Have you ever wondered about your liver on histamine? Is it a severe disease? How to deal with it? All the answers to your questions are here.
What is histamine?
Histamine is a chemical found in some kinds of foods and produced by your body.
Histamine in food
This chemical is formed when some specific yeasts or bacteria perform the transformation of the amino acid histidine.
Foods containing protein may form histamine under a proper condition.
They include beverages, aged, and fermented foods. If you want to avoid histamine, you should choose fresh foods.
What does the liver actually do?
Your liver takes responsibility for identifying toxic substances to turn all of them into harmless products, even eliminate them from your body.
The liver and the digestive system have a strong tie to provide your body with nutrients and detect risks like toxic substances, heavy metals, and medications.
There is a type of tissue transporting your blood cells, so your liver will regular your blood supply. It stores blood, clots blood, and breaks down blood cells.
Symptoms of impaired liver function
Fatigue
- Dark pee
- Elevated liver enzymes
- Enlarged liver
- Pain the upper right side of the belly
- Nausea
- Lack of appetite
- Weight loss
- Fatigue
In case you suspect liver impairment, please contact your medical professional immediately.
What is your liver on histamine?
Your liver contributes to breaking down histamine. Once this organ has any impairment or damage, it may result in an excessive level of histamine inflammation, causing elevated liver enzymes.
According to researchers, the mast cell activation can result in high-level of histamine for patients with liver disease. They come with some signs and symptoms such as itchy and rashy skin. The case is that excess blood histamine may cause liver enzyme fluctuations.
Although there are mast cells in healthy livers, you can find out mast cells in alcoholism, which contribute to the growth of the liver disease.
What's more, mast cells also play an essential role in the white blood cells that create the immune system. They will release histamine and other inflammatory agents to begin your healing process when you are sick or injured.
The first responder is histamine:
According to a study, in a group of mast cell patients releasing histamine, there is:
- 75% of elevated cholesterol without being overweight
- Under 50% of elevated liver enzymes
- The change of the bile flow from the liver
How to detox and keep your liver healthy
You should provide your body with the following nutrients:
- Betaine
- Vitamin E
- Antioxidants
- Dandelion
- Milk thistle
Doing exercise is also an effective way. A study shows that an alcoholic rat has better liver function than their teetotal colleagues. This is because alcohol doesn't cause inflammation in runners because of the mitochondrial boost and the newly raised metabolism.
Sulfurophane is the strongest available detoxifier of the liver. It is high in glutathione so it can kill the powerful cancer cells. In general, this compound is produced to reverse liver damage.
Which foods should you enjoy in a low-histamine diet?
Raspberries
As we said earlier, fresh foods contain the lowest amount of histamine.
Let's refer to our recommendation as follows:
- Fruits: raspberries, pomegranate, plums, peaches, melons, coconut, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, apricots, and apples.
- Vegetables: zucchini, winter squash, watercress, turnip, sweet potato, summer squash, shallot, rutabaga, rhubarb, onions, lettuce, leeks, greens, garlic, cauliflower, carrots, cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, bok choy, beets, bell peppers, asparagus, and arugula.
- Grains: some gluten-free choices like rice, quinoa, millet, corn, amaranth.
- Olive oil
- Fresh herbs
- Fresh animal proteins: goat, lamb, beef, and chicken
Preparation tips for your diet
Below are the ways to keep your foods fresh and decrease the amount of histamine.
How to buy proper proteins
The animal-based proteins
The fresher the animal-based proteins are, the better your health is. Thus, remember to check the ingredient list when buying meat to getthe freshest one.
The butchered and frozen meats are our recommendations. Compared to the ground meats, the whole cuts are better because bacteria are maximized through the grinding process, producing more histamine.
When it comes to fish, make sure there is "frozen-at-sea" (FAS) on the label.
If possible, you had better buy animal proteins at the end and put it in a cooler on the way home.
Freezing foods
This method can prevent and slow down the growth of histamine. But, it doesn't work well for any food as some of them aren't freezer-friendly.
Cooking technique
the level of histamine in foods may change depending on how you cook meals.
While grilling and frying might raise the level of histamine, boiling keep or lessen the level. However, the difference doesn't change much.
You can use other strategies such as saying “never” with slow-cooked foods, freezing your own meals, applying quick thaw ways for frozen foods, using a pressure cooker.
Trying supplements
Reducing histamine-containing foods is useful to minimize some symptoms related to histamine. For busy people, it's not easy to follow this method so you can refer to some certain supplements and medications:
Antihistamines
Sometimes, antihistamines can help you block the reaction of symptoms without dealing with the root cause.
If you don't exceed the prescribed, it may result in a few side effects like excessive drowsiness.
Supplemental DAO
These supplemental DAO enzymes enter the gut to degrade histamine in foods.
Keep in mind that DAO isn't absorbed into the bloodstream, so it can't minimize systemic histamine level. It is just useful to break down histamine from foods.
Vitamins
Copper, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C might rise the activity of DAO and support the histamine breakdown. However, you should enjoy foods containing copper, Vitamin C, Vitamin B6 instead of consuming supplements. Or you can use if you are diagnosed with lacking one of the following nutrients.
Mast cell stabilizers
These supplements are useful for people with gastrointestinal symptoms because they inhibit the mediator release, including histamine, to minimize the inflammatory effects.
The most popular one is disodium cromoglycate (cromolyn sodium)
Histamine degrading probiotics
Keep in mind that you need to use probiotic supplements which have bacteria without producing histamine.
You can refer to the following choices, which are very helpful for breaking down and lessening the histamine formation:
- Bifidobacterium longum
- Bifidobacterium lactis
- Bifidobacterium infantis
- Lactobacillus rhamnosus
- Lactobacillus Plantarum
Avoid the things below. If not, they may add excessive histamine in your GI tract:
- Streptococcus thermophilus
- Enterococcus faecium
- Lactobacillus lactis
- Lactobacillus hilgardii
- Lactobacillus helveticus
- Lactobacillus fermentum
- Lactobacillus delbrueckii
- Lactobacillus casei
- Lactobacillus brevis
On a final note
Have you found out what you want to know? We hope that this article is helpful, which can help you solve your liver on histamine.
In sum, this is not a big problem and you can early prevent by consuming some kinds of fresh foods or take supplements.
Please leave your comment in the section below if you have further queries and thought.