Since we started selling DAO only 5 weeks ago, it really is becoming a favourite for practitioners.
We have talked about food sources of histamine and how we use DAO to break hostamine down outside the cell to reduce the total histamine load on patients.
And how we use METHYLATION to break it down INSIDE the cell with METHYL B HERO.
But did you know that, not only is food a source of HISTAMINE, your gut bacteria can also produce it.
Some gut bacteria have the ability to produce histamine by converting the amino acid HISTADINE into HISTAMINE using an enzyme called histidine decarboxylase (HDC).
This microbial production of a secondary source of histamine can become problematic, especially in people who already have impaired ability to degrade histamine via poor gut health for less DAO and leaky gut.
This occurs mostly in the colon, which is less of an issue as this is not the main site for absorption. But an overgrowth of bacteria (good or bad) in the small intestines can create an increase in histamine production and there histamine may create havoc locally and get absorbed systemically into the blood.
Local gut symptoms:
Systemic issues:
Here are a few bacteria that are histamine producers. Note many of these are “bad” bacteria but some are “good” but maybe over grown or in the wrong place i.e. migrated from the large to small intestine.
– Klebsiella pneumoniae – Note directly implicated as a trigger of ankylosing spondylitis.
– Enterobacter cloacae
– Hafnia alvei
– Proteus mirabilis – Note, directly implicated as a trigger of rheumatoid arthritis.
– Pseudomonas aeruginosa – Note, directly implicated in psoriasis.
– Escherichia coli (some strains)
– Lactobacillus buchneri
– Lactobacillus casei/paracasei
– Lactobacillus reuteri
This is why some probiotics, with some forms of lactobacillus can cause upset gut in those with issues around histamine.
Normally, with DAO we take it with food to break down the histamine in foods.
However, I have been experimenting with using DAO between meals to break the histamine produced by bacteria.
So, if you have patients with gut symptoms and especially ones with random gut reactions that follow no pattern i.e. they ate eggs or nuts etc once and had terrible bloating or gas etc and then did it again the next week and had nothing, suspect HISTAMINE.
If the symptoms were from a specific immune response, an IgG reaction, for example, is consistent.
But histamine is a non-specific part of your immune system and so it is not consistent with specific foods.
If you have tried DAO with food, and it hasn’t moved the needle as much as you wanted, try it between meals and see if you get a response.
If it is positive, then you will need to look at BUTYRATE and our upcoming (next month) new GUT HERO probiotics range, plus diet tweaks to improve your gut microbiome and drop the histamine naturally.
