 Histamine is an organic nitrogenous compound that regulates a variety of physiological functions such as sleep wake cycle, appetite, memory, even stress response. It's a protein that is actually contained in every single cell in the body. It is released on stimulation, mostly being contained in massed cells as well as basophils. A type of immune cell and white blood cell. The main function of histamine is healing as well as to warn us of environmental dangers such as allergens. The main reason to discuss histamine is a histamine intolerance. Histamine intolerance is a condition where histamine fails to break down in the body. Most of you might be familiar with allergies and things like Benadryl, Claritin, Zyrtec, various allergy medications that block histamine. So depending on what receptors the histamine is bound to, you get a large range of symptoms from stomach pain, heart palpitations, diarrhea, airway constriction, dizziness, flushing, headache, blood pressure, puffy eyes. Even things like OCD and insomnia. When you think a lot of symptoms, think histamine intolerance. Seeing as histamine naturally occurs in the body, there are several things that can go wrong that result in a histamine intolerance. You can have an overload from high histamine foods, enzymes that break down histamine can actually be blocked by certain medications. Of course, you have allergies whether it's a food allergy or an allergen in the environment and then you can have some underlying gut issue, leaky gut, celiac, crones, candida, colitis, SIBO, a lot of these issues end up leading to a histamine intolerance. So the two enzymes that clear histamine from the body are DAO, diamine oxidase. This is what is commonly talked about and there's also N-methyltransferase, which is a CNS histamine metabolizing enzyme. The primary receptors that histamines bind to are H1 through H4 and depending on where they bind to, you can have a difference in symptoms. So the H1 receptors are skin, cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal, uterus and respiratory. H2, again we see cardiovascular, gastrointestinal as well as skin, but it can also be in the bone marrow causing a systematic allergic response. H3 is where histamine can bind to the CNS, the central nervous system. This is where you see really crazy stuff like anxiety, mental fog, OCD, insomnia, things that you wouldn't realize you can get from consuming an allergen. I remember I had some raw A2 dairy a couple of months back and the allergic reaction that I got from just drinking milk was absolutely absurd. I didn't sleep for a week, I had anxiety, I had what I would consider panic attacks. Very severe histamine reaction. H4 is where it can bind to the bone marrow as well and there actually hasn't been an allergy medication that blocks the H3 or the H4 receptors. Most allergy medications only block H1 or H2 receptors and I'm led to believe that H3 or H4 leads to some unethical side effects which we'll touch on later. So histamines aren't the only issue. There are other biogenic amines in food. Histamine being one of them, some other common ones are tiramine and cadaverine and there's half a dozen other biogenic amines. All of these substances are proteins, amino acids that increase as the microbial content of the food increases. So as the meat naturally ages, the amount of these amines increases which might cause issues for people with a histamine intolerance and there's also corresponding enzymes to each of these amines. Bow and N-methyl transferase don't clear up tiramine. Tiramine has its own enzyme, monoamine oxidase. A brief summary of enzymes is that they are proteins that perform very specific functions in our body on the molecular level. Our body contains thousands and thousands of enzymes that are coded into our genes and DNA. So moving on to food. You can have a fermented food that has a high histamine content because it is aged or fermented like cheese, yogurt, kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut, charcuterie, any cured meats, sourdough bread, salted and canned fish. Not only is cheese or yogurt high in histamine, if you're allergic to dairy and you have a histamine intolerance, you consume something like cheese, you're not going to have a fun time. I remember I had a can of anchovies on my birthday as a treat. I didn't sleep for two days. It was one hell of a treat. Some foods can be naturally high in histamines like tomatoes, eggplant and spinach. You have histamine liberators that aren't necessarily high in histamine themselves but they cause the body to release histamine such as citrus, like lemons, pineapples, bananas, papaya, tomato, legumes, cocoa, nuts, spices, seafood, egg whites, various food additives. Coffee is probably in all of these categories. I didn't put it up here but coffee might be one of the largest culprits for histamine intolerance. If you drink alcohol, you're going to stop your body's ability to clear histamine because a metabolite of ethanol competes with histamine. If you go to a steakhouse, have a nice dry-aged steak, you might be fine but throw in a glass of wine with that. You might have some issues clearing out the histamines. How do you fix a histamine intolerance? We know what the potential causes are, allergens, whether it's a food allergy or something in the environment. We know it could be medications blocking enzyme production. You could have an overload from high histamine foods and you could have an underlying gut issue. And if you are taking a medication, you have to look up what metabolic pathways that medication interacts with, see if it's causing a histamine issue. Of course you also want to remove alcohol. First things first, remove allergens from the diet in the context of a ketogenic or a carnivore diet that would usually be coffee, dairy or eggs. If you follow a normal diet like a normal human being, you might have to remove quite a few more things. I had some eggs the other day and I didn't sleep at all. So even one or two egg yolks for someone like me that has an egg allergy result in a histamine reaction that is severe enough to cause insomnia and anxiety. You want to increase the nutrient density. These two things itself, remove allergens and nutrient density, will solve most people's issues as people tend to be deficient in all of the fat-soluble vitamins and their omega fatty acid ratios are off. Your body needs these vitamins, minerals, elements and fatty acids to build tissue, to make cells for everything to be functioning properly. So that's the first step. Give your body what it needs to heal itself, whether it's the cells in the gut lining or to create more basophils, more white blood cells for that immune response. You can also increase your enzymes. There are DAO supplements, diamine oxidase that is extracted from beef kidneys or pork kidneys. I've actually tried consuming large amounts of raw kidney to see if it would help, but I didn't notice a difference. So I'm led to believe that if you have an underlying gut issue, that DAO supplements might not help you, plus they're really expensive. What you can do is increase the production of these enzymes by consuming certain nutrients. These enzyme pathways use vitamin B6, vitamin B12, vitamin C, iron and copper. Ironically, foods like kidneys and liver are basically the best thing to consume for DAO enzyme production and methyl transferase production. That would be your best bet here, but that really ties into nutrient density. If you're consuming high quality animal foods, you'll be getting these nutrients specifically. Of course you want a healthy gut microbiome, dysbiosis and imbalance of gut bacteria, things like Candida or SIBO can cause a histamine intolerance on their own. But how do you build up a healthy gut bacteria if you're intolerant to fermented foods like cheese, yogurt and kefir? It's simply by consuming high quality foods. Your gut microbiome will adapt over the course of about six to eight weeks once you improve the foods in your diet. The one message here is to just consume as much of the highest quality animal foods that you have access to. One thing worth mentioning is high meat or fermented meat that you guys have seen me make in past videos is a very high histamine food as it's fermented. But I'm able to tolerate that where I am unable to tolerate other high histamine foods. So I'm led to believe the beneficial microbes in a natural fermentation process alleviate some of the histamine issues. But when you have like a heavily salted food it has a different microbial growth and this is really anecdotal and subjective so you'd have to figure that out on your own. Iodine has actually been shown to inhibit histamine formation in the body but the amount of iodine you'd have to consume as I would imagine is incredibly unrealistic. It is worth mentioning that most people are deficient in iodine and you probably want to supplement it temporarily initially. In regards to immediate relief a vitamin C flush can be very effective. You take very high doses of vitamin C powders and vitamin C actually binds to histamine taking it out of the body. The issue is that histamine binds to other nutrients as well such as copper. So it's something you want to do as temporary relief and fix the issue so you don't have to do a vitamin C flush again. But if you're having insomnia, anxiety, histamine response vitamin C flush might help you out. Benadryl anti-histamine medication whether it's Zyrtec, Claritin, I believe the generic name is Dip and Hydramine. These allergy medications are dangerous and have been shown in studies long term to cause memory loss and impair brain function. I actually took quite a bit of Benadryl before I knew about this about a year ago when I was having an allergic reaction to these dairy products and I can safely say my memory hasn't been the same since. So I don't know if a couple weeks of that drug usage really damaged my brain that much but who knows maybe things will change over the next few months but you should not be taking any anti-histamine medication. There's a reason they haven't developed H3 or H4 histamine receptor medications. How can they say that H3 and H4 aren't safe but H1 and H2 are safe? I'm led to believe any anti-histamine medication is very dangerous and even when I was taking Benadryl I still wasn't sleeping because you know the CNS H3 receptor which causes insomnia and anxiety the Benadryl wasn't helping with. If you guys would like some guidance through your histamine intolerance you can reach out to frankatefano at gmail.com for one-on-one consultations. If you guys could please like the video, subscribe, hit that bell icon and share the video if you can. If you guys would like to support me further please check out Frankie's Free Range Meat bringing you high quality nutrient-dense animal foods at an affordable price, Wagyu beef is on sale, fatty beef is on sale, only a few more days of the sale guys, definitely go to frankiesfreerangemeat.com. In addition I have launched Frankie's Naturals, mineral ingredients, minimally processed hygiene and cosmetic products such as a remineralizing tooth powder. Go to frankiesnaturals.com, check it out, has magnesium, comfree root, a bunch of things that will get you nice white teeth. Thanks again guys and enjoy the rest of your day.