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Histamine liberators might be the biggest problem!
Hi @max-3 ,
How are you doing? Still SD-free with the same diet? Any important updates? (BTW, do/did you have psoriasis on top of SD as well?)
I think I’m going to give this approach another try because I received my blood DAO results, and they’re very low (4.9 U/ml). I’ve also noticed that even a large quantity of beef (alone, nothing with it) in a meal can make my beard itch like crazy.
A low histamine + histamine liberator diet is quite easy, except when you don’t eat starch. That’s where it gets harder! I spoke with someone who couldn't tolerate much in terms of histamine, starch, etc., but after drastically lowering his protein intake (around 0.8–1g per kg, as per the official recommendations), he’s been able to eat a much wider variety of foods, including more starch, without symptoms.
Basically, he’s following an almost vegan diet (with small amounts of animal protein 1-2 times per week). Over the years, I’ve tried many diets (carnivore, vegan, AIP, keto, low vitamin A, and all the other crazy ones), as well as macro switches (high fat, low fat, high carb, low carb...), but I never drastically lowered my protein intake! The lowest I’ve gone is 120g per day, and right now I’m eating around 170g per day while doing a low carb, high fat diet, as it helps reduce my psoriasis and seborrheic dermatitis a little, but it’s not incredible.
The theory is that consuming more protein—especially if it’s not digested properly—would significantly increase the NH2 (amines) burden on DAO and could even trigger mast cells, much like histamine-liberating foods do.
Anyway, I thought about our conversation and was wondering where you're at with everything now?
Hi,
yes I still do terrible with histamine liberators and avoid them at all costs. If I do that, my skin and overall health is pretty good. Not perfect, but the better than on any other diet. Washing your face 2 times a day and sleeping well is also really important to overcome sebderm.
At least for my own body, my theory with histamine liberators remains 100% accurate.
What I changed is that I now eat lots of carbs from wheat (mostly italian pasta) and rice, which I both tolerate well. I keep the protein and fat pretty low. There is quite a bit of protein in pasta if you eat 500g a day like me (uncooked weight). I sometimes add a little bit of lean beef or a can of sardines as well as some olive oil.
The carbs really help me to keep my stress levels low.
Lower animal protein intake combined with high amount of carbs from grains made me healthier for sure.
From fruits I mostly eat 1 peeled apple a few times a week.
Another thing I changed is that I eat almost no veggies anymore, because when I got covid I noticed how my immune system seemed to be weaker when I ate veggies. The covid symptoms I had were joint pain, a cough, and some weird skin irritation on 2 of my fingers. It wasnt that big of a deal and I recovered the fastest from all my family members, but if I didnt eat veggies I am sure I would have been 100% healthy and full of energy again after 3 days and not after 10 days. The skin on my fingers only healed when I stopped all veggies.
I know it is really weird, but thats how I discovered that veggies are not my friends.
I've noticed that whenever I do some panic cleaning before a house guest I histamine out. I wonder if I should try high-carbing more on those days. Sardines sound wonderfully nutrient-dense but possibly high in amines? Perhaps worth the trade-off if you aren't eating lots of them all the time.
I can't help but think about the link-up between VA and histamine every time.
That's great you are doing well on starches now, what do you think helped you start eating starches again? You said a couple yrs ago you couldn't tolerate any starch. How is your mental health on such little animal protein? Karen Hurd believes we need animal protein 3 times a day for good neurotransmitters. Also do you feel like you need more calcium? It's such a low calcium diet very high phosphorus diet.
Maybe start slow with the starches at first and eat them only with salt nothing else? I am not an expert on this.
I dont tolerate all starches, like I said I eat mainly pasta and ocassionaly white rice.
My mental health is fine, but it is definetly worse if I dont eat any animal protein for a long time. I eat 100-200g sardines or beef a day, on some days double that. I think thats enough for me. Grains have protein too.
I eat the canned sardines with skin and bones, so there is some calcium there.
But what I notice is that for teeth health, pasta is by far the best grain of them all for me. White rice is so sticky, same with quinoa. I get very little plaque build up from pasta (I eat mainly penne italian pasta) and my teeth feel stronger. To mix it up I also eat some wheat based cereals with oat milk sometimes.
In the end everyone is different, what works for me, does not work for everybody.
Okay thanks, I was just curious how you ended up tolerating them when you said you couldn't tolerate them at all. I eat kamut pasta for breakfast every morning. I get zero negative reaction to it. It's wonderful. I'd likely eat a lot more of it if it wasn't so expensive! I also ate a couple eggs this morning and no reaction that I could tell. Then for a snack before lunch I had cheap grocery store bread with natural peanut butter and I'm having a hot flash and some itching. I'm interested again in this histamine liberator thing. I think I wasn't fully healing with beans because they may be promoting histamine so I am going to do a trial with no beans. Not sure if that means no peanuts yet, I will test the peanut butter by itself.
Yes 200 grams of canned sardines a day would be plenty of calcium. I wish I could tolerate those, I would have to test them again.
I was on a fruitarian diet and then on the carniovre diet for a long time, so my body probably needed some time to adapt to grains again.
If I eat the wrong stuff I always get the reaction one day later, never instantly, thats why it took me so long to find out what was my problem.
Quote from ItsMe on October 16, 2024, 2:32 am...I feel since this entire VA-thing my body's been turned upside down and it doesn't seem to be coming down much.
Did you see the interesting post by joe2 about how the road to health is all about detox?
Maybe the road is just going to be bumpy! I know, I know, I know it's so crazy to say! And frustrating as hell! And it's what the snake oil salesmen say!
The problem is we have to do the right things without knowing haha what those right things are. Doing the right things might cause *more detox*, not less.
So I think about my panic-cleaning episodes. Dust is horrible stuff. All kinds of toxins in there (from the list at Chris Devocht's/joe2's post above)
So, inhaling or getting this bad dust on me starts up a histamine reaction. What are histamines FOR? From the interwebs:
"They're chemicals your immune system makes. Histamines act like bouncers at a club. They help your body get rid of something that's bothering you -- in this case, an allergy trigger, or "allergen."
Histamines start the process that hustles those allergens out of your body or off your skin. They can make you sneeze, tear up, or itch -- whatever it takes to get the job done. They are part of your body's defense system.
When you have allergies, some of your triggers -- such as pollen, pet dander, or dust -- seem harmless. But your immune system sees them as a threat and responds."
What is this I just found: "The skin reaction after intracutaneous injection of histamine was also significantly greater in the deficient animals. Despite the stronger reaction to antigen and histamine, the passive cutaneous anaphylaxis reaction was lower in the vitamin A deficient rats. In conclusion the study shows that vitamin A deficiency aggravates the clinical manifestations of inflammatory reactions. Thus, vitamin A deficiency might lead to a higher risk of acquiring irreversible tissue damage and disabling destruction." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8972739/
Ok, so no one here believes that it is easy to run a "vitamin A deficiency" experiment. Right? But maybe what IS happening is an inadvertent "vitamin A DETOX" experiment.
So, maybe we are like the animals in this experiment. When you are detoxing vitamin A, you may have increased histamine reactions.
Is it possible this is about a deficiency caused by VA detox, such as low vitamin C or some other ? Now, Mat here has his idea that over-eating protein might be part of this. WHY
Personally, I have posted about liking a non-meat lunch. And that my long-lived relatives didn't eat meat 3 x per day--instead once per day.