Well we're just over a week into our low histamine diet and finding out more and more about the ins and outs of the diet. The good news is that Jack and I have been hive free for a week now.
The problem I have been running into is that every resource on a low histamine diet has a different list of foods to avoid. There is agreement about fermented foods, spinach, tomatoes and chocolate but google bananas and eggs and you'll get 5 different answers. So for myself I put together the main lists from some great sites and then worked on eliminating the most obvious foods.
Here's Livestrong's take: ...foods naturally high in histamine include spinach, eggplant,
fish, processed meats, eggs, chocolate, tomatoes, pumpkin, citrus
fruits, berries, raisins, dates, apricots, cherries, peaches and prunes.
Showing posts with label diet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diet. Show all posts
Friday, October 19, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
Histamine Intolerance
I have a wonderful 4 year old son who just started preschool and is a fantastic bundle of energy. He does however have a history of moderate speech delay (his was initially diagnosed as apraxia), chronic constipation and hives (or in his case urticaria pigmentosa, which is when you not only get hives but you also get "nests" of mast cells that look like freckles on the skin).
Just before he turned 3 I had been doing my research and decided to try him on an "apraxia diet." This is basically exactly the same as the autism diet - no gluten, no casein, add in fish oils. It worked wonders! The constipation was gone and within about 2 weeks he started talking more than he ever had before... at 3 years old we were still only at 2 word sentences and he refused to say a lot of words despite a year of speech therapy. It seemed almost too good to be true but he has been progressing steadily ever since and a few months ago reached age level for his speech. He also had almost 8 months without hives. Unfortunately I never could figure out how to stop them recurring for good...
Recently I decided to do a complete allergy work up on him and that's when he was diagnosed with urticaria pigmentosa (that is such a mouthful). Here's a link to a more in depth description at PubMed. We were basically given the option of daily medication or a food diary to figure out the triggers. I opted for the second - of course. The problem with hives is that they are an auto-immune issue causing chronic inflammation, and while medication may cover this up, it's always better to find out the source of the problem to avoid long term issues.
This leads us to histamine intolerance which is the usual cause of hives. Do you know anyone who drinks red wine and gets migraines? Can't eat chocolate without getting itchy?This is the most obvious form of histamine intolerance. Others, like my son, react to nearly everything with histamine, or that causes histamine to be released. So we are going to follow a histamine restricted diet for him and then slowly reintroduce all the good foods that contain histamine (like spinach). We will also be introducing supplements that help the body break down histamine naturally - Quercetin, Nettle extract, Vitamin C and B6 - which increase the level of the enzyme diamine oxidase. I'll keep updating, and outline the details of the diet, as we get further into this. Already he's had less hives and I've had less headaches - and our diet (while good, we did a lot of fermented foods and eggs) should improve too!
Just before he turned 3 I had been doing my research and decided to try him on an "apraxia diet." This is basically exactly the same as the autism diet - no gluten, no casein, add in fish oils. It worked wonders! The constipation was gone and within about 2 weeks he started talking more than he ever had before... at 3 years old we were still only at 2 word sentences and he refused to say a lot of words despite a year of speech therapy. It seemed almost too good to be true but he has been progressing steadily ever since and a few months ago reached age level for his speech. He also had almost 8 months without hives. Unfortunately I never could figure out how to stop them recurring for good...
Recently I decided to do a complete allergy work up on him and that's when he was diagnosed with urticaria pigmentosa (that is such a mouthful). Here's a link to a more in depth description at PubMed. We were basically given the option of daily medication or a food diary to figure out the triggers. I opted for the second - of course. The problem with hives is that they are an auto-immune issue causing chronic inflammation, and while medication may cover this up, it's always better to find out the source of the problem to avoid long term issues.
This leads us to histamine intolerance which is the usual cause of hives. Do you know anyone who drinks red wine and gets migraines? Can't eat chocolate without getting itchy?This is the most obvious form of histamine intolerance. Others, like my son, react to nearly everything with histamine, or that causes histamine to be released. So we are going to follow a histamine restricted diet for him and then slowly reintroduce all the good foods that contain histamine (like spinach). We will also be introducing supplements that help the body break down histamine naturally - Quercetin, Nettle extract, Vitamin C and B6 - which increase the level of the enzyme diamine oxidase. I'll keep updating, and outline the details of the diet, as we get further into this. Already he's had less hives and I've had less headaches - and our diet (while good, we did a lot of fermented foods and eggs) should improve too!
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Modern Wheat: A Chronic Poison
I just found this fascinating article on CBS. I've personally avoided wheat for a long time and am working hard to cut out ALL grains (hello Paleo!), here's another reason to stay wheat (and grain) free for good.
(CBS
News) Modern wheat is a "perfect, chronic poison," according to Dr.
William Davis, a cardiologist who has published a book all about the
world's most popular grain.
Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn't the wheat your grandma had: "It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s," he said on "CBS This Morning." "This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten. I'm not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I'm talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year."
Asked if the farming industry could change back to the grain it formerly produced, Davis said it could, but it would not be economically feasible because it yields less per acre. However, Davis said a movement has begun with people turning away from wheat - and dropping substantial weight.
"If three people lost eight pounds, big deal," he said. "But we're seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds. Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day."
To avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating "real food," such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. "(It's) the stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness," he said. "Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90 percent of all grains we eat will be wheat, it's not barley... or flax. It's going to be wheat.
"It's really a wheat issue."
Some health resources, such as the Mayo Clinic, advocate a more balanced diet that does include wheat. But Davis said on "CTM" they're just offering a poor alternative.
"All that literature says is to replace something bad, white enriched products with something less bad, whole grains, and there's an apparent health benefit - 'Let's eat a whole bunch of less bad things.' So I take...unfiltered cigarettes and replace with Salem filtered cigarettes, you should smoke the Salems. That's the logic of nutrition, it's a deeply flawed logic. What if I take it to the next level, and we say, 'Let's eliminate all grains,' what happens then?
"That's when you see, not improvements in health, that's when you see transformations in health."
© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
September 3, 2012 9:28 AM
Modern wheat a "perfect, chronic poison," doctor says.
Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn't the wheat your grandma had: "It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s," he said on "CBS This Morning." "This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten. I'm not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I'm talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year."
Asked if the farming industry could change back to the grain it formerly produced, Davis said it could, but it would not be economically feasible because it yields less per acre. However, Davis said a movement has begun with people turning away from wheat - and dropping substantial weight.
"If three people lost eight pounds, big deal," he said. "But we're seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds. Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day."
To avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating "real food," such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. "(It's) the stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness," he said. "Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90 percent of all grains we eat will be wheat, it's not barley... or flax. It's going to be wheat.
"It's really a wheat issue."
Some health resources, such as the Mayo Clinic, advocate a more balanced diet that does include wheat. But Davis said on "CTM" they're just offering a poor alternative.
"All that literature says is to replace something bad, white enriched products with something less bad, whole grains, and there's an apparent health benefit - 'Let's eat a whole bunch of less bad things.' So I take...unfiltered cigarettes and replace with Salem filtered cigarettes, you should smoke the Salems. That's the logic of nutrition, it's a deeply flawed logic. What if I take it to the next level, and we say, 'Let's eliminate all grains,' what happens then?
"That's when you see, not improvements in health, that's when you see transformations in health."
© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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