Hannah Aylward (00:00.078)

So histamine issues are really often a capacity problem. They’re not just necessarily a food problem. So we have to start to ask why has my body become less capable of handling a normal histamine load? Where is the breakdown in the chain? Am I overproducing it? Am I having trouble clearing it? Is it both? And what is causing that underneath the surface? So what’s at the core there, right? Why is my body struggling to?

Break down the histamine that I am exposed to on a regular basis.

Hannah Aylward (00:36.943)

Welcome to the Nutrient Dense Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah Aylward, holistic health coach, functional gut health practitioner, and the founder of HAN. So many people are continuously failed by conventional and alternative health care. We are here to do it differently. Alongside my team of functional registered dietitians, I’ve helped hundreds of women around the world overcome their chronic digestive issues when nothing else worked.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what it really takes to transform your health from the inside out, and I’m here to share it all with you. Please keep in mind that this podcast is for educational purposes only and should never be used as medical advice. Now, let’s dive in. Your transformation is waiting.

Hello, hello, my dears, and welcome back to another episode of the Nutrient Dense podcast. Today we’re going to be digging into all things histamine and histamine overload, or you could call it histamine intolerance. There is a lot that goes into this, so I’m gonna try to break it down as simply as possible with the biggest kind of goal here to let you really thoroughly understand, have you really thoroughly understand that histamine is not.

really the problem, right? So anytime we’re experiencing too much histamine, excess production, inability to clear it, histamine overload, we’re having those like histamine-y symptoms. it’s not histamine isn’t the real issue, even though it can be contributing to the pain and discomfort that we are experiencing. So let’s break down why histamine isn’t really the problem and what actually is underneath all of those layers. So histamine issues are really often a capacity problem.

They’re not just necessarily a food problem. So we have to start to ask: why has my body become less capable of handling a normal histamine load? Where is the breakdown in the chain? Am I overproducing it? Am I having trouble clearing it? Is it both? And what is causing that underneath the surface? So, what’s at the core there, right? Why is my body struggling to break down the histamine that I am exposed to on a regular basis? So

Hannah Aylward (02:47.651)

This can have many various root causes, and we’re gonna dig into that today. And a quick caveat here too. So histamine overload can overlap with MCAS or mast cell activation syndrome, but they are not exactly the same. So MCAS stands for mast cell activation syndrome, and it’s more complex than histamine overload or histamine intolerance. Mast cell activation syndrome occurs when the immune cells become dysregulated and they release an excessive and frequent amount of chemical mediators.

Which does include histamine, right? But it’s not only histamine. So it can also be things like cytokines, tryptase, prostaglandins, leucatrines, not only histamine. When we’re talking about histamine overload, we’re talking about histamine being that real driver, right? When we’re talking about MCAS, it’s typically more systemic, it’s typically more severe, not a hundred percent of the time, but I mean, in my experience, probably like 95% of the time, it’s going to be more severe. People are going to have more sensitivities.

And we’re not just looking at a higher histamine burden. We’re looking at an overactivation of those mast cells altogether and a frequent and excessive amount of those chemical mediators altogether. So I’d say MCAS is more complex. And typically when we see people with MCAS, they are incredibly sensitive, right? So they’re very sensitive to supplement interventions, medications, smells, chemicals. This is not always the case with histamine overload.

We will also see kind of mold illness and mold toxicity overlap with this quite a bit too. But you can absolutely have mold illness and not have MCAS. I am like a walking example of that. I had mold illness previously, but I never had MCAS. And I did have histamine issues, but I never had full-fledged MCAST. But it can get confusing, right? Because some things overlap and mold can absolutely contribute to MCAS. It can contribute to histamine overload for sure, but they’re not exactly all the same thing, right? So I would say with MCAS.

We typically have big hypersensitivity, can’t take interventions, don’t respond the same way that other people respond. It’s a trickier, it’s a trickier, more complex situation overall. So this podcast is really about histamine. We also see a lot of clients with histamine overload and intolerance. It looks like a lot of food sensitivities. It looks like post nasal sinus drip. It looks like anxiety, trouble sleeping, headaches, runny nose, itchy skin, bloating after eating foods, diarrhea after eating foods.

Hannah Aylward (05:08.71)

So once again, there is some overlap here, but let’s get into histamine overload altogether. You’re gonna more commonly hear it as histamine intolerance, but in my opinion, it’s you’re not necessarily intolerant of the histamine. It’s just like you your bucket is overflowing. You can’t clear it as quickly as you are producing it. And we need to dig into why. So some of those people that are are dealing with like that histamine overload picture.

Are eating things like avocado, maybe they’re eating leftovers, eating fermented foods, bone broth, wine, aged meats and cheeses. It can get tricky because a lot of those gut healthy foods can really tick you off. So, like I mentioned, collagen, bone broth, fermented foods like kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi, these will often tick you off as well. So you’ll read like these are good gut healthy foods and avocado and spinach, right? These are great, but they’re really setting off your histamine, histamine issues.

Lemon water can also trigger when people are cause a trigger, be a trigger when people are really sensitive there too. And what will typically happen is, like I mentioned, bloating or diarrhea, flushing, feeling hot, itchy skin, hives. You can break out into hives, runny nose, stuffy nose, headaches, migraines, racing heart. So it can lead to heart palpitations, anxiety, trouble sleeping, and it can also contribute to PMS and period related flares as well. So when we’re looking at this.

If that resonates with you, you may be thinking, okay, histamine, I’ve got to deal with my histamine here, but histamine isn’t necessarily the problem, right? So histamine is a normal signaling molecule involved in many different things. So immune defense and allergic responses, stomach acid secretion, gut function, vascular permeability, brain signaling, wakefulness and cognition. And it acts through four main receptors: H1, H2, H3, and H4. So I like to introduce this concept of like the histamine bucket.

And then when we’re talking about someone with histamine overload, the bucket is overflowing, right? So we are all exposed to things that include histamine on a regular basis. We are exposed to histamine on a daily basis regularly, right? So foods can contain histamine, our gut microbes can produce histamine, mast cells produce histamine, allergens, inflammation, environmental exposures, hormonal influences can be playing a role here. And we also have a natural ability to clear histamine.

Hannah Aylward (07:28.573)

Through two main pathways. One is or two main enzymes. One is DAO and one is HNMT. But when our histamine bucket, our histamine load gets too high, and our ability to break down that histamine is compromised, we’re gonna get like an overflow situation happening. And that’s when you’ll get the bloating, the diarrhea, the rashes, itchy skin, ovulation, pain, that kind of thing. So DAO and HNMT are the body’s two major histamine degradation pathways. And that’s kind of how we clear.

Histamine. So that’s why one person who doesn’t have an issue degrading histamine can eat these foods that contain histamine, these higher histamine foods, and they’ll be totally fine. Someone that has an issue may end up with a lot of GI distress. So a low histamine diet isn’t a real solution to this problem. this will often be what we see if when we’re first exposed to this information. So it’s like, okay, I think I have a histamine issue. I’m gonna eat low histamine.

We’ll see some people that have been eating low histamine for a really long time. And it’s it can be very difficult and it’s very restrictive. It can be a helpful bridge, but it’s not a long-term solution, in my opinion. So, you know, people start cutting out all sorts of foods, including healthy foods. So meal like meal prep leftovers, bone broth, fermented foods, spinach, tomatoes, avocado, lemon, all of these kinds of things. And

What can happen is we start to get to this point where eventually we’re reacting to everything that we eat. We have not dealt with the underlying causes. We have just added in more heavy restriction. And then we end up getting to the point where we’re like, now I feel like I have more sensitivities and more reactions. And we’ll see this a lot overall, just with food sensitivity. So people, this is one of many, many reasons why I don’t like food sensitivity testing, but there’s a lot more to it than this. But one of the reasons is because.

They’ll give you this long list of foods, you’ll take them out. But if we’re not dealing with why you’re reacting to the food in the first place, you will oftentimes develop more food sensitivities because of the breakdown in gut function. You’re it’s not being it’s not being supported. It’s not being repaired. So you’re just gonna end up increasing sensitivity to other foods, which, you know, will not work out in the long term. And you’ll feel like you’re eating like five foods and and you’re reacting to everything. So a low histamine diet can

Hannah Aylward (09:46.919)

It can reduce your overall hip histamine exposure, yes. it can be helpful for temporary reduction and flares, absolutely, helping to just minimize kind of what’s going into that histamine bucket. It can be helpful while you’re kind of figuring things out, but reducing the histamine that’s coming into the bucket doesn’t necessarily tell us why the bucket is overflowing because we ha also have this clearance issue, right? Like what why can’t we actually break down the histamine that we are exposed to? So

A hello histamine diet is more so like a tool, a short term intervention. It can be considered more of a bridge, but it’s not actually the destination and that that solution that some of us may think that it is. So we have to once again ask like, why can’t I tolerate histamine anymore? Especially when maybe one time you ate these foods and that you were just totally fine and now you’re not anymore. So one of the things that happened to me personally years and years ago before I knew any most of what I know now.

So I didn’t even know what was going on, but I got sick, I got a sinus infection. I lost my grandmother. So there was like heavy trauma. I was also really, really sick, like sleeping like 12 hours a night and trying to kick this sinus infection, and it wasn’t working. So it was many things at once. And then I finally went and got an antibiotic, and that did help me. It did help me get better. And then after the antibiotic, I noticed I was having all of these reactions to foods that I didn’t normally have reactions to.

And it was just one of the many layers of my personal gut health story and how my gut got so out of whack. But I noticed that I was having like flushing of the face. afterwards, I would get these red cheeks. And I was in college at the time. So I was like, I don’t know, nineteen years old, or maybe I was like tw I was like twenty one years old. And I would notice that I would get these flushing of the cheeks after after consuming higher histamine foods, after having like a sip of wine.

I w I I didn’t know what was going on, but my friend I would be all stuffy in my nose too. And my friends would be like, Are you sick? And it would be after I had like three sips of organic red wine. And I’d be like, No, I just all of a sudden can’t breathe through my nose. Like, this is weird. And also my my cheeks are getting all flushed. And what I didn’t know then and what I know now is that I was having kind of this histamine response and it was after taking a huge antibiotic.

Hannah Aylward (12:02.825)

That really like wiped out my gut because antibiotics, I needed it, right? It I could not kick the sinus infection on my own. I was doing all the things. I was doing garlic, I was doing oregano oil, I was doing all of the like natural remedies. I was taking tons of wellness formula. It just was not going away. I was upping vitamin D, I was upping vitamin A. I mean, I needed an antibiotic. I tried to kick it naturally for like two weeks, which was probably too long. So don’t recommend that. And then the antibiotic came in and really helped me. So that was super helpful. And also.

It tips my gut over the edge, right? So, and that kind of leads me into this next part that I want to cover with you today, which is the fact that the gut plays a huge role when it comes to histamine issues. So there are many different kinds of reasons why. But the first one is that your intestinal lining, so your gut barrier, helps to actually break down histamine. So DAO is highly expressed in that intestinal mucosa and particularly in the small intestine, which also is.

Part of the reason why we’ll see those with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth often have histamine issues as well. Taking care of that can improve their histamine tolerance overall. We have that dysbiosis in the small intestine, which causes that inflammation and irritation of the gut barrier, which then can kind of lead to this cascade effect of these histamine issues popping up. And once we can take care of that, we’ll often see people feel feel better. So that’s kind of a little tangent. But the small the lining, your gut barrier plays a big role here, is my point, right?

So you can think of DAO as it’s really that enzyme that helps to break down histamine in the gut. So dietary histamine enters your GI tract or your gut, and DAO helps to metabolize it. And then less less histamine actually gets absorbed systemically. So to put it very simply, DAO helps to break down histamine in the gut. Now when we have damage or dysfunction of that intestinal mucosa, that this process can be impaired. So gastrointestinal, inflammatory, and infectious conditions.

can be have been associated with reduced DAO activity. So inflammation, irritation of the gut barrier, intestinal permeability, quote unquote leaky gut, eeral bowel disease, where we have hyper, you know, high levels of inflammation, that can contribute to an issue like a reduced DAO activity, an issue kind of producing adequate DAO that we need to break down histamine. The next thing, the next big key player here is the gut microbiome. So

Hannah Aylward (14:24.557)

Your gut microbes can actually make histamine. And we’ll see this when we run functional stool testing with a lot of our clients. And I would say overall, I see people with some of these, like what we would call histamine producers, just be super sensitive. So, like really bloated, really gassy, diarrhea, sensitive to all kinds of foods. Like they’re having all kinds of food sensitivities and they don’t, they can’t tell what they’re reacting to anymore. When I ask them, did any set food set you off? They’re like, I can’t even tell anymore. That’s kind of consistent with this picture. So

Certain gut bacteria can produce histamine by converting the amino acid histidine from our diet into histamine, contributing to histamine intolerance and chronic abdominal pain. So we’ll see certain species do this, we’ll see things like klebsiella do this, we’ll see things like staphylococcus do this. And we can also have an overgrowth of these bacteria, kind of that gut dysbiosis picture, leading to local histamine levels in the gut. So once again, this is why we can have one person eat a meal.

That contains a good amount of histamine and be fine. And another person eat a meal that contains a good amount of histamine and not be so fine because we have these foods entering a different environment in of the gut microbiome. So your gut microbes can basically lead to elevated histamine levels. Certain gut microbes produce histamine, or they can certain certain ones are also kind of considered like mast cell, mast cell activators. So they are triggers. So they trigger the mast cells to release more of these chemicals.

And we can see this dysbiotic state in the gut contribute to this elevated histamine burden. So it’s like even if you’re having even if you can clear histamine efficiently and you’re not struggling there, if you have a lot of this dysbiosis in the gut, that can be increasing this histamine burden in the body. So leading to that bucket really overflowing. So essentially we have this dysbiosis that leads to microbial histamine, and then that leads to a greater total histamine burden overall. And then it’s also important to note that these two things usually come together. So

If you have dysbiosis in the gut microbiome, that will cause irritation of the gut barrier. It’s kind of just a matter of time before it does, right? So we will often see dysbiosis and inflammation and degradation of the gut barrier occur simultaneously. So we will have an increase in histamine production from the dysbiotic gut microbes. And we’ll also have a reduced ability in the intestinal environment to actually degrade histamine. So you potentially get.

Hannah Aylward (16:51.394)

The cysbiosis leading to greater microbial histamine production, then that also contributes to gut inflammation. Then we have this reduction in histamine degradation. Then we have this greater histamine burden. And then we have that bucket really overflowing. And then that’s when you’re just like super sensitive to things and you’re like responding, you’re reacting to lots of foods. It can be bloating, it can be diarrhea, it be skin r rashes and and flushes, hives, headaches, that kind of thing. So the gut plays a really huge role here.

We’ll see H. pylori play a role here. We’ll see small intestinal bacterial overgrowth play a role here. Irrital bowel disease can play a role here. Mucosal inflammation, a lot of different dysbiosis patterns can play a role here too. So the the gut is a, in my opinion, you absolutely have to look at the gut if you are experiencing, I mean, food sensitivities overall, but just a lot of digestive issues, of course, and then also a lot of this like these like histamine kind of overload style, this presentation. So

sinus stuff, headaches, migraines, period pain, bloating, that kind of thing, lots of different food reactions. So once again, to no surprise for anyone listening to this podcast, the gut plays a huge role, right?

Hannah Aylward (18:05.314)

We are big fans of eating enough protein over here on Team Han. Protein is essential for muscle repair, a strong gut lining, balanced blood sugar levels, and so much more. For most of our clients, we like recommending around 100 grams of protein per day to start, and adding in a good quality protein powder can be super helpful for hitting those numbers. It’s an easy add-in, you can throw it into a smoothie or even add it to oatmeal. Choosing the right protein powder can feel so overwhelming.

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a complete amino acid profile. It’s also independently tested to make sure that the protein powder is free of harmful amounts of heavy metals and toxins like glyphosate, which is honestly super hard to find. Equip prime protein is a grass-fed beef protein. So it is animal based, but it’s dairy free, unlike whey or casein protein powders. Grass-fed beef protein is packed with collagen, gelatin, and micronutrients that your body needs.

We also see that it’s typically much better tolerated in our clients with chronic gut and digestive issues over something like a plant-based protein powder. In addition, some of their flavors do contain natural flavors, but they’re distilled vapors from natural and organic compounds or fruits like vanilla, coconut, and strawberry, and are processed without any chemicals, fillers, binders, or artificial ingredients, which once again is incredibly hard to find. Personally, I buy both the chocolate and the vanilla.

Flavors of the Equip Prime Protein, but honestly, they have like so many other incredible flavors out now. If you’re interested in trying out Equip Prime Protein, you can use the code HANNAHAYLWARDHHC at checkout for 15% off. And we’ll pop that code in the show notes of this episode for you as well. So once again, you can go to equipfoods.com, choose the flavor of protein powder that you want, and then use code HANNAHAYLWARDHHC for 15% off.

Hannah Aylward (20:20.63)

The next key thing to talk about here is the mold connection and the mold and histamine connection, which I’ve talked about these things on some previous episodes, but I just kind of wanted to like recap a lot of it for you. So there are other episodes on mold that you can dig into on histamine, the gut histamine connection, histamine overload, what it is, all of that on this podcast. So you can dig into those next if if this is kind of landing with you. But exposure can activate those mast cells and trigger the release of histamine and some of these other mediators as well. So

We can get exposure to the mold and to the mycotoxins. Then we get that immune activation, the mast cell activation, the release of histamine, and then we have that histamine bucket filling more and more and more. And I will say this is something we see a lot in our clients. I think we are we’re needing more research in this area overall. But I would say when we see people that are super sensitive, they’re sensitive to interventions, they’re not responding to protocols.

They have a lot of these, what I would call this like histamine y presentation. It’s something that I always am asking about. Have you been exposed to a water damage building? Did your house have a flood? Any water damage? Is there mold on the HVAC? Like always check the HVAC because the condensation will lead to microbial growth there. The mold piece I see very commonly with this like histamine overload picture in many of the people that we work with.

And once again, if you want to dive deeper into that topic, you can check out episode 62 of the podcast because I break it all down there. Now, the other thing that we have to look at when it comes to this histamine overload picture is hormones. So estrogen and histamine have a two-way stimulating relationship. So estrogen increases histamine release while also lowering its breakdown. And histamine can trigger the ovaries to actually produce more estrogen. So we have this feedback loop.

that impacts health during hormonal shifts. So, this is also why some people will have flares around certain times and points in their cycle. So, if you have pain or cramping or issues that start to rise more or they worsen around ovulation, this is when estrogen increases before it starts to dip. That is that could be it’s typically cluing us into a histamine issue. So I like to ask people about their menstrual cycles.

Hannah Aylward (22:36.248)

Do you feel good around ovulation? Do you feel worse around ovulation? Do you feel okay the week before your cycle starts? Like your period starts, that menstrual phase. Do you flare then too? So oftentimes when we have this histamine overload picture, we’ll have flares right before the period and like the first day or two. And we’ll also have flares around ovulation. That can typically clue us into like, okay, we may be looking at some estrogen dominance. We may be looking at estrogen kind of pushing histamine up. The other thing that’s important to note is that progesterone.

can act as a natural buffer against histamine and it helps to stabilize these mast cells, which are the cells that release histamine, and it helps to support the DAO enzyme responsible for breaking down histamine in the gut. So when we see this pattern in women where they’re they’re feeling these cyclical shifts, right? They get these flares with their cycle. Maybe we get PMS like premenstrual headaches, migraines, we can get itching, flushing hives, or congestion before a period.

We can get breast centerness. We can get really like crampy, heavy, painful periods. We’ll usually see prostaglandins and histamine can kind of contribute to that and can contribute to those like quote unquote period poops. We can see an increased sensitivity in perimenopause as the hormones shift there as well. Even if you have shorter cycles or you have a shorter luteal phase, like all of this stuff is good to know when it comes to your body and the data that your body’s giving you.

This can all suggest that histamine kind of hormone pattern when things rev up in this way. So we’ll see estrogen increase histamine and histamine increase estrogen. And then we’ll see progesterone really act as a natural buffer against histamine. So it’s very common for women to run more estrogen dominant. Of course, not every single woman. Nothing applies to every unique individual, but it’s very common for women to run higher estrogen, lower progesterone.

due to many different things, poor estrogen detox, lack of fiber in the diet, gut microb microbial issues, things like dysbiosis will increase estrogen in the gut. we can see chronic stress, depleting progesterone over time. All of these things can kind of contribute to that lower progesterone, higher estrogen picture, and then eventually lead into that kind of like histamine presentation where people are presenting with the flushing, the headaches, that kind of thing.

Hannah Aylward (24:53.932)

Feeling worse around ovulation, feeling worse right before the menstrual cycle, getting the headaches right before all of those can kind of be cluing us in. So when we’re looking at someone that’s having histamine issues, a low histamine diet is not gonna solve this, right? That’s kind of the biggest point that I want to make here. If the deeper underlying roots are gut microbial dysbiosis, gut barrier issues, imbalanced hormones, increased estrogen or excess estrogen.

Then that’s the kind of stuff we have to work on, supporting the gut, supporting the liver, supporting the adrenals, to really get someone feeling better, as opposed to just like throwing antihistamines at it or mast cell stabilizers or histamine, you know, degraders at it. You’re gonna get better results when you actually deal with what’s underneath the surface. The other kind of hormone piece to this is to no surprise at all, cortisol. So elevated cortisol levels can destabilize mast cells, which store and release histamine, leading to increased histamine release.

So once again, if we are always running on stress hormones, if we have higher cortisol levels that can destabilize these mast cells, which is why if you’ve kind of like dug into this or dove into this this like histamine MCAS hole on the internet, you will see a lot of people talking about nervous system regulation. So we want to minimize those cortisol surges. We also really have to work on blood sugar. And there are many, many things that we want to do. We like dig into these deeper root causes, of course.

But we want to minimize those huge surges in cortisol in stress hormones because they destabilize mast cells and that can lead to excess histamine production. So the stress hormone roller coaster that many people live on, under eating, always overthinking, always feeling overwhelmed, that can only lead to more mast cell activation. So it’s something that we want to consider, of course. If you feel like you’re like, I don’t know what’s going on, I’m presenting with all of these like histamine.

style issues, but you’re like running and you’re eating like a thousand calories a day and you’re not getting enough sleep and you’re never resting. This is like, this is like really low-hanging fruit that is essential for you to actually address. And then I would say, let’s hit the gut. Let’s go into into the hormone piece next from there. But the other thing that I kind of mentioned previously was that over time, high cortisol will start to deplete progesterone.

Hannah Aylward (27:10.612)

And when we do deplete progesterone, we will present more with more excess estrogen in comparison to progesterone. So progesterone lowers and estrogen, we can have issues detoxifying estrogen. Yes. We can have excess estrogen due to the gut microbiome, yes. But we can also have excess estrogen due to lower progesterone levels as the result of anovulatory cycles, your body not feeling safe enough to ovulate, undernourishment, not eating enough, chronic stress.

So we want to support healthy progesterone production in order to kind of like counterbalance those histamine issues as well. The other thing to note here when we’re looking at these deeper underlying root causes is the liver, right? So histamine metabolism involves several different enzymatic pathways. And the liver contains important machinery involved in histamine metabolism. So one major pathway is HNMT or histamine and methyltransferase.

And H and T is expressed in multiple tissues and it has substantial expression in the liver and the kidney, among others. So this HMT, we have when it comes to how we actually degrade histamine, we can think DAO. That’s going to be really in the gut. And then we can think H and T.

And that is happening, or it’s an impacting histamine metabolism throughout the body, including the liver and the nervous systems. And another thing that we want to look at here too is the liver and the liver and histamine connection. So histamine metabolism involves several different enzymatic pathways, and the liver contains important machinery when it comes to histamine metabolism. So

HNMT works in the liver and other tissues. And HNMT is one of those enzymes that helps to break down and degrade histamine. So a healthy liver ensures that histamine can be efficiently broken down and cleared from the body. However, when we have impaired liver function, it can struggle to process and eliminate excess histamine, potentially leading to some of those kind of histamine-y signs like the flushing and the headaches and the bloating and diarrhea and things like that.

Hannah Aylward (29:17.526)

So, if we are looking at someone that is presenting with a histamine issue, we have to look at optimizing DAO production and we have to look at optimizing HNMT as well. So the body can more efficiently degrade histamine overall. And the liver does play a role in this. So this is why overall we have to dig a bit deeper and ask what is actually contributing to this histamine bucket overflowing? Am I overproducing histamine?

Am I having trouble degrading histamine? Is the gut playing a role? Is the liver playing a role? Are the hormones playing a role? Is stress playing a role? Are all of these things playing a role? Very likely. Is environmental toxin exposure playing a role? That is how you’re going to get more long-term support. That’s how you’re going to feel better more long-term versus just taking antihistamines forever and ever, never. So instead of asking, you know, what I need to, I need to change my diet forever. I need to lower histamine intake in my diet.

What foods do I have to eliminate, eliminate, eliminate? While, yes, sure, it can be a helpful support temporarily. We have to ask like, what is increasing my histamine load or decreasing my capacity to actually break it down and degrade it? So the gut, of course, as I mentioned, plays a huge role here. Dysbiosis, GI inflammation, mucosal injury, histamine producing microbes, underlying infections, all of these things play a massive role.

Then we have that reduced histamine degradation. So we can have a poor DAO production due to gut barrier issues. Also, genetics can play a role there as well. We can have issues with intestinal integrity. We can have, you know, issues with liver function and HNMT metabolism. And then of course we want to consider that hormone piece too. Are we looking at excess estrogen? Are we having trouble metabolizing estrogen and clearing it?

Are we looking at excess estrogen that could be increasing his the histamine burden on the body, especially if you are experiencing flares and things kind of increasing at certain times of your cycle? So that could be a big, big clue for you listening. If you notice, my gosh, I flare on ovulation or I flare closer to my cycle, then histamine could be playing a big role here. And the hormone piece could be involved in this as well.

Hannah Aylward (31:31.81)

Do you have low progesterone levels? Do you have low cortisol? Do you have high cortisol? Do you have excess estrogen? This is all something that’s worth diving into here when you are presenting with this like histamine overflow picture. Then we want to look at, you know, what’s contributing to the successive immune mast cell activation? So is it allergies? Is it ongoing environmental exposures to things like mold? Right? Are we looking at something more severe like MCAS? What is what is contributing to that immune system always consistently?

firing and those mast cells being consistently activated and keeping in mind that, you know, 70 to 80% of the immune system resides in the gut. So it’s very likely that the gut is playing a role in this consistent immune activation as well. And then of course the stress piece, right? So are we looking at HPA access dysregulation? Are we looking at chronic stress, poor sleep, blood sugar instability can play a key role here too? Nervous system, like hypervigilance.

All of these things can also contribute to this overabundance of histamine and the inability to kind of clear it quickly enough to the point where we’re feeling it in the body. So I invite you to shift kind of your thinking and questioning from what do I need to shake out of my diet? to what is contributing to my body’s ability having a hard time degrading histamine overall? That is where you’re going to get the best outcomes for your health long term. So as usual, histamine.

Issues are not a one size fits all. They don’t all have the same underlying root causes, as with many, many different health issues, right? There’s a lot that goes into it. There’s a lot to consider. When we see this and see someone presenting with it, we usually like to run a functional stool panel to see what how the gut is contributing to something like this. It’s very common that the gut is. Sometimes we can even run a functional hormone panel to clue us in there as well. Sometimes we can even run a four-point salivary cortisol panel to see.

If cortisol levels, what your cortisol curve is looking like, could those be playing a role in your digestive issues, in your hormone issues, things like progesterone? It could it be contributing to possibly pushing that estrogen up? Is it contributing to your chronic fatigue? You’re just exhausted, you don’t have any motivation anymore, right? So all of this is good data to have. So those are some of the tests that we’ll kind of use with clients like this. Something like an HTMA or a hair tissue mineral analysis can be really helpful here too.

Hannah Aylward (33:50.476)

To see how your body is really like keeping up with the stress demands, check in on your stress resiliency. There are nutrient deficiencies that can play a role in histamine issues as well. So things like copper and B vitamins play a big role here too. So there is a lot to the story when it comes to histamine. So I just want you to know that a low histamine diet, if you’ve tried it and you didn’t really feel that much better, okay, that gives us more information. If you tried it and you did feel better, it can really validate that.

Histamine is an issue for you. So let’s dig into why. Let’s dig a little deeper into why it is an issue for you. And let’s get you some results by digging a bit deeper there. So we’ve had multiple clients work with us. Tons and tons of clients that have worked with us have had major success here. So we’ve had clients who we had a client who had to take a Zertec every single day. She had crazy ovulation pain. She also did have endometriosis, but that’s not what she came to work with us on.

And after we cleaned up her gut microbiome and we supported liver function and we supported her gut barrier and we replenished her minerals and we worked on all of these things with her. She no longer needed to take a Zertec to make it through the day, which was amazing. We had another client who couldn’t tolerate tons of foods. Like she was like, I can’t eat any fermented cheeses. I can’t eat any fermented foods at all. I can’t eat a pickle. I can’t eat an olive, anything like that. And by the end of working with us, she was like, I’m eating all of these foods. I never thought I’d be able to eat these foods again in my life. So

These are just two examples, but we see people be able to tolerate more foods with fewer reactions time and time again when we deal with those underlying root causes, right? So it’s not a one size fits all. It’s not always super clear cut and simple. It takes a little bit of investigating and it takes a little bit of digging, but a lot of progress can be made when we know what we’re looking at and when we support your body from the ground up. So I hope this episode was really helpful for you. I hope it adds a little bit of clarity to this.

Conversation. I think a lot of people are talking about it right now. we are seeing an increase in these issues overall. I have some theories as to why that is many, many, many things contributing to this like abundance of histamine issues that we’re seeing right now. But there’s a lot that we can do about it. So once again, hopefully this added some clarity. And then stay tuned for the next upcoming episodes because we have some really juicy ones coming up for you over these next few weeks. And we’re gearing up to start the final round of my Healing Guts and Shake and Butts program.

Hannah Aylward (36:15.394)

We’re gonna kick that off in September. The doors are not officially open yet, but if you’re interested in joining the wait list with us, you can go ahead and access that in the show notes below. You can apply to sign up for the wait list. And then if you’re a good fit for the program, we’ll let you know. When you sign up early, you get like major bonuses. You get access to early bird pricing, you get a bonus call with me during the program. And this is my signature gut repairing program where we run functional soul testing.

You get three one on one sessions, you get group coaching with me, and we really dig into repairing your gut function and your gut microbiome so you can overcome those chronic digestive issues. So it’s our final round of the year. It is a program I’ve been running for many, many years. We see a lot of clients in this program each and every year. So if you’re interested, you can join us on the wait list via the show notes below. And stay tuned for next week’s episode because it’s going to be a pretty juicy one. See you next week.

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Nutrient Dense podcast. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and come back next week for a new episode. See you then.