When you're all stressed out, your body releases hormones and other chemicals, including histamine, the powerful chemical that leads to allergy symptoms. While stress doesn't actually cause allergies, it can make an allergic reaction worse by increasing the histamine in your bloodstream.
Note that stress increases histamine mast cell content.
As histamine primarily travels via the bloodstream, it can have a vast reaching influence on the gut, brain, skin and heart often resulting in the experience of anxiety, panic attacks and even insomnia.
Acute stress increases the histamine turnovers in the diencephalon, nucleus accumbens and striatum. Histamine regulates anterior pituitary hormones. Anxiolytic drugs also decrease brain histamine turnover. Histamine H1 receptor antagonists and H3 receptor agonists decrease the anxiety state.
An intolerance to this chemical happens when the body cannot break down enough of it in the intestines, causing histamine levels in the blood to rise. This typically results from having low levels of an enzyme called diamine oxidase (DAO), which is the primary agent that breaks down digested histamine.
Drinking plenty of water every day is essential for all bodily functions, including the regulation of histamine levels. Water does aid in the removal of histamines from the body as more that 95% of excess histamines are removed from the body through the urine.
If you're experiencing a histamine reaction, try chewing on fresh ginger or pouring boiling hot water over sliced ginger to make fresh ginger tea. In general, you can also drink ginger tea before bed to act as a natural antihistamine and prevent histamine reactions.
Too much histamine frequently causes anxiety, panic attacks, and insomnia. There are many potential underlying causes for too much histamine and there is no universal treatment that works for everything. Taking activated charcoal at night, however, can be a great short-term solution for some.
These include: Flushing, difficulty regulating body temperature, sudden excessive sweating. Hives, rashes, swelling, itchy skin, eczema. Racing heart, palpitations, arrhythmia.
In theory cortisol contributes to lowering histamine levels, but in those cases where adrenals have been working hard for an extended period of time, as is the case with many people with an autism diagnosis, cortisol levels tend to be low and so CRH stays high, contributing to releasing inflammatory cytokines such as ...
Histamine intolerance (HIT) is assumed to be due to a deficiency of the gastrointestinal (GI) enzyme diamine oxidase (DAO) and, therefore, the food component histamine not being degraded and/or absorbed properly within the GI tract.
If you have a food allergy, histamines are in on that response process, too. When you accidentally eat or drink something you shouldn't, they'll work in your gut to trigger your allergic reaction. Some foods are also naturally high in histamines. These include aged and fermented foods and alcohol (especially red wine).
Data from patients demonstrated a significant increase in peripheral urinary histamine levels in the group with depression compared with the control group, and the increased histamines further regulate the effects of inflammation (70).
"We show that these decreased serotonin levels [because of inflammation] are supported by increased histamine activity."
A major part of the stress response changes include heightening our senses and stimulating the nervous system so that we are keenly aware of, and have an enhanced ability to defend ourselves against, danger. This enhanced action can cause nerve and sense hypersensitivity.
Symptoms typically last a few hours or a day. In rare cases, symptoms can persist for a few days. Diagnosing the condition is often based on circumstance. For instance, outbreaks of typical symptoms affecting several people who have eaten the same contaminated product most likely indicates histamine toxicity.
Histamine release in the hypothalamus and other target regions was highest during wakefulness. The histaminergic neurons displayed maximal activity during the state of vigilance, and cease their activity during NREM and REM sleep.
In humans, plasma histamine levels increase in the early hours of the morning in healthy volunteers or asthmatic patients7,8,9,10. Although still controversial10, these nocturnal peaks in steady-state plasma histamine levels are implicated in the nighttime exacerbation of asthma symptoms7,9.
Hydroxyzine is used to help control anxiety and tension caused by nervous and emotional conditions. It can also be used to help control anxiety and produce sleep before surgery.
Block and reduce nighttime histamine release
You can block nighttime histamine release and get a better night's sleep by taking 0.25 -1 mg of ketotifen or zaditen at night.
Claritin and Zyrtec are effective and safe for most people with minor allergies.
Foods which are reported as having lower histamine levels include most fresh produce, fresh meat, certain fresh/frozen fish, eggs including quail eggs and most fresh herbs.
High Histamine Foods
Fruit: Citrus fruits, strawberries, bananas, pineapple, pears. Vegetables: Eggplant, avocado, tomatoes, olives, beans.
Degradation of histamine in gut. (A) Healthy individual. Normal concentration of histamine in food. Most histamine is inactivated by DAO and HNMT enzymes in gut, only a small amount of histamine passes to blood stream and does not cause histamine-mediated symptoms.