Probiotics and Histamines

[Mark Nelson]

There’s a fair amount of current literature on probiotics and whether or not they are histamine forming.

Q1 – is there a good way to test for histamine sensitivity

Q2 – to avoid histamines caused by probiotics, do you have recommendations on probiotics that don’t form histamines, or even reduce inflamation?

[DrWoeller]

Mark,

1 – Blood histamine is used at times for determining under-methylation. Some labs report blood testing being effective – https://requestatest.com/histamine-intolerance-test. There are polymorphism tests (I believe 23 and Me may have them) that look at SNP’s in histamine metabolism.

2 – The two main probiotics that seem to produce histamine are L. Casei and L. bulgaricus. These two are often found predominantly in fermented foods and yogurt, which many people with histamine intolerance have a problem with.

Bacteria such as : Rhamnosus, L. plantarum, B. longus and B. infantis seem to help with histamine intolerance.

Sincerely,
Dr. Woeller

[Elizma Lambert]

Hi Dr. Woeller,

On the topic of histamine in the gut, you mention Ketotifen for leaky gut/food reactions, mechanism being that it breaks down histamine in the gut. My Q is whether using DAO enzymes would work the same. People often don’t use these enzymes regularly or for very long due to their cost, but theoretically, wouldn’t that work similarly to ketotifen if taken over a long period of time?

Thanks,
Elizma

[DrWoeller]

Lorraine,
The mechanism of action is not going to be the same, but long-term the effects may be the same. I don’t have any comparison data to know for sure, but it is plausible. The down side to the Ketotifen is that is has to be compounded and can cause drowsiness.

Dr. Woeller

[Author]

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