 0.5or less and when we know that
that's high we've got to checkfor the knock-on effect with
methylation.
But outside of histaminethere's a couple of other things
(21:32):
that you can also check for inblood.
What do you look for whenyou're assessing that overall
picture?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I also like to check for homocysteine, another
important amino acid, but againit's a bit like the histamine it
has to be in balance.
If you've got really reallyhigh homocysteine, that really
means that there's a massiveissue with your methylation
pathway as well, and highhomocysteine can also put extra
(22:02):
pressure on your blood vesselsand vasodilation, so that can
cause the high blood pressureissues and therefore that can
have a knock-on effect in therespiratory tract and the
histamine receptors andtherefore we start releasing
more histamine.
So histamine and homocysteinewould be two I always like to
check.
It's also really important tocheck the B12 levels as well,
(22:26):
because if you do not haveenough intracellular level of
B12, that means you're actuallynot regenerating or recycling
B12 in and around the body.
So that's extremely vital tomaking sure that there's a good
intracellular level of B12.
But then, especially forfemales, this is where we have
to dig a little bit deeper.
(22:47):
So progesterone is reallyimportant and vital for keeping
the balance a bit more withestrogen and as we age, we make
less progesterone.
Now, as we make lessprogesterone, we are still
stimulating and making estrogen,but we're not able to clear the
histamine, which is why a lotof people will say when I was a
(23:09):
teenager, gosh, I used to havethe worst hay fever and I used
to have the acne and I used tohave the hives, but then, as I
got older, it all justdisappeared.
And now I'm in my mid fortiesand it's all come back with a
vengeance.
This is all back to ourproduction of estrogen and
puberty and then not makingenough progesterone when we're
(23:30):
hitting perimenopause phase.
So it all sort of links in.
So it's really important tocheck all of these things.
Obviously, a Dutch test isamazing to check what are the
hormones actually doing.
It's better to test forhormones inside the urine rather
than blood, because blood's notvery indicative very well of
(23:52):
the biochemical level of what'sactually really going on.
I also obviously like to do thegenetic testing as well to see
do we have our COMTcatecholamine issue?
Do we have a Dow H&MT?
Then there's the you test forthe histamine receptors as well,
and the HRH and yeah, so theMTFHR obviously as well is very
(24:18):
important to know.
Are we dealing with onemethylation, snp or a double
homozygous or a lovely compoundone?
And then also with the genetictest you get to also ascertain
all of the B12 genetics, becauseif you don't have intracellular
B12, you can't bind iron Okay,so iron is really important for
(24:40):
making progesterone.
So we also need to make surewe've got good levels of vitamin
D to make progesterone.
So we also need to make surewe've got good levels of vitamin
D to make progesterone.
And we also need to have iodineand we also need to have a good
balance of zinc and copper.
So, just to you know, have alook at all of those tests.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Would be fantastic to see where is the body at with
all of those levels to see whereis the body at with all of
those levels, and do you doanything in the realm of omics
testing or gut biome testing, asit relates to histamine
intolerance as well?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yes, I do love the organics metabolite test because
not only does it tell us ifthere possibly is an underlying
mold and yeast hanging in there,because it will give us that in
the markers.
The OMX will also tell us theB12 levels.
With the methylmalonic We'll beable to actually see
(25:36):
intracellular.
So back to the B12 thing.
Someone could have a reallyhigh level of B12 in the blood.
So everyone just goes, oh,that's great, you've got a
really high level of B12 in theblood.
So everyone just goes, oh,that's great, you've got really
high level, that's fine.
I actually see a high level asa danger zone.
That says to me there's lots ofB12 inside your blood but it's
actually not getting into yourcells.
(25:57):
So that's where the OMX canjump in and actually see from an
intracellular level.
Is the B12 actually in in thecells?
Because then we've got a lot ofB12 genes like the MUT and the
TCN2 and the MTR and the MTRRthat can cause an issue with
regenerating and recycling andgetting that B12 into the cells.
(26:18):
And in the OMX it gives us alsoa great histidine.
So there's really high levelsof histidine.
That means it's not gettingconverted.
That means we also have a hugeissue with histamine inside the
cells and I love the OMX as wellbecause that brings in the
other little topic I justslightly touched on is oxalates.
(26:38):
Do we have an underlyingoxalate issue?
Is the oxalic acid gettingbroken down?
Are the kidneys properlyclearing and are the kidneys
actually able to function?
Because oxalates can cause alot of issues inside the body
from a gut biome perspective,because you can end up getting
this huge oxalate dump.
(26:59):
So if you get any tummy painsor sharpshooting pains, anything
like that, or pains obviouslyin the kidneys, kidney stones or
gallstones, there is a hugeissue here of oxalates not
properly getting broken down.
So OMX is very detailed.
I would actually prefer an OMXthan a blood test, to be honest.
(27:20):
It tells me so much more ofwhat's going on inside the body.
I get my big nerd hat on um,yeah.
So um and um, also the gutbiome, okay, because sebo I mean
, yeah, like all our littlebacteria friends, we have to
again.
It's the double-edged sword,isn't it?
(27:42):
We have to have a nice balance.
You know we have to have a goodbalance of bacteria.
But there's some bacteria thatwill produce histamine and if
you're not having a goodgut-biome balance, that's
actually adding insult to injuryin your histamine issue.
So making sure that thegut-biome is healthy and you
(28:02):
don't have any issues there,that the gut biome is healthy
and you don't have any issuesthere.
So I generally would focus alot on diet and gut first, as
first base of protocol, beingaware.
Unfortunately, we have all ofthese.
Not only do we have foods thatrelease histamine, but
probiotics also can releasehistamine.
So you have to be really awareof what probiotics you're taking
(28:24):
.
If you do have an underlyinghistamine issue, saccharomyces
is fine.
If you do have a histamineissue, but there's some of the
other probiotics will actuallyliberate and release even more
histamine.
So this is where you reallyneed to have a good look at the
gut biome to make sure what'shappening there, and the gut
biome will also let us know.
(28:44):
Do we have candida?
Is there an underlying moldissue?
You know?
Is there a viral overload?
Is there a bacterial overload?
Because these are all addinginto the problem.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
And it sounds very much like when you're looking at
someone with histamineintolerance.
You've got to take asystems-wide, root cause
approach and that could looklike any sort of way depending
on the patient that's in frontof you.
But I guess when we boil itdown to kind of the two main
(29:20):
factors of stabilizing mastcells and reducing histamine
release, what are the corefundamentals that you always
include?
You mentioned diet, and gut isusually the place that you start
.
But what does a typicaltreatment sort of protocol look
like in terms of the chunkypieces?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
you see, this is where it is tricky.
Okay, know, histamine's got somany different levels.
And then when we look at thegut biome, is there a mast cell
activation?
Is there mold in the house theylive?
Have they ever been affectedwith anything like Lyme's
disease?
Do they have a yeast overgrowth?
(30:00):
Do they have a candidaovergrowth?
And this is where it's not justan easy oh, just take this and
that's going to fix your issue.
And this is where,unfortunately, a lot of people
end up depending onantihistamines and antacids as
their solution.
Now, antihistamines do notreduce your histamine.
(30:21):
It's like a Band-Aid.
It doesn't do anything.
It just blocks the body'sresponse to the underlying cause
.
That is still happening insidethe body.
If you stop the antihistaminesat any time, the problem is
still going to be there.
Same as antacids, they'rebasically blocking the proton
pump inhibitors.
(30:41):
That's all they do.
Again, it's not lowering yourhistamine level.
It's not fixing the underlyingcause.
And unfortunately, that's whereyou've got to find the root
cause.
You know, is it diet?
Is it overproducing estrogen?
Is it not being able to breakdown oxalates?
Is it a bacterial overload?
Viral overload?
(31:02):
Is there mold?
Is lifestyle it's?
It's actually a very morein-depth thing to do.
But one of the the good thingsto do is to remove the massive
high level of histamine from thefood mix just for a few weeks,
just to make sure that we canbalance it out and give the body
time to catch up, becausethat's what it's trying to do it
(31:24):
is trying to break down thehistamine.
So we just give that break fora few weeks of all the avocados
and the strawberries and themangoes and the fermented foods
and then, if we can just helpthe body, we could take
something like the Dow enzyme tohelp the body actually break
that down before a meal.
So it's important to take theDow enzyme about 15 minutes
(31:48):
before your main meal of the dayand making sure that your body
can methylate, because if you'renot methylating, then the HNMT
is there.
It's the body's backup to theDow.
If the Dow is not working, hnmthas to jump in.
If you're not methylatingproperly, hnmt can't do its job.
So, making sure that you'remethylating properly and that's
(32:12):
where you need to look at thegenetic SNPs to see the best way
.
So not everyone can takemethylfolate, not everyone can
take methyl Bs.
Sometimes that's not the answerBecause, again, don't forget,
if you've got over methylationand you take a methyl product,
it can make actually people feelworse and not better.
(32:33):
So sometimes in this case,you're better off offering
phyllenic acid instead of5-methyltetrahydrofolate.
And again, also making surethat you've got the homocysteine
being regenerated properlyaround the body to making sure
you've got enough of that B12 aswell.
Making sure that iron isproperly bonded.
(32:54):
And, at the end of the day,when we're talking about mast
cells, progesterone canstabilize mast cells.
So back to the original issueif you're not making enough
progesterone, making sure youhave all of the right nutrients
inside the body.
Making sure you're gettingenough vitamin D If you're not
able to get out into thesunlight, take liposomal vitamin
(33:17):
D making sure that yourhormones are balanced properly.
Iodine selenium is amazing forthis, so is making sure you've
got a balance of zinc and copperand making sure that you can
bind iron as well oh my gosh, somany good strategies in there
(33:38):
and I think you know you'vetouched on environment, you've
touched on diet.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
You mentioned gut and I think it's probably worth
noting that you know the largestconcentration of diamine
oxidase is in the lining of thegut, meaning if you have any
digestive issues,gastrointestinal inflammation,
you immediately lose that.
You know, frontline histaminemetabolizing layer, which also
(34:05):
then leaves you more vulnerableto reactions to dietary
histamines, because it's Dowthat would normally take care of
those for you.
I'd love to know, like justroughly, of those patients that
you see with histamineintolerance, like how many of
them also have gut as part ofthat versus those that it's just
.
That's not one of thosevariables.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah you will find all have the underlying gut and
it's usually recurrent UTIs,which is a bit of an indicator
that there's a yeast and acandida overgrowth or a past
life where they've lived in amold house.
The mold will really cause amassive issue with mass cell
(34:50):
activation as well, becauseyeast and mold produce oxalic
acid.
So this is linking back in thento oxalates as well, so that
creates inflammation.
And when you createinflammation that stimulates the
cytokine inflammatory pathways,so all your inflammatory
cytokines get stimulated tooverproduce.
(35:11):
So then you've got this extrainflammation and inflammation
stimulates to making morehistamine.
So it just sort of it's like alittle roundabout.
You know, you could literallyjust say do we have this symptom
?
Oh, that could be histamine.
Oh, you've got that symptom,that could be that histamine.
And not everyone has the samehistamine symptoms Everyone.
(35:31):
Some people might only havemaybe two symptoms.
Then I have some clients when Igo through my little histamine
questionnaire they have 20symptoms and it's like, oh, wow,
that's pretty big.
And usually those people havebad gut biome.
They usually have lived in,unfortunately, a house with mold
and their diet is veryinflammatory.
(35:55):
You know inflammatory foods.
One of the worst inflammatoryfoods we can actually ever eat
is gluten.
I don't care what anyone says.
This is not even about celiachere.
Yes, there is celiac, but, tobe honest, gluten is very
inflammatory for everyone.
Whether you're celiac or not.
Gluten will cause inflammationin the digestive tract.
Gluten will stop thegallbladder from producing very
(36:19):
important bile and thereforeit's going to also affect our
body's ability to detoxify.
So it's just a also affect ourbody's ability to detoxify.
So it's just, it's a no-go.
And it's surprising when peopleremove the gluten, remove the
fermented foods and remove someof those high histamine foods,
within two weeks most peoplewill say oh my gosh, I feel so
(36:40):
much better already.
Thank you, you know they've hada 50 improvement quite quickly,
um, by just making some of thosetweaks, and that's huge.
And then we can spend the next,um, you know, a few months
finalizing their treatment andgetting them been able to
actually break down histamineproperly and keep in imbalance
(37:03):
well, certainly that makes senseto remove those really chunky
inflammatory pieces before goingdown the route of putting
together protocols with withsupplements and things.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
And I just wanted to, yeah, just reiterate the the
aspect of the, you know sickbuilding syndrome and having
been exposed to toxigenic moldseither currently or in the past,
as a, obviously it's an immuneprovocation, um, and highly
inflammatory.
There is also a subset of thepopulation that have mold
(37:36):
susceptible genetics and there'sa relationship there with
celiac as well, that that celiacgene sits in the same space.
And what happens with moldsusceptible clients is, um, all
you need to like.
As far as like genetics go,they're not able to mount an
adaptive immune response andfurther, that just allows the
(38:00):
innate immune system to keepfiring and produce histamine.
And I really see thatrelationship with mast cell
activation syndrome, even afterthey've left a water damaged
building, if they have moldsusceptible haplotypes, the
adaptive immune system nevercomes in to address the toxins
in a more precise way, and sothe innate immune system keeps
(38:22):
firing and then it's like justthrowing kerosene on a bonfire
immune system keeps firing andthen it's like just throwing
kerosene on a bonfire.
And typically with mold patients, you know, we have low alpha
MSH, which then causes anincrease in gluten sensitivity.
Over and above the generalresponse to a food that we don't
produce an enzyme to break downproperly, it just becomes a
really, really toxic soup thatsomeone is living in and, yeah,
(38:46):
I think it just makes so muchsense just to take a load off to
start with.
But having screened someone forenvironmental things and having
looked at their diet and thenput them on a lower or low
histamine diet initially,provided some gut support, there
is then the opportunity to lookat more specific supplements to
(39:07):
either stabilize mast cells,reduce histamine release,
stimulate histamine clearance,and whether or not those aspects
are a direct approach or asecondary, indirect approach.
I know you're going to gothrough this in detail on the
webinar and we're not going toattempt to even try and get you
to repeat it here, but I wouldlove to just go through maybe a
(39:29):
handful of your favorites tokind of wrap up our conversation
and some specifics that liketools that you will call on for
clients time and again yeah,okay.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
So generally, once you've assessed everything, like
what you were saying, it's,it's good to have a look at, as
I had said before, somethinglike, say, homocysteine.
So if somebody's got really,really high homocysteine, that
needs to be brought down to anacceptable level.
So this is whereN-acetylcysteine is amazing at
reducing homocysteine inside thesystem.
(40:01):
Now, however, if somebody's gotlow homocysteine, that's just
as dangerous as highhomocysteine.
That means that we don't wantto introduce NAC then.
But if I see a highhomocysteine level, I love
introducing NAC because it'sgoing to help stimulate the CBS
pathway as well, which is goingto help stimulate the
glutathione production as well.
(40:22):
I'd also touched on glutathione, but again, I like to use
glutathionine later on down onthe protocol when I can honestly
see that they're methylatingbetter, that they're starting to
break down that histaminebetter.
So I would never use it as myfirst protocol, but it would
definitely be there in theprotocol further down the track
(40:46):
protocol.
But it would definitely bethere in the protocol further
down the track.
Back to the mold issue.
Obviously it's really importantto bind that mold and get it
out of their system Becausedon't forget, also mold will
stimulate estrogen.
So then we're back to thatlittle seesaw, you're
stimulating the estrogenproduction.
Estrogen is going to stimulatemore histamine as well.
I also make sure again, as Ihad said before, that balancing
(41:11):
of the progesterone.
So the zinc is really important,the vitamin D is really
important, the iodine is reallyimportant and I also like to
look at calcium D-glutarate.
It's an amazing amino acid.
It is amazing, especially foranyone that will come to you and
say I keep getting headaches, Ikeep getting migraines.
(41:33):
This is linking into theestrogen stimulating extra
histamine.
Or if you find someone saysthat I eat dinner straight away
I can feel a headache coming on.
That means again, thehistamine's too high and the
estrogen's also being stimulated.
So calcium diglutarate isamazing here to stimulate the
(41:54):
glucuronidation pathway.
So they would be my pretty muchgo-to.
I'm very vitamin C is a bit ofmust-go on symptoms because,
don't forget, all citrusreleases histamine as well.
So it's usually not something Iwould go to as a port of call.
I would go on someone'ssymptoms.
(42:15):
So something like quercetinwould be better there for anyone
that has issues with citrus andquercetin as well is also
amazing at stabilizing thosemast cells.
So if we've had that moldexposure, it's very good for
calming down the mast cellactivation.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Yes, yeah, absolutely .
And where do you see usingbovine immunoglobulins?
Certainly with gut stuff, butthen you said pretty much
everyone with histamineintolerance seems to have a gut
issue.
Are there certain cases whereit's more indicated, or is it
one of those staples that youuse across the board?
Speaker 2 (42:52):
I have to say I would use it across the board, I find
, because it's a dairy-freebulvein option and you will see
this in the gut biome.
You'll get the gut biomeresults back and you'll see that
it's extremely low.
They need it.
They need it to help stabilizethe whole gut biome.
(43:14):
So I would always that's wheremy it's on my standard issue
protocol I put them on there IgGdefinitely.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Yeah, great, I don't have to think about that one.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
That's a must.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
An absolute must.
Yes, I can see why.
And there were a couple ofother really interesting little
things you shared with me whenwe had an earlier chat, and one
of those was iodine and itsrelationship with the cycle and
histamine.
Can you share a little bitabout that with us too?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Yeah, because we have to be able to regulate our
hormones properly, and if we'renot able to regulate our
hormones properly, well, you endup having thyroid issue.
So we have to be able to alsomethylate properly to make sure
that we can convert tyrosine toT4 and then T4 gets methylated.
But if you are deficient iniodine, that will really affect
(44:08):
the balance of your hormones,and if you're deficient in
iodine you're not able to makeenough progesterone.
I mean, we used to have salt onthe table that always had
iodine added in.
That's no longer available.
So people aren't even awarethat they're very deficient in
iodine.
So that's a very great thing toadd into the mix.
(44:28):
And again, when you see theresults in TSH level, I consider
a TSH over two means thethyroid is going in the wrong
direction.
It's not you know I'm not goingto punish the thyroid for that,
by the way because only 20%happens in the thyroid, 80%
happens in the methylation.
(44:49):
So it's good to then look at themethylation cycle and then
boost things like the vitamin Dand the iodine to balance the
hormone production, and that'sgoing to also help make sure
that they're able to make theprogesterone and this is why a
lot of women, when they becomeinto menopause, we are producing
(45:09):
less progesterone and that'swhy some people will only start
getting symptoms when they startentering menopause phase.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
That makes sense.
Look, I've got one lastquestion to run by you before we
wrap up today, and it wassomething you mentioned to me
prior to hitting record and thatwas, I know you said just
before you will bringglutathione in once you check
that they're methylatingcorrectly and homocysteine is
balanced, rather than trying tojump a few steps ahead to
(45:41):
increase glutathione in the casethat homocysteine might be low,
for example, or thattranssulfuration pathway is
still trying to wind up.
But when it comes toglutathione, you mentioned that
you find liposomal glutathioneto be really helpful to stop
histamine leaking, and I thoughtthat was a really interesting
(46:02):
insight on your part, and I'mcurious is that to do with the
relationship of the phospholipidstabilizing cell membranes, or
does it have to do withglutathione's functions, or is
it a bit of both?
Speaker 2 (46:16):
It's actually a bit of both, and also this is why
you don't go in with it at thestart, because you'll find that
people that aren't methylatedcorrectly, their detoxification
P450 pathway is usually notfunctioning that well, so it's
dangerous to go in with theglutathione straight away.
So that's why I make sure themethylation pathway is working.
(46:38):
It's like opening I call itlike opening the lid.
We're going to open the lid andhopefully everything will start
flowing down so that we canstart producing the glutathione.
So then when you introduce itbut it's really important to
making sure that you aredetoxing properly Again, the
liver's very vital organ.
80% of our methylation happensinside our liver as well.
(47:00):
So the liver has to be happyand healthy and glutathione is
an amazing addition, once youstart removing a lot of the
other symptoms, to making surethat that's working properly.
And yeah, the lipids are veryimportant to be balanced inside
our body as well to help makingsure that we don't have this
(47:21):
overflow bucket of histamine andeverything else that can
unfortunately go wrong.
And so I also like alsosometimes transdermal
glutathione.
If someone's not able toactually take liposomal
glutathione, that's when I willsometimes look for a transdermal
option, because don't forgetanything that we put in our skin
(47:43):
will also go straight into ourbloodstream.
So this is another otherpronged approach to everything
that we're trying to do Be veryaware that there is no
regulation on any of ourshampoos or body washes or face
products or makeup.
They can put whatever they likein there.
So it's really important to beaware that you know what you put
(48:06):
on in your skin is also goingto go into your in there.
So it's really important to beaware that you know what you put
on in your skin is also goingto go into your bloodstream.
So that's just another way.
If someone's not able totolerate the liposomal
glutathione, you go in with asmall patch at a time of the
transdermal.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
And, interestingly, liposomal glutathione is
absorbed transdermally quitewell, so if someone has
purchased it found orally itdidn't go so well, you don't
have to throw it in the bin.
You can obviously park it tilllater in the protocol and try
again, but you can also use ittopically.
The only thing I will say aboutthat is in that form it's not
(48:44):
designed to be as pleasant as apatch and glutathione being a
salt containing compound, youmight smell a little unusual and
it might not be the best way togo but, yes, definitely
recommend doing that at night.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yes, yes, when you're not socializing.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
You don't need that problem on top of your histamine
issues, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yeah, exactly, you're sitting there trying to impress
someone over dinner with thered flushing face with the
histamine.
We don't need the sulfur smellas well, smelling like sulfur?
Speaker 1 (49:23):
No, no, no, zelda, thank you so much.
You're such a wealth ofknowledge and, before we wrap up
today, is there anything otherlittle pearls of wisdom you want
to share before we say goodbyeum?
Speaker 2 (49:40):
I suppose the main thing is making sure um, from a
female perspective, if you're inperimenopause, making sure that
those hormones are balanced.
It's really, really vital.
Um, just because you'reentering this phase of life, it
should be joyful, not painful.
Um, so making sure that youknow the vitamin d is there and
(50:01):
that you're making enoughprogesterone and to seek help if
you're not feeling well, like.
There's so many greatpractitioners out there that
have these tools available, andI feel that, yeah, menopause and
well, I think that's anotherthing we need to discuss later.
Menopause is something that canbe very greatly helped so that
(50:21):
it's not, yeah, very hard on you.
So I think that's the hormonebalance is really good, and
iodine, vitamin d are a greatstraight away, quick solution to
see if and removing some ofthose high histamine foods, and
sometimes that's all it willtake.
Um, the more difficult casesobviously will need a little bit
(50:43):
more help and love, butsometimes that's all it has to
be is something very simple likethat yes, I think that's very
sage advice, especially knowingthat.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
I think, generally speaking, women feel like
menopause.
You've either got to grit yourteeth and suffer through it or
go on HRT and they don't realizethere's so many things in
between available to them.
But given that sort ofperimenopausal chapter where we
lose progesterone beforeestrogen also declines, you can
absolutely see why hiddenhistamine intolerance issues can
(51:17):
rear its ugly head then.
Or existing histamine, you know, overflowing bucket symptoms
can absolutely worsen.
And I think perhaps a nice wayto wrap this up is that
histamine intolerance is asymptom, just like MCAS.
It's not a condition or adisease.
It's indicative of someunderlying issues that are going
(51:39):
on, and Zelda so appreciate youtaking us through some of those
today, and practitioners.
For those of you interested inlearning more, as we mentioned
at the beginning of the episode,designs for Health is hosting a
webinar with Zelda on the linkbetween histamine intolerance
and the methylation pathway, andZelda is going into the
(52:02):
estrogenic ovulatory connectionthere as well.
So it's a perfect deep dive foryou to expand your knowledge
base there.
So check out the link in theshow notes below and, zelda,
just thank you again for sharingyour brain with us all today.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
No problem, thank you .
It's fun as always and I lookforward to yeah being there for
the next very deep dive onwhatever is needed out there in
the world of health.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I can't wait, zelda.
Thank you again so much andthank you everyone for joining
us today.
Remember you can find all theshow notes and other links to
podcasts and relevant webinarson the Designs for Health
Australia website.
I'm Amy Skilton and this isWellness by Designs.
This is Wellness by Designs, and I'm your host, amy
Skilton, and joining us today isZelda Graham, an accredited
nutritionist, naturopath andepigenetics practitioner.
Zelda has a special interest inepigenetics and, in particular,
the management of MTHFRpolymorphisms, and, as an
(00:32):
accredited practitioner whoconstantly stays up to date with
health advancements anddiagnoses, zelda believes the
body can absolutely heal itselfwhen given the right tools.
By constantly keeping up todate with the most recent
evidence-based science onepigenetics, naturopathic health
and nutrition, she can help youget your body back to health
(00:55):
and vitality.
Her key areas of focus includeMTHFR, genetic disorders,
medical procedure reactions,metabolic issues like diabetes
and cardiovascular disease,hormone things, also
gastrointestinal issues like IBSand FODMAPs and celiac disease,
detoxification, insomnia, lowenergy levels, anxiety and
(01:20):
fatigue, just to name a few.
She certainly has a lot oftools in her toolkit and a lot
of experience, and it's a realpleasure to be speaking with you
today, zelda, ahead of yourupcoming webinar on the link
between histamine intoleranceand methylation.
So welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Thank you.
Yes, it's great to be back andhelp share some knowledge.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Thank you.
Yes, it's great to be back and,yeah, help share some knowledge
.
Yes, oh, we can't wait.
This is such a big area and therole in which histamine plays
with various health disorders.
And I know at the time ofrecording you're a week out from
delivering the webinar forDesigns for Health, but at the
time this comes out it'sprobably already going to be
available.
So if anyone's interested inthat, we'll certainly put the
(02:06):
link in the show notes so thatyou can dive a bit deeper and
that particular webinar is goingto really deep dive into what
histamine intolerance is, thebidirectional relationship with
methylation as a process, aswell as the connection with the
HPO axis and the role estrogenand ovulation play in that
(02:30):
metabolic storm, if you like.
But before we dive intodefining what histamine
intolerance is, I think it'simportant that we start the
conversation off around the factthat histamine actually plays
some really important and vitalroles in our body and has a bit
of a rap as the bad boy ofhormones, but actually histamine
(02:55):
is really important for basicphysiological functions.
So, zelda, will you share someinsights with us on what
histamine actually does for us?
That is beneficial.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, well, I like to call it the good, the bad and
the ugly.
So it's needed very importantlyin our body.
It's actually one of our majorbiochemicals that affects our
immune response, so we needhistamine to stimulate our
immune response.
So we need histamine tostimulate our immune response.
If we don't have the rightlevel of histamine inside our
(03:29):
system, then we have a lowimmune response.
We also need the histamine forour good gut function, which is
also why the gut biome and thehealth of the gut biome is
extremely important.
But we need that histaminethere to help break down our
food and also make sure ourhydrochloric acid levels are at
(03:50):
the optimal level, and we alsoneed it as a neurotransmitter.
It also actually helpsstimulate our sleep and wake
cycle, so it's extremelyimportant for that, and we also
need it to help us, as females,to ovulate properly as well.
So it does a lot.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, it really does.
It forms so many functions and,you know, as an arousal
neurotransmitter with sleep andwake cycles.
It's also really important formemory formation and stress
responses as well, and I thinkyou could almost write a book on
the list of things that it doesin terms of its various
activities.
(04:30):
And I think you know, when wedive into what histamine
intolerance is shortly, we'llbegin to understand why having
too much of it is an issue.
But one of the reasons why whenwe have an issue with histamine
, or an excess of it, it causesso many different symptoms, is
because of how widespreadhistamine receptors are around
(04:54):
the body, and I think it wouldbe great to hear from you you
know, generally speaking, wherethe location of all these
histamine receptors even are.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yes, we have quite a few, but the main ones are the
H1, h2, h3 and the H4 receptors.
The H1 is normally located inand around our eyes and on our
skin inside our blood vessels,so it's linking into our
vasodilation as well and ourrespiratory tract.
(05:28):
So this is why some people canactually suffer asthma attacks
through the respiratory tractreceptor if their histamine
levels in their blood are toohigh.
This is why other people canget exercise-induced asthma as
well because of that specifichistamine receptor.
Then the H2 receptor is locatedin our stomach and it sort of
(05:52):
plays a huge part in breakingdown the histamine from our food
, along with another enzyme thatwe need, the Dow enzyme.
And then we have the H3receptor.
That one is more located insidethe brain and that's the one I
would link more to things likepanic attacks, anxiety and
(06:13):
depression.
And then we've got the H4receptor, which is actually
attached to our mast cells.
So this is where histamine andmast cell activation also can
play a massive role in thehealth of our body.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yes, and I think that really does explain why, when
histamine is out of balance andwe're really speaking more
specifically to elevated levelshere that they can cause such
wide-ranging symptoms,especially if all of those
receptors are being impacted,you start to see a laundry list
(06:49):
of suffering in humans that havegot histamine intolerance.
So histamine intolerance thename almost suggests that you're
not tolerating appropriatebiological levels of histamine,
but what it really means isthere is either an excess of
histamine production or an issuewith histamine clearance, or a
(07:12):
combination of the two, andthere can certainly be many
different underlying causes ofthat and, clinically speaking,
sometimes there's more than oneas well.
But I'd love to hear, like,what you typically think of when
you're looking for the rootcauses of histamine intolerance
(07:34):
and how you like to explainhistamine intolerance to your
clients.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And this is where you have to ask so many questions.
And this is where you have toask so many questions.
You have to ask everything fromlifestyle what type of house do
they live in?
Is there a mold issue?
Is there any recurrent UTIs?
Is there a candida overgrowth?
You have to look at the healthof the gut biome, the foods that
(08:02):
they eat.
I mean, yeah, it's interesting.
Then you know, a lot of foodhave a lot of histamine in them.
All foods have histamine, bythe way, but some have obviously
more than others.
I've recently just had a casewhere someone was having a panic
attack and we were actuallyable to pinpoint it to the
avocado and spinach smoothiethey were having at lunchtime,
(08:25):
because that histamine bucketwas already full and then it was
just overflowing by thatsmoothing of the smoothie.
Not a big fan of smoothiesbecause we really should eat our
food, not blend it, but anyway,that's another conversation.
But yeah, yeah, it's abouttrying to not have the full
(08:46):
bucket of histamine.
We want to have it at a nice,acceptable level.
This is why it's good to do ablood histamine test, um, which
unfortunately usually has to beordered privately.
There is some gps will order itbut it's good to see where that
blood histamine level issitting at.
We want to see something around0.5 as the level.
(09:06):
Anything higher than that meanstoo much histamine in the blood
.
But then that also is a hugeindication on not methylating.
So if you've got a highhistamine blood level, it means
you're an under-methylator.
So it's like opposite.
And then the ironic thing ishistamine will also suffocate
the methylation pathway and whenthe methylation pathway doesn't
(09:28):
work, then that causes a wholeother myriad of issues.
So it's just important to tryand have that balance.
So some people will blame eatingthe banana, for example, to
break out in a rash or hives.
Or some people have differentissues a sinus issue, dripping
nose, as I said before, we'vegot the asthma.
(09:53):
We can also have heartpalpitations, blood pressure
issues, pms especially whenabout to ovulate migraines,
headaches.
You know the myriad of issues.
It's really huge.
So it's just asking so manyquestions to try to establish is
(10:14):
there a histamine issue or isthere other issues.
But usually during the factthere's about 50 different
symptoms of histamine.
Usually it's in there in thebackground as a bit of a problem
.
Okay, so, and then obviouslywe've got the genetics.
So we're born with our genes.
We can't change them, okay so.
But they're born and they caneither be.
(10:36):
You can have a small cheekymutation on some of your genetic
SNPs and some of those areinvolved in breaking down
histamine inside the body or wecan make our genetics very dirty
again from our lifestyle, ourchoices of food and what we're
doing as well.
So you just got to ask a lot ofquestions, basically to try and
(10:59):
get to the bottom of thehistamine.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Well, certainly genetics kind of set up your
default baseline and ability totolerate things, don't they?
And, as you said, furtherlifestyle and other elements can
down regulate enzyme activityeven further.
How much of an influence do yousee diet having on this or any
(11:24):
other kind of pathologiesplaying into the body's ability
to maintain histamine balance?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Diet's got a major role to play and we have been
sort of infiltrated now withbone broths and sauerkraut and
kombucha and you know fermentedfoods are great for the gut
biome and you know it seems tobe a massive, huge trick.
That's been happening over thelast few years and I'm not
(11:55):
denying the health benefits ofthose foods, but also we must be
aware that all of those foodsare extremely high in histamine.
So diet has a big thing to playand if you take a look at you
know a lot of the recent dietslike everyone sorry goes, for
you know I love the paleo diet,so the paleo diets vary, based
(12:17):
on lots of seeds and nuts, andthey're all really high on
histamine.
So yeah, so diet can be a hugeculprit.
It can tip the bucket over.
So it means the histamine isalready possibly a little bit
high and then the diet cancompletely exaggerate all the
symptoms right down to peoplewake up, very even at a young
(12:40):
age, and wake up and feel likethey've got flu-like symptoms,
their body aches, massiveinflammation.
These are all also indicatorsof high histamine inside our
blood.
So diet's a big thing.
So it's one of the big thingsthat I talk to people about is.
We must remove the massive highlevel foods with the histamine.
(13:01):
So strawberries massive culpritwatermelon, and everyone's
going to hate this one, butmango, yeah, we all love a good
mango, but it's actually reallyhigh in histamine.
It's a lot of.
The fruits are quite high.
Nuts, seeds, um, and thenprocessed meats, all fermented
(13:21):
things like cheese, um, and, asI said, all of those sauerkrauts
and bone broths.
Actually, I just recently hadanother case where they had
honestly one of the highestblood histamine levels I had
seen, but they had been drinkingbone broth every day for three
years and it was just completelytipping the bucket right over
(13:43):
and had a parade of a lot ofhistamine symptoms.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah, Well, I guess, certainly when you take a case
as a practitioner, that'ssomething to be looking out for.
And, as you said, the emergenceof the popularity of fermented
foods in recent years is a bitof a double-edged sword.
And if you're metabolizinghistamine, just fine sword.
(14:08):
And if you're metabolizinghistamine, just fine.
Maybe you can get away with ajump in dietary histamines.
But generally speaking, ifsomeone is not overindulging in
those areas, a low histaminediet isn't the solution to
histamine issues.
It's like a temporary reprievewhile you identify the
underlying causes.
So, for anyone who was readyjust to click out of this
(14:29):
conversation and say I'm notgiving up my mango, it is a
short term thing we promise andI think maybe it would help to
understand, you know, like, whatis actually really going on.
And there's kind of two elementsto this.
There is, of course, what'sstimulating histamines outside
(14:50):
of dietary histamines?
What is stimulating the immune,innate immune response
unnecessarily or in an overlyaggressive way?
And also, where is the body notmetabolizing histamine
appropriately If it's not sortof a major external source?
Where is the bottleneck inhistamine being cleared from the
(15:12):
blood and allowing it to remainin a more healthy reference
range, if you like?
And this is really your area ofexpertise, but there's two main
genes that do histaminemetabolism.
Do you want to take us throughthose two?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, well, the main one, obviously intracellular, is
the HN sorry, hnmt and sohistidine and methy transferase.
And again, just as the namestates, it's a methyl
transferase.
So this is a methylation gene.
(15:51):
It needs methyl donors to beable to do its job, so it's
intracellularly breaking downthe histamine so that that
histamine doesn't get releasedinto our blood, whereas the Dow
enzyme that we have to produceinside our gut is
extracellularly produced.
And this is where,unfortunately, estrogen and Dow
(16:13):
can have a little bit of a fight, because estrogen can
downregulate our body's abilityto produce the Dow enzyme.
And this is again interesting.
Interesting, though, whenpeople fall pregnant, all of a
sudden all of their apparenthistamine issues just disappear,
and this is because the bodyknows that estrogen can damage
(16:34):
the fetus.
So what it will do, and thathistamine will, it will actually
produce five to 600 times moreof the usual amount of the Dow
enzyme to combat the effects ofthat estrogen inside the system,
because estrogen stimulatesmore production of histamine as
well.
So this is where the HNMT willtake over from Dow if Dow is not
(16:58):
able to do its job.
But back to the original issueof methylation HNMT cannot
function unless you're actuallymethylating correctly, so you
need to be making enoughS-adenyl metathionine to have
that methyl donor available forHNMT to actually do its job and
break down histamine inside thebody.
(17:19):
And there's also other genes toplay um.
We've got um, comt as well andmao a as well.
They're very important inbreaking down um and balancing
histamine inside the blood aswell.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
but I will be digging deeper into that in the
histamine webinar on all thegenetics yeah, that's great,
because certainly histamine,being an arousal
neurotransmitter and part of thestress response, means if there
are issues with the enzymesthat clear stress hormones cycle
, we're going to see acompromised level of methyl
(18:08):
donors being produced, whichmeans histamine and
methyltransferase doesn't havethe conjugates to be able to
clear histamine in the firstplace.
So it is a bit of a wicked webto go down and just before we
move on to clinically assessingthings outside of blood
histamine, I did want to justask you to share the why
(18:31):
histamine intolerance is oftenmore challenging or more
prevalent in women, and you'vekind of hinted at the estrogen
connection there.
But can you just give us alittle bit more detail around
that?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Usually the HIT 80% are usuallyexperienced by females because
of the estrogen connection.
So estrogen stimulates theproduction of histamine.
So when we ovulate day 14 or 15of our cycle and we're making
(19:04):
more estrogen, we also will makemore histamine, naturally,
because it stimulates the body'sability to make that.
And this is why females canunfortunately experience high
levels of PMS, headaches,migraines and extra
sensitivities, yeah, and they'llalways blame their cycle, not
(19:27):
realizing that actually theirbucket of histamine is just too
high.
And if they could just lowerthat a little bit.
As we said, we don't have toremove the histamine foods for
your whole life.
It's about balancing the bucket.
So you know, having thatavocado twice a week is fine,
but having it every single daytwice a day probably not.
(19:48):
That's all.
And estrogen will thenstimulate extra histamine
production, especially in ourovaries.
So this is where women,unfortunately, will experience
higher issues with histaminethan men will.
And you know men can experiencethe histamine issue with, yeah,
(20:09):
when they're being sexualbecause it can cause premature
ejaculation if they've got highlevels of histamine inside their
blood.
When it comes to estrogen aswell and histamine, we also have
to be aware of the littleoxalate issue there too, so
there's another little rabbithole you can go down into.
(20:30):
But basically, oxalates meansthat they will also cause extra
histamine.
So we have to make sure thatwe're not having a massive
oxalate overload inside oursystem as well along with the
estrogen, especially at thattime of ovulation.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, that certainly explains why women's buckets
tend to overflow a lot quickerand a lot more frequently than
it does for men.
And certainly, again, you know,with sensitivity of the nervous
system and you knowcatecholamines and potentially
SNPs and COMPT and other things,it can really get away from
(21:11):
someone pretty quickly.
But can I ask, when you'reclinically assessing someone?
Obviously you mentioned bloodhistamine.
You want that level to be 0.5or less and when we know that
that's high we've got to checkfor the knock-on effect with
methylation.
But outside of histaminethere's a couple of other things
(21:32):
that you can also check for inblood.
What do you look for whenyou're assessing that overall
picture?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I also like to check for homocysteine, another
important amino acid, but againit's a bit like the histamine it
has to be in balance.
If you've got really reallyhigh homocysteine, that really
means that there's a massiveissue with your methylation
pathway as well, and highhomocysteine can also put extra
(22:02):
pressure on your blood vesselsand vasodilation, so that can
cause the high blood pressureissues and therefore that can
have a knock-on effect in therespiratory tract and the
histamine receptors andtherefore we start releasing
more histamine.
So histamine and homocysteinewould be two I always like to
check.
It's also really important tocheck the B12 levels as well,
(22:26):
because if you do not haveenough intracellular level of
B12, that means you're actuallynot regenerating or recycling
B12 in and around the body.
So that's extremely vital tomaking sure that there's a good
intracellular level of B12.
But then, especially forfemales, this is where we have
to dig a little bit deeper.
(22:47):
So progesterone is reallyimportant and vital for keeping
the balance a bit more withestrogen and as we age, we make
less progesterone.
Now, as we make lessprogesterone, we are still
stimulating and making estrogen,but we're not able to clear the
histamine, which is why a lotof people will say when I was a
(23:09):
teenager, gosh, I used to havethe worst hay fever and I used
to have the acne and I used tohave the hives, but then, as I
got older, it all justdisappeared.
And now I'm in my mid fortiesand it's all come back with a
vengeance.
This is all back to ourproduction of estrogen and
puberty and then not makingenough progesterone when we're
(23:30):
hitting perimenopause phase.
So it all sort of links in.
So it's really important tocheck all of these things.
Obviously, a Dutch test isamazing to check what are the
hormones actually doing.
It's better to test forhormones inside the urine rather
than blood, because blood's notvery indicative very well of
(23:52):
the biochemical level of what'sactually really going on.
I also obviously like to do thegenetic testing as well to see
do we have our COMTcatecholamine issue?
Do we have a Dow H&MT?
Then there's the you test forthe histamine receptors as well,
and the HRH and yeah, so theMTFHR obviously as well is very
(24:18):
important to know.
Are we dealing with onemethylation, snp or a double
homozygous or a lovely compoundone?
And then also with the genetictest you get to also ascertain
all of the B12 genetics, becauseif you don't have intracellular
B12, you can't bind iron Okay,so iron is really important for
(24:40):
making progesterone.
So we also need to make surewe've got good levels of vitamin
D to make progesterone.
So we also need to make surewe've got good levels of vitamin
D to make progesterone.
And we also need to have iodineand we also need to have a good
balance of zinc and copper.
So, just to you know, have alook at all of those tests.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Would be fantastic to see where is the body at with
all of those levels to see whereis the body at with all of
those levels, and do you doanything in the realm of omics
testing or gut biome testing, asit relates to histamine
intolerance as well?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yes, I do love the organics metabolite test because
not only does it tell us ifthere possibly is an underlying
mold and yeast hanging in there,because it will give us that in
the markers.
The OMX will also tell us theB12 levels.
With the methylmalonic We'll beable to actually see
(25:36):
intracellular.
So back to the B12 thing.
Someone could have a reallyhigh level of B12 in the blood.
So everyone just goes, oh,that's great, you've got a
really high level of B12 in theblood.
So everyone just goes, oh,that's great, you've got really
high level, that's fine.
I actually see a high level asa danger zone.
That says to me there's lots ofB12 inside your blood but it's
actually not getting into yourcells.
(25:57):
So that's where the OMX canjump in and actually see from an
intracellular level.
Is the B12 actually in in thecells?
Because then we've got a lot ofB12 genes like the MUT and the
TCN2 and the MTR and the MTRRthat can cause an issue with
regenerating and recycling andgetting that B12 into the cells.
(26:18):
And in the OMX it gives us alsoa great histidine.
So there's really high levelsof histidine.
That means it's not gettingconverted.
That means we also have a hugeissue with histamine inside the
cells and I love the OMX as wellbecause that brings in the
other little topic I justslightly touched on is oxalates.
(26:38):
Do we have an underlyingoxalate issue?
Is the oxalic acid gettingbroken down?
Are the kidneys properlyclearing and are the kidneys
actually able to function?
Because oxalates can cause alot of issues inside the body
from a gut biome perspective,because you can end up getting
this huge oxalate dump.
(26:59):
So if you get any tummy painsor sharpshooting pains, anything
like that, or pains obviouslyin the kidneys, kidney stones or
gallstones, there is a hugeissue here of oxalates not
properly getting broken down.
So OMX is very detailed.
I would actually prefer an OMXthan a blood test, to be honest.
(27:20):
It tells me so much more ofwhat's going on inside the body.
I get my big nerd hat on um,yeah.
So um and um, also the gutbiome, okay, because sebo I mean
, yeah, like all our littlebacteria friends, we have to
again.
It's the double-edged sword,isn't it?
(27:42):
We have to have a nice balance.
You know we have to have a goodbalance of bacteria.
But there's some bacteria thatwill produce histamine and if
you're not having a goodgut-biome balance, that's
actually adding insult to injuryin your histamine issue.
So making sure that thegut-biome is healthy and you
(28:02):
don't have any issues there,that the gut biome is healthy
and you don't have any issuesthere.
So I generally would focus alot on diet and gut first, as
first base of protocol, beingaware.
Unfortunately, we have all ofthese.
Not only do we have foods thatrelease histamine, but
probiotics also can releasehistamine.
So you have to be really awareof what probiotics you're taking
(28:24):
.
If you do have an underlyinghistamine issue, saccharomyces
is fine.
If you do have a histamineissue, but there's some of the
other probiotics will actuallyliberate and release even more
histamine.
So this is where you reallyneed to have a good look at the
gut biome to make sure what'shappening there, and the gut
biome will also let us know.
(28:44):
Do we have candida?
Is there an underlying moldissue?
You know?
Is there a viral overload?
Is there a bacterial overload?
Because these are all addinginto the problem.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
And it sounds very much like when you're looking at
someone with histamineintolerance.
You've got to take asystems-wide, root cause
approach and that could looklike any sort of way depending
on the patient that's in frontof you.
But I guess when we boil itdown to kind of the two main
(29:20):
factors of stabilizing mastcells and reducing histamine
release, what are the corefundamentals that you always
include?
You mentioned diet, and gut isusually the place that you start
.
But what does a typicaltreatment sort of protocol look
like in terms of the chunkypieces?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
you see, this is where it is tricky.
Okay, know, histamine's got somany different levels.
And then when we look at thegut biome, is there a mast cell
activation?
Is there mold in the house theylive?
Have they ever been affectedwith anything like Lyme's
disease?
Do they have a yeast overgrowth?
(30:00):
Do they have a candidaovergrowth?
And this is where it's not justan easy oh, just take this and
that's going to fix your issue.
And this is where,unfortunately, a lot of people
end up depending onantihistamines and antacids as
their solution.
Now, antihistamines do notreduce your histamine.
(30:21):
It's like a Band-Aid.
It doesn't do anything.
It just blocks the body'sresponse to the underlying cause
.
That is still happening insidethe body.
If you stop the antihistaminesat any time, the problem is
still going to be there.
Same as antacids, they'rebasically blocking the proton
pump inhibitors.
(30:41):
That's all they do.
Again, it's not lowering yourhistamine level.
It's not fixing the underlyingcause.
And unfortunately, that's whereyou've got to find the root
cause.
You know, is it diet?
Is it overproducing estrogen?
Is it not being able to breakdown oxalates?
Is it a bacterial overload?
Viral overload?
(31:02):
Is there mold?
Is lifestyle it's?
It's actually a very morein-depth thing to do.
But one of the the good thingsto do is to remove the massive
high level of histamine from thefood mix just for a few weeks,
just to make sure that we canbalance it out and give the body
time to catch up, becausethat's what it's trying to do it
(31:24):
is trying to break down thehistamine.
So we just give that break fora few weeks of all the avocados
and the strawberries and themangoes and the fermented foods
and then, if we can just helpthe body, we could take
something like the Dow enzyme tohelp the body actually break
that down before a meal.
So it's important to take theDow enzyme about 15 minutes
(31:48):
before your main meal of the dayand making sure that your body
can methylate, because if you'renot methylating, then the HNMT
is there.
It's the body's backup to theDow.
If the Dow is not working, hnmthas to jump in.
If you're not methylatingproperly, hnmt can't do its job.
So, making sure that you'remethylating properly and that's
(32:12):
where you need to look at thegenetic SNPs to see the best way
.
So not everyone can takemethylfolate, not everyone can
take methyl Bs.
Sometimes that's not the answerBecause, again, don't forget,
if you've got over methylationand you take a methyl product,
it can make actually people feelworse and not better.
(32:33):
So sometimes in this case,you're better off offering
phyllenic acid instead of5-methyltetrahydrofolate.
And again, also making surethat you've got the homocysteine
being regenerated properlyaround the body to making sure
you've got enough of that B12 aswell.
Making sure that iron isproperly bonded.
(32:54):
And, at the end of the day,when we're talking about mast
cells, progesterone canstabilize mast cells.
So back to the original issueif you're not making enough
progesterone, making sure youhave all of the right nutrients
inside the body.
Making sure you're gettingenough vitamin D If you're not
able to get out into thesunlight, take liposomal vitamin
(33:17):
D making sure that yourhormones are balanced properly.
Iodine selenium is amazing forthis, so is making sure you've
got a balance of zinc and copperand making sure that you can
bind iron as well oh my gosh, somany good strategies in there
(33:38):
and I think you know you'vetouched on environment, you've
touched on diet.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
You mentioned gut and I think it's probably worth
noting that you know the largestconcentration of diamine
oxidase is in the lining of thegut, meaning if you have any
digestive issues,gastrointestinal inflammation,
you immediately lose that.
You know, frontline histaminemetabolizing layer, which also
(34:05):
then leaves you more vulnerableto reactions to dietary
histamines, because it's Dowthat would normally take care of
those for you.
I'd love to know, like justroughly, of those patients that
you see with histamineintolerance, like how many of
them also have gut as part ofthat versus those that it's just
.
That's not one of thosevariables.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah you will find all have the underlying gut and
it's usually recurrent UTIs,which is a bit of an indicator
that there's a yeast and acandida overgrowth or a past
life where they've lived in amold house.
The mold will really cause amassive issue with mass cell
(34:50):
activation as well, becauseyeast and mold produce oxalic
acid.
So this is linking back in thento oxalates as well, so that
creates inflammation.
And when you createinflammation that stimulates the
cytokine inflammatory pathways,so all your inflammatory
cytokines get stimulated tooverproduce.
(35:11):
So then you've got this extrainflammation and inflammation
stimulates to making morehistamine.
So it just sort of it's like alittle roundabout.
You know, you could literallyjust say do we have this symptom
?
Oh, that could be histamine.
Oh, you've got that symptom,that could be that histamine.
And not everyone has the samehistamine symptoms Everyone.
(35:31):
Some people might only havemaybe two symptoms.
Then I have some clients when Igo through my little histamine
questionnaire they have 20symptoms and it's like, oh, wow,
that's pretty big.
And usually those people havebad gut biome.
They usually have lived in,unfortunately, a house with mold
and their diet is veryinflammatory.
(35:55):
You know inflammatory foods.
One of the worst inflammatoryfoods we can actually ever eat
is gluten.
I don't care what anyone says.
This is not even about celiachere.
Yes, there is celiac, but, tobe honest, gluten is very
inflammatory for everyone.
Whether you're celiac or not.
Gluten will cause inflammationin the digestive tract.
Gluten will stop thegallbladder from producing very
(36:19):
important bile and thereforeit's going to also affect our
body's ability to detoxify.
So it's just a also affect ourbody's ability to detoxify.
So it's just, it's a no-go.
And it's surprising when peopleremove the gluten, remove the
fermented foods and remove someof those high histamine foods,
within two weeks most peoplewill say oh my gosh, I feel so
(36:40):
much better already.
Thank you, you know they've hada 50 improvement quite quickly,
um, by just making some of thosetweaks, and that's huge.
And then we can spend the next,um, you know, a few months
finalizing their treatment andgetting them been able to
actually break down histamineproperly and keep in imbalance
(37:03):
well, certainly that makes senseto remove those really chunky
inflammatory pieces before goingdown the route of putting
together protocols with withsupplements and things.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
And I just wanted to, yeah, just reiterate the the
aspect of the, you know sickbuilding syndrome and having
been exposed to toxigenic moldseither currently or in the past,
as a, obviously it's an immuneprovocation, um, and highly
inflammatory.
There is also a subset of thepopulation that have mold
(37:36):
susceptible genetics and there'sa relationship there with
celiac as well, that that celiacgene sits in the same space.
And what happens with moldsusceptible clients is, um, all
you need to like.
As far as like genetics go,they're not able to mount an
adaptive immune response andfurther, that just allows the
(38:00):
innate immune system to keepfiring and produce histamine.
And I really see thatrelationship with mast cell
activation syndrome, even afterthey've left a water damaged
building, if they have moldsusceptible haplotypes, the
adaptive immune system nevercomes in to address the toxins
in a more precise way, and sothe innate immune system keeps
(38:22):
firing and then it's like justthrowing kerosene on a bonfire
immune system keeps firing andthen it's like just throwing
kerosene on a bonfire.
And typically with mold patients, you know, we have low alpha
MSH, which then causes anincrease in gluten sensitivity.
Over and above the generalresponse to a food that we don't
produce an enzyme to break downproperly, it just becomes a
really, really toxic soup thatsomeone is living in and, yeah,
(38:46):
I think it just makes so muchsense just to take a load off to
start with.
But having screened someone forenvironmental things and having
looked at their diet and thenput them on a lower or low
histamine diet initially,provided some gut support, there
is then the opportunity to lookat more specific supplements to
(39:07):
either stabilize mast cells,reduce histamine release,
stimulate histamine clearance,and whether or not those aspects
are a direct approach or asecondary, indirect approach.
I know you're going to gothrough this in detail on the
webinar and we're not going toattempt to even try and get you
to repeat it here, but I wouldlove to just go through maybe a
(39:29):
handful of your favorites tokind of wrap up our conversation
and some specifics that liketools that you will call on for
clients time and again yeah,okay.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
So generally, once you've assessed everything, like
what you were saying, it's,it's good to have a look at, as
I had said before, somethinglike, say, homocysteine.
So if somebody's got really,really high homocysteine, that
needs to be brought down to anacceptable level.
So this is whereN-acetylcysteine is amazing at
reducing homocysteine inside thesystem.
(40:01):
Now, however, if somebody's gotlow homocysteine, that's just
as dangerous as highhomocysteine.
That means that we don't wantto introduce NAC then.
But if I see a highhomocysteine level, I love
introducing NAC because it'sgoing to help stimulate the CBS
pathway as well, which is goingto help stimulate the
glutathione production as well.
(40:22):
I'd also touched on glutathione, but again, I like to use
glutathionine later on down onthe protocol when I can honestly
see that they're methylatingbetter, that they're starting to
break down that histaminebetter.
So I would never use it as myfirst protocol, but it would
definitely be there in theprotocol further down the track
(40:46):
protocol.
But it would definitely bethere in the protocol further
down the track.
Back to the mold issue.
Obviously it's really importantto bind that mold and get it
out of their system Becausedon't forget, also mold will
stimulate estrogen.
So then we're back to thatlittle seesaw, you're
stimulating the estrogenproduction.
Estrogen is going to stimulatemore histamine as well.
I also make sure again, as Ihad said before, that balancing
(41:11):
of the progesterone.
So the zinc is really important,the vitamin D is really
important, the iodine is reallyimportant and I also like to
look at calcium D-glutarate.
It's an amazing amino acid.
It is amazing, especially foranyone that will come to you and
say I keep getting headaches, Ikeep getting migraines.
(41:33):
This is linking into theestrogen stimulating extra
histamine.
Or if you find someone saysthat I eat dinner straight away
I can feel a headache coming on.
That means again, thehistamine's too high and the
estrogen's also being stimulated.
So calcium diglutarate isamazing here to stimulate the
(41:54):
glucuronidation pathway.
So they would be my pretty muchgo-to.
I'm very vitamin C is a bit ofmust-go on symptoms because,
don't forget, all citrusreleases histamine as well.
So it's usually not something Iwould go to as a port of call.
I would go on someone'ssymptoms.
(42:15):
So something like quercetinwould be better there for anyone
that has issues with citrus andquercetin as well is also
amazing at stabilizing thosemast cells.
So if we've had that moldexposure, it's very good for
calming down the mast cellactivation.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Yes, yeah, absolutely .
And where do you see usingbovine immunoglobulins?
Certainly with gut stuff, butthen you said pretty much
everyone with histamineintolerance seems to have a gut
issue.
Are there certain cases whereit's more indicated, or is it
one of those staples that youuse across the board?
Speaker 2 (42:52):
I have to say I would use it across the board, I find
, because it's a dairy-freebulvein option and you will see
this in the gut biome.
You'll get the gut biomeresults back and you'll see that
it's extremely low.
They need it.
They need it to help stabilizethe whole gut biome.
(43:14):
So I would always that's wheremy it's on my standard issue
protocol I put them on there IgGdefinitely.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Yeah, great, I don't have to think about that one.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
That's a must.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
An absolute must.
Yes, I can see why.
And there were a couple ofother really interesting little
things you shared with me whenwe had an earlier chat, and one
of those was iodine and itsrelationship with the cycle and
histamine.
Can you share a little bitabout that with us too?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Yeah, because we have to be able to regulate our
hormones properly, and if we'renot able to regulate our
hormones properly, well, you endup having thyroid issue.
So we have to be able to alsomethylate properly to make sure
that we can convert tyrosine toT4 and then T4 gets methylated.
But if you are deficient iniodine, that will really affect
(44:08):
the balance of your hormones,and if you're deficient in
iodine you're not able to makeenough progesterone.
I mean, we used to have salt onthe table that always had
iodine added in.
That's no longer available.
So people aren't even awarethat they're very deficient in
iodine.
So that's a very great thing toadd into the mix.
(44:28):
And again, when you see theresults in TSH level, I consider
a TSH over two means thethyroid is going in the wrong
direction.
It's not you know I'm not goingto punish the thyroid for that,
by the way because only 20%happens in the thyroid, 80%
happens in the methylation.
(44:49):
So it's good to then look at themethylation cycle and then
boost things like the vitamin Dand the iodine to balance the
hormone production, and that'sgoing to also help make sure
that they're able to make theprogesterone and this is why a
lot of women, when they becomeinto menopause, we are producing
(45:09):
less progesterone and that'swhy some people will only start
getting symptoms when they startentering menopause phase.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
That makes sense.
Look, I've got one lastquestion to run by you before we
wrap up today, and it wassomething you mentioned to me
prior to hitting record and thatwas, I know you said just
before you will bringglutathione in once you check
that they're methylatingcorrectly and homocysteine is
balanced, rather than trying tojump a few steps ahead to
(45:41):
increase glutathione in the casethat homocysteine might be low,
for example, or thattranssulfuration pathway is
still trying to wind up.
But when it comes toglutathione, you mentioned that
you find liposomal glutathioneto be really helpful to stop
histamine leaking, and I thoughtthat was a really interesting
(46:02):
insight on your part, and I'mcurious is that to do with the
relationship of the phospholipidstabilizing cell membranes, or
does it have to do withglutathione's functions, or is
it a bit of both?
Speaker 2 (46:16):
It's actually a bit of both, and also this is why
you don't go in with it at thestart, because you'll find that
people that aren't methylatedcorrectly, their detoxification
P450 pathway is usually notfunctioning that well, so it's
dangerous to go in with theglutathione straight away.
So that's why I make sure themethylation pathway is working.
(46:38):
It's like opening I call itlike opening the lid.
We're going to open the lid andhopefully everything will start
flowing down so that we canstart producing the glutathione.
So then when you introduce itbut it's really important to
making sure that you aredetoxing properly Again, the
liver's very vital organ.
80% of our methylation happensinside our liver as well.
(47:00):
So the liver has to be happyand healthy and glutathione is
an amazing addition, once youstart removing a lot of the
other symptoms, to making surethat that's working properly.
And yeah, the lipids are veryimportant to be balanced inside
our body as well to help makingsure that we don't have this
(47:21):
overflow bucket of histamine andeverything else that can
unfortunately go wrong.
And so I also like alsosometimes transdermal
glutathione.
If someone's not able toactually take liposomal
glutathione, that's when I willsometimes look for a transdermal
option, because don't forgetanything that we put in our skin
(47:43):
will also go straight into ourbloodstream.
So this is another otherpronged approach to everything
that we're trying to do Be veryaware that there is no
regulation on any of ourshampoos or body washes or face
products or makeup.
They can put whatever they likein there.
So it's really important to beaware that you know what you put
(48:06):
on in your skin is also goingto go into your in there.
So it's really important to beaware that you know what you put
on in your skin is also goingto go into your bloodstream.
So that's just another way.
If someone's not able totolerate the liposomal
glutathione, you go in with asmall patch at a time of the
transdermal.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
And, interestingly, liposomal glutathione is
absorbed transdermally quitewell, so if someone has
purchased it found orally itdidn't go so well, you don't
have to throw it in the bin.
You can obviously park it tilllater in the protocol and try
again, but you can also use ittopically.
The only thing I will say aboutthat is in that form it's not
(48:44):
designed to be as pleasant as apatch and glutathione being a
salt containing compound, youmight smell a little unusual and
it might not be the best way togo but, yes, definitely
recommend doing that at night.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yes, yes, when you're not socializing.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
You don't need that problem on top of your histamine
issues, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yeah, exactly, you're sitting there trying to impress
someone over dinner with thered flushing face with the
histamine.
We don't need the sulfur smellas well, smelling like sulfur?
Speaker 1 (49:23):
No, no, no, zelda, thank you so much.
You're such a wealth ofknowledge and, before we wrap up
today, is there anything otherlittle pearls of wisdom you want
to share before we say goodbyeum?
Speaker 2 (49:40):
I suppose the main thing is making sure um, from a
female perspective, if you're inperimenopause, making sure that
those hormones are balanced.
It's really, really vital.
Um, just because you'reentering this phase of life, it
should be joyful, not painful.
Um, so making sure that youknow the vitamin d is there and
(50:01):
that you're making enoughprogesterone and to seek help if
you're not feeling well, like.
There's so many greatpractitioners out there that
have these tools available, andI feel that, yeah, menopause and
well, I think that's anotherthing we need to discuss later.
Menopause is something that canbe very greatly helped so that
(50:21):
it's not, yeah, very hard on you.
So I think that's the hormonebalance is really good, and
iodine, vitamin d are a greatstraight away, quick solution to
see if and removing some ofthose high histamine foods, and
sometimes that's all it willtake.
Um, the more difficult casesobviously will need a little bit
(50:43):
more help and love, butsometimes that's all it has to
be is something very simple likethat yes, I think that's very
sage advice, especially knowingthat.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
I think, generally speaking, women feel like
menopause.
You've either got to grit yourteeth and suffer through it or
go on HRT and they don't realizethere's so many things in
between available to them.
But given that sort ofperimenopausal chapter where we
lose progesterone beforeestrogen also declines, you can
absolutely see why hiddenhistamine intolerance issues can
(51:17):
rear its ugly head then.
Or existing histamine, you know, overflowing bucket symptoms
can absolutely worsen.
And I think perhaps a nice wayto wrap this up is that
histamine intolerance is asymptom, just like MCAS.
It's not a condition or adisease.
It's indicative of someunderlying issues that are going
(51:39):
on, and Zelda so appreciate youtaking us through some of those
today, and practitioners.
For those of you interested inlearning more, as we mentioned
at the beginning of the episode,designs for Health is hosting a
webinar with Zelda on the linkbetween histamine intolerance
and the methylation pathway, andZelda is going into the
(52:02):
estrogenic ovulatory connectionthere as well.
So it's a perfect deep dive foryou to expand your knowledge
base there.
So check out the link in theshow notes below and, zelda,
just thank you again for sharingyour brain with us all today.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
No problem, thank you .
It's fun as always and I lookforward to yeah being there for
the next very deep dive onwhatever is needed out there in
the world of health.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I can't wait, zelda.
Thank you again so much andthank you everyone for joining
us today.
Remember you can find all theshow notes and other links to
podcasts and relevant webinarson the Designs for Health
Australia website.
I'm Amy Skilton and this isWellness by Designs.
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