Histamine and Ulcerative Colitis
Histamine can do a number of things in your body including mess with your mood, keep you awake, cause seasonal allergies, protect you from sickness, and cause an ulcerative colitis flare up. In this post, we’ll be looking at what histamine is, why the body needs it, what happens when you have too much, and what you can do to keep it within a reasonable range.
Histamine is produced by the immune system. Specifically, mast cells and basophils. These cells are present and working during allergic and sensitivity reactions. Because histamine affects inflammation and gastric acid, it can cause ulcerative colitis flare-ups. People with ulcerative colitis (UC) make more histamine than those without UC.
Let’s dive deep into histamine and why it’s interesting!
What Is Histamine?
Histamine is one of the mediators (or chemicals) that fight invaders. This is important to understand because people with UC almost always have a condition called increased intestinal permeability that is often referred to as “leaky gut.”
The lining of your intestines is only one cell thick. In between each cell are what are called tight junctions. These tight junctions let nutrients into the bloodstream and keep pathogens out. When you have leaky gut, these tight junctions start letting through pathogens like undigested food through and into the bloodstream along with nutrients. Your immune system cells will find these pieces of undigested food and attack them. When this happens, they release mediators. Mediators are what actually cause the symptoms you feel. There are over 100 different mediators, all of which cause symptoms. This post focuses on histamine because,
- People with ulcerative colitis produce more histamine than people without UC.
- Spring and Summer come with added challenges because pollen also activates immune cells that trigger histamine production.
- If you are especially sensitive to histamine, certain histamine containing foods can also cause you issues.
The purpose of this post is not to villainize histamine. It’s an incredible chemical that does a great job of keeping us safe from invaders. You can think of histamine as one of the chemical warfare weapons your immune cells use to fight invaders with. They’re necessary and useful, but they should not be used willy-nilly. Your body has specific mechanisms in place to prevent these weapons from being used when they’re not needed. These mechanisms are sorted into three categories:
- Humoral mechanisms.
- Cell-mediated mechanisms.
- Non-immune mechanisms.
Humoral mechanisms trigger the release of mediators when antibodies and complement react to an invader (complement is a system of plasma proteins that help out [or complement] antibodies). In cell-mediated mechanisms, mediators are released by the cell itself without the help of antibodies. These cells are T-Cells and Phagocytes and they release cytokines. Non-immune mechanisms still involve immune cells, but the immune cells are triggered by lectins, naturally occurring mechanisms found in food. Foods that contain histamine release lectins into the body. In people with sensitive or dysfunctional digestive systems, lectins can bind to white blood cells and trigger mediator release which causes inflammation.
Cell-mediated mechanisms don’t usually involve histamine. This mechanism mainly releases cytokines. Humoral and non-immune mechanisms are the ones that will release histamine.
What Does Histamine Do?
Histamine causes inflammation. Those of us with inflammatory bowel diseases spend a lot of time trying to lower our inflammation. However, it’s important to remember that some inflammation is good. Inflammation is part of the healing process. In most cases, histamine is just destroying a pathogen that would otherwise hurt you. Even in a situation where histamine is attacking a particular food, it’s only doing so to protect you from a big piece of egg floating around your bloodstream. High levels of histamine and/or a sensitivity to histamine are both signs it’s time to start addressing dysfunction and try to lower the amount of histamine (and therefore inflammation) in the body.
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The Stomach – How Digestion Works
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Histamine enhances stomach acid production. Too much histamine can cause your stomach to produce too much stomach acid. This can lead to heartburn, nausea, bloating, diarrhea, etc. Too much and too little stomach acid have many of the same symptoms. In practice, I find low stomach acid to be a much more prevalent problem with people who have digestive issues. This is because stomach acid production is halted in times of stress. It also doesn’t produce effectively when you are distracted and not paying attention to your food while eating. These are very commonplace habits in America at this point in time. All that being said, it’s worth noting that if you have symptoms like the ones listed above, it’s worth working with an NTP to help you support your stomach acid production in a way that’s specific to your body and situation. Practitioners often use tools like the baking soda burp test and/or an HCl challenge to determine the best plan going forward to optimize your digestion.
One of the ways histamine increases stomach acid is through vasodilatation. This means histamine can dilate your blood vessels and increase blood flow. This is usually a good thing and it also lowers blood pressure.
Histamine can also function as a neurotransmitter! I think all the functions of histamine is pretty cool, but this is a function I find truly facinating. It’s main function is to help wake up the brain from sleep and keep it awake. It also helps promote REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. This is why certain antihistamines can make you drowsy. There are other types of antihistamines that do not cross the blood-brain barrier. These antihistamines do not cause drowsiness because the leave the histamine in the brain alone. Think Benadryl versus Claritin.
Epinephrine is a hormone that plays a role in the body’s fight or flight response. Histamine can trigger the release of epinephrine. This can cause anxiety…which we know has the potential to cause or worsen an ulcerative colitis flare-up.
What Happens When You Have Too Much Histamine?
In general, histamine is good and necessary. Histamine may be causing an issue for you if you have too much histamine and have developed a histamine intolerance.
Histamine is usually a product of a dysfunctional digestive system. You would want to begin by identifying and addressing the root cause of this dysfunction. You would also want to begin to lower your histamine intake through food and keep your immune system from producing it as much as possible by eliminating any food sensitivities you may have.
There are certain foods that contain histamines. Other foods can block the enzyme DAO, which is the enzyme that helps control histamine levels in the body. In normal circumstances, this enzyme does a fantastic job. However, excessive histamine can cause this enzyme to fall behind or you may not be producing enough DAO in the first place. Leaky gut, IBD, and SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) can all cause you to produce less DAO.
The symptoms of histamine intolerance include:
- Itchy eyes, skin, ears, and nose
- Eczema
- Hives
- Red eyes
- Facial swelling
- Anxiety or panic attacks
- Irritability
- Brain fog
- Confusion
- Fatigue
- Sleep issues
- Crawling sensation on the skin
- Tightness in the throat
- PMS
- Anormal menstrual cycle
- Diarrhea
- Hair loss
- Acid refulx
- Migraines or headaches
- Asthma
- Seasonal allergies
- Congestion
- Dizziness or vertigo
- Heart palpatations
- Fast heart rate
- Low blood pressure
- Difficulty regulating body temperature
There are two kinds of foods to avoid when you have histamine intolerance. Foods that have high levels of histamine and foods that trigger histamine production in the body. These foods include:
- Aged cheeses
- Alcohol
- Avocados
- Bananas
- Beans
- Cashews
- Citrus fruits
- Chocolate
- Dried fruit
- Eggplant
- Fermented foods – including yogurt
- Food dyes
- Food additives (anti-caking agents, artificial preservatives, etc.)
- Processed meats
- Smoked meats
- Papaya
- Peanuts
- Shellfish
- Spinach
- Tomatoes
- Walnuts
- Wheat germ
Foods that block the enzyme DAO from doing it’s job:
- Alcohol
- Black tea
- Caffeine
- Energy drinks
- Green Tea
- Mate tea
You can support DAO by supporting your digestive system, making sure you’re getting adequate levels of magnesium, and swapping high histamine foods for low histamine foods like:
- Fresh meat and fish
- Eggs
- Olive oil
- Coconut oil
- Fresh vegetables (except the ones listed above)
- Fresh fruit (except citrus)
You can also try DAO supplements. While trying to decrease histamine build-up, be sure to support your detox pathways. This will involve digestion as the main one, but also try sweating (like in a sauna or through exercise) or castor oil packs.
Histamine And Ulcerative Colitis
Because people who struggle with ulcerative colitis already have higher levels of histamine in their bodies, they can be more prone to histamine intolerance.
As I said above, the research on this is limited. What I do have, is a personal story. I have ulcerative colitis and I used to have a long flare-up from March to August. It was incredibly discouraging because no matter how I changed my diet, I continued to have symptoms. One year, in addition to my normal UC symptoms, I began having horrible bouts of pain that made me unable to walk or eat. I lost 15 pounds in just two weeks, I was unable to work, and my family was scared.
We started researching and found a message board on ulcerative colitis. On this message board, there was a group of people who also experienced seasonal flare-ups. This group of people had experimented and found that the antihistamine fexofenadine hydrochloride (the active ingredient in Allegra) stopped their flare-ups. They found that it was only this particular antihistamine. Others like diphenhydramine HCl (the active ingredient in Benadryl) or Cetirizine HCl (the active ingredient in Zyrtec) did not work for them.
I started taking fexofenadine hydrochloride immediately and within 3 days all my symptoms were completely gone. I was back to normal. Ever since that day, I take fexofenadine hydrochloride from March 1st to about midway through August. I have not had an unexplained seasonal flare-up since.
Defusing essential oils like eucalyptus, lavender, and peppermint can also help. This is because essential oils are anti-microbial. However, it’s important to note that anti-microbial means they kill both bad and good microbes. I typically only recommend therapeutic essential oils as a last resort. Instead, I focus my clients’ efforts on limiting what feeds bad microbes and increasing what feeds good microbes.
Holistic in the Head is all about bio-individuality. That means everybody is different and we all respond a little differently to different stressors. Histamine is no different. My story is by no means a recommendation or blueprint for everyone with ulcerative colitis. However, because there is a community of people who have this same struggle and have found relief with this antihistamine and there is low risk in trying this option, you may give it a go if you find yourself having unexplained UC flare-ups in the spring/summer.
Summary
The bottom line is this: You need to support gut health. You do this by eliminating foods you’re sensitive to and adding in soothing and supporting foods and supplements. People with ulcerative colitis may benefit from removing histamine containing foods from their diet. There is no such thing as a histamine free diet, but the goal is to keep histamine consumption as low as possible. Histamine intolerance does not have to last forever. You need to focus on the issue(s) that are causing the histamine buildup and intolerance. That means taking it back to your digestion. Support you digestive system, and you can bring so many other processes back into balance.
If you have any questions or comments, pop them down below! I hope you all have a wonderful week!