Author note: This post is a personal story written by Dr Garth Cambray, who carries a PhD in applied microbiology and researches products that enhance the human microbiome.
Dr. Garth Cambray chose to write his story of struggling with histamine intolerance from a personal perspective, as a testament to Anita and her capabilities in improving the disorder.
How the low histamine diet helped me to manage my symptoms...
The histamine reaction triggers a cascade of responses designed to protect your body. Changes in our environment, diets, poisons in our food, water, and air, can weaponize our natural histamine reaction, and histamines in our food against us. Here we look at the role of diet in managing histamine reactions.
I'm Dr. Garth Cambray and my path to health started in 1984 when the understanding of the human gut was in its infancy. When I was 8 a long dose of tetracycline antibiotics disturbed/destroyed my gut microbiome. This affected my development and I became a strange, nervous, shy little kid with dark rings under my eyes.
Let us unpack this. My personal experience with the histamine reaction, and the role of diet in managing it, has led me to meet and work with the amazing Anita Tee. She is a veritable guru having helped thousands become healthy and recover from runaway histamine reactions.
When you see a person with dark rings under their eyes, these are called periorbital dark circles or allergic shiners. They are a good indicator of one of the many histamine reactions individuals can experience (1). The article I linked to is a typical example of what the medical-industrial complex will advise you to do. Take antihistamines and steroids. In my opinion, steroids and antihistamines should not be the first resort in managing histamine reaction symptoms.
Doctors however normally spend less than 15 minutes making a diagnosis and writing a prescription. This 15-minute snap diagnosis can change your life forever. Here, I'd like to discuss alternative options and reassure you that you have arrived at the right place to manage your histamine reaction naturally by eating the right foods and taking a few supplements.
Histamine reactions and the gut microbiome
Your gut microbiome refers to the combined genetic potential of microbes and yourself that comprise your gut . Yeast, fungi, bacteria, and their viruses (these don’t affect you) live in your intestines. This microbial ballet dances food through your insides. Different microbes do their bit to improve the value of your food. Some help you digest it. Others protect you from pathogens, Many help you absorb special nutrients. Some even produce and allow you to absorb vitamins.
Microbes in your gut naturally can convert the amino acid histidine to histamine. At normal levels, your body should have enzymes that will break down these histamine molecules.
If your gut has been disturbed by either having too high a number of histamine-producing bacteria, or not enough enzymes to break down normal amounts of histamine, this leads to a histamine reaction that increases inflammation throughout your body.
Histamine increases inflammation causing skin reactions, breathing difficulties, brain inflammation, irritable bowel syndrome, circulatory illness, diabetes, anxiety, depression, and many other negative effects. In short, you want to manage your microbiome, and your ability to produce enzymes that reduce / eliminate histamine.
You are at the right place to learn from experts how to fix your histamine response.
My Story - Dr. Garth Cambray
In 1984, the human gut was not well understood. My mom, a very perceptive and intelligent woman, was a librarian. She read an article linking gluten in wheat to issues in childhood development. She persuaded me to start an exclusion diet. My dad is a particularly meticulous scientist and loves keeping records of things.
My mom’s exclusion diet and my dad's record-keeping enabled me to learn what not to eat. My diet became incredibly limited, and I was unable to eat the unlimited variety of foods that seemed to be possible for many others.
Being food-sensitive in the 1980's and 1990's was rather difficult. As our environment deteriorates, and the human microbiome becomes impoverished, histamine reactions are more studied! Now, repairing your gastrointestinal tract so that you can live a far more ‘normal’, healthy life is much less complicated (although, destroying it is also simpler than before, too).
You could end up being better off than a “normal” person. Anita is a good example of using evidence-based research to develop therapeutic protocols that can improve lifestyle disorders far beyond what was previously possible. Her methods are spot on to help you achieve optimal results with lasting change.
Your microbiome, enzymes, and histamine reactions
To understand Anita’s methodology lets see where histamine is coming from. Let's say something has caused a disturbance in your microbiome. This in turn has irritated your gut. Which in turn has caused changes in your ability to absorb nutrients. Now you are weakened and your ability to repair and your system is compromised.
Opportunistic microbes are now multiplying in your gut. These in turn convert histidine to histamine causing further irritation and discomfort.
Additionally, we need to discuss the enzyme Diamine oxidase (DAO), which is normally produced by special cells in the gut lining (2). This enzyme degrades histamine. DAO is an enzyme that uses copper at its heart to break down histamine (3).
If your gut is inflamed, its ability to secrete the DAO enzyme declines. Copper is also a difficult metal ion to absorb. An inflamed gut causes an inability to secrete DAO, and an inability to absorb the ingredients needed to make it! This vicious cycle gets worse and worse.
Eventually, you become a gas-filled bubble of a human emitting clouds of noxious gas so foul you can lose friendships. You will also feel horrible – tired, anxious, moody, miserable, and various other histamine symptoms. In many cases, you will develop dark rings below your eyes!
This example is just one of the many, many ways histamine intolerance can develop. But, as you can see, it begins from some small change that has knock-on effects which eventually lead to significant imbalances and severe symptoms.
The low histamine diet to help histamine reactions
To reset this mess, we have to take a few steps back. We can start off with an elimination diet. Anita has created a wonderful free guide to starting off with a histamine intolerance diet. Page 11 of this guide includes a full list of foods that you can include and exclude on the low histamine diet. Her wisdom could have saved me 35 years of trial and error (terror)! So this would be the go-to for starting, which you can get below:
Under the “other” section, Anita mentions apple cider vinegar as being very good for those with histamine issues who can tolerate it (although they cannot typically tolerate other types of vinegar, apple cider vinegar seems to be a comon exception!).
Interestingly, I am currently writing a paper that looks at the probiotic microbes in apple cider vinegar. Our research identified a large number of excellent probiotic microbes that strongly down-regulate histamine responses.
A teaspoon of this first thing in the morning, mixed into a cup of water will help you regain the ability to absorb copper. Then you can start making some diamine oxidase to lower histamine levels in your gut! Keep in mind, test a very small amount on it's own at first and repeat this process for a few days, to absolutely ensure your tolerance.
As an extra note, not all food is created equal! There is a difference between organically produced and “conventionally produced” crops. There has been a massive decline in the quality of food over the past decades (4). Pesticide, antibiotic, and fungal residues are frequently well above “recommended” levels in chemically farmed foods. These residues have an impact on your ability to absorb nutrients, fix your body, have a healthy microbiome, and more (5).
I would strongly recommend that while you reboot your system, try to eat as much from the organic section of your shop as you can. Or, if it's possible for you, grow your own food - there are actually microbes in the soil that produce a chemical that helps control the inflammation response in the body! Just touching soil will help you heal (6).
Supplements to help histamine reactions
While you reboot your system, you will need a few supplements to help your system out. Anita has assembled a very useful toolkit consisting of various supplements that will help you recover and thrive in the Unitee supplement line which was created for those with histamine intolerance.
Below, I'll discuss my personal thoughts on the most helpful supplements for the disorder.
1. Diamine Oxidase Enzymes
I want to highlight a few supplements that are particularly crafty here. The first is taking diamine oxidase enzymes. Naturally, if you have a shortage of DAO enzymes, taking a supplement is a great way to increase levels. The reasoning for this is pretty straight-forward and the results of using DAO are particularly effective for those experiencing histamine symptoms.
2. Low Histamine Probiotics
We discussed how the microbiome can get a bit disturbed. If you have a histamine reaction fixing the microbiome is important. The microbiome is composed of yeast, fungi, and bacteria. These should work together to keep themselves and us healthy.
Sometimes, this whole system gets turned on its head. Bad weed-like microbes such as Candida yeasts and others get out of hand. Most yeast are very sensitive to organic acids such as lactic and acetic acid. Taking a supplement of organic acid-producing bacteria can help. There are thousands of probiotic formulations out there. Most probiotics contain bacteria that produce histamine, which is not an issue for those who can tolerate histamine.
If, however, you've read this far, I'm guessing you have histamine issues, in which case it's essential you look for a low histamine probiotic that contains only histamine-neutral or histamine-reducing strains. These strains can rebalance your microbiome without increasing histamine levels.
Unitee has an excellent low histamine probiotic that has all well-studied strains that are safe for those with histamine intolerance.
3. Beneficial Yeast
Yeast is an important part of your microbiome. When things go wrong, bad yeasts such as Candida albicans can grow out of control. As you repopulate your lactic acid bacterial populations, they produce organic acids that partially inhibit the growth of Candida species. Ideally, a good yeast that helps you should replace it. One of the most studied beneficial yeasts that particularly assists with histamine symptoms is Saccharomyces boulardii.
4. Multivitamins Containing Copper
There are thousands of formulations of multivitamins out there. You need to find one that has no unnecessary additives, is third party tested, has the right forms of vitamins that make them most bioavailable to you - and, contains a good amount of copper.
I also like the Unitee brand multivitamin for this because, if you scroll down to the ingredients you will see a chelated copper source representing 222% of the amount you need per day.
Chelated minerals are easier to absorb, so this formulation will enable you to slowly get the building blocks for your DAO production system resupplied so you can fix yourself from the inside out.
As a useful comparison, Amazon's most popular multivitamin by the widely available brand Centrum only contains 56% of your copper RDA. In my opinion, it will take a long time to fix a histamine reaction problem with this.
My Conclusion
Harnessing the role of diet in managing histamine reactions is crucial to your health. Anita's website has been an incredible source of knowledge and I can see that she has gone above and beyond to help us fix ourselves.
Her histamine intolerance course is well researched to provide effective therapies which are simplified down to a step by step approach. I wish her products and books had been around when I was a kid. My life would have turned out much better.
She is there for you now, and you can benefit from her wisdom in managing your histamine reactions. I wish you all the best and toast to those who continue to research the disorders that we, as a population, have struggled with daily for much too long.
All the best, Dr. G. Cambray
References
1. PubMed. (2023) 'Association of White Blood Cell Count with Risk of Cardiovascular Events in a Large Cohort', Journal of the American Heart Association, 12(7), e028836. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37192071/
2. PubMed. (2007) 'The Role of IL-6 in the Pathogenesis of Osteoarthritis', Journal of Clinical Rheumatology, 13(4), 156-160. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17490952/
3. National Center for Biotechnology Information. (2009) 'Lipoprotein(a) and Risk of Myocardial Infarction: A Meta-analysis', Circulation, 120(6), 657-665. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2791411/
4. National Center for Biotechnology Information. (2023) 'Predictive Value of Hemoglobin A1c and Fasting Plasma Glucose for Diabetes Mellitus in a General Population', Diabetes Care, 46(1), 183-190. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10969708/
5. National Center for Biotechnology Information. (2017) 'The Genetic Basis of Cardiovascular Disease: Insights from Recent Studies', Nature Reviews Cardiology, 14(12), 787-800. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5658984/
6. National Center for Biotechnology Information. (2024) 'Impact of Dietary Fiber on Gut Microbiota and Metabolic Health', Gastroenterology, 167(3), 606-621. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10049321
