Hannah Aylward (00:05.88)
Welcome to the Nutrient Dense Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah Aylward, holistic health coach, functional gut health practitioner, and the founder of HAN. So many people are continuously failed by conventional and alternative healthcare. We are here to do it differently. Alongside my team of functional registered dietitians, I’ve helped hundreds of women around the world overcome their chronic digestive issues when nothing else worked.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what it really takes to transform your health from the inside out, and I’m here to share it all with you. Please keep in mind that this podcast is for educational purposes only and should never be used as medical advice. Now, let’s dive in. Your transformation is waiting. Did you know that constant bloating, painful periods, diarrhea, headaches, and having lots and lots of food sensitivities and intolerances?

are all signs of histamine overload. Welcome, my dears. In today’s episode, we’re going to be diving into all things histamine. So we’ll be discussing histamine overload or kind of more commonly called histamine intolerance, but it’s a bit more of an overload picture and digging into all of the different symptoms and strategies to overcome histamine overload, root causes, all of that good stuff. So a lot of times these chronic

unexplained symptoms that like nothing seems to help. You’ve tried taking out lots of foods with no relief. You may likely feel very sensitive to lots of things. So what I’ll see in a lot of histamine overload clients is high sensitivity, sensitivity to supplements, sensitivity to many different foods, highly reactive to many different foods and different kind of like treatments and approaches. At the core of all of this could be histamine overloads. Let’s go ahead and dive on in.

We’ll be breaking down what histamine even is. Why does it matter? What does it do in the body? Deeper root causes to histamine overload, how the body kind of naturally breaks down histamine on its own and next steps and all of that good stuff. We see a lot of histamine overload in practice. I will say that we’ve been seeing more and more of it. It has been interesting to see more and more of it since COVID-19 hit. That’s kind of an interesting little side piece. We won’t get too much into that in the episode.

Hannah Aylward (02:24.121)
But I do think it kind of flared up some histamine issues in a lot of people that were laying dormant before or what typically happens is when we get hit with a big virus like that, we have this underlying stuff that the immune system’s like regulating. And then we get this big stressor, big load, big virus, and then, oop, all this stuff kind of comes to the surface. So that was like a little tangent I didn’t anticipate going off on in this podcast recording. But I will say like in the years, you know, I’ve been helping people since

2019. So 2019, 2020, we didn’t see too much of it. 2021, 2022, and until now we started to see more and more of it. I would say more histamine overload kind of coming about in 2022 on. So just kind of an interesting, an interesting side note. We do know, you know, the science is showing that the virus did, it’s impacting people’s gut microbiomes, which could be a big reason why it’s contributing to histamine overload in people as well.

So lots to kind of discuss and explore here together. So we’ll go now let’s go ahead and dive in. So what is histamine? Histamine is a naturally occurring compound that plays several important roles in the body, particularly in the immune system and in regulating certain physiological processes. So it’s really like most well known for its role in the body’s immune system response, right? Especially during things like allergic reactions. So when the body encounters an allergen,

maybe it’s pollen or something like that, it can trigger this release of histamine from certain cells called mast cells and basophils. And that’s why we’ll see a lot of histamine overload in like MCAS clients or a mast cell activation syndrome clients, right? So typically these clients really reactive, really hypersensitive, lots going on, lots of sensitivity. So histamine is, it’s a natural response, right?

It’s part of the body’s immune system response essentially when we encounter an allergen. We run into issues when we can’t break it down efficiently. So histamine really helps the body fight off potential threats by increasing blood flow to the affected area and making blood vessels more permeable. This allows white blood cells and other immune system components to move more easily to the site of infection or injury. So once again, it’s our natural response. So it’s good.

Hannah Aylward (04:40.077)
The body releasing histamine is a good thing until oops, it’s not, and we have too much going on. And as a part of the immune system response, it also causes inflammation, which can help fight off pathogens. Once again, inflammation initially is the body’s natural response that is supportive, right? It’s going to help the body fight off the threat, but it can also cause common allergic symptoms, things like itching, swelling, and redness. What’s interesting is that it’s also involved in the regulation of stomach acid production.

It’s going to bind to receptors in the stomach lining and it stimulates the secretion of gastric acid that helps with digestion. This is also why we can see reflux, a lot of like burning in clients that have histamine overload or they’ve got too much histamine being produced. And then it’s also a neurotransmitter in the brain. So it functions as a neurotransmitter in the brain, helping to regulate functions like wakefulness, alertness, and concentration. It’s part of the brain’s network of chemicals that control the sleep-wake cycle.

This is also giving insight into why sometimes when people have histamine overload, they’ll have a hard time falling asleep at night. We’ll see symptoms get a little worse right before bed, increased itching, and then it can even cause like insomnia as well. So it’s important to remember that histamine is found in foods that we eat, lots of healthy foods, and it’s found in the environment naturally, right? So higher histamine foods are going to be things like fermented foods, aged foods like aged meats and cheeses, leftovers.

alcohol is very high in histamines. And then we’re getting exposure through the environment and through things like pollen and dust. So the body can naturally break down these histamines. The body is producing enzymes to break down these histamines. We can’t avoid all histamines, right? We can’t eat a diet that has zero histamines and we can’t never get exposure to these things in the environment. So when we’re looking to overcome something like histamine overload,

we’re not looking to just like stop exposure altogether. We’re looking to understand why we can’t break down this histamine efficiently, like quickly enough to clear it so the body can manage the amount of histamine that is being produced. So what is histamine overload? It’s essentially when the body has too much histamine and it can’t break it down efficiently. We always want to dig deeper into why this is, and we’re going to be reviewing a lot of different potential root causes here together.

Hannah Aylward (07:00.975)
because we help tons and tons of clients through histamine overload that are very sensitive, are producing much too much histamine that’s causing a lot of their chronic digestive issues and food sensitivities. So we’re going to be digging into these deeper root causes, but before we go into that, because that’ll be kind of a big chunk of this, just some common symptoms of histamine overload. So how do you know if you have it? Do any of these resonate with you? Testing for high histamine is pretty difficult.

We can test the blood for histamine, like blood serum. However, it’s not the most like reliable marker, right? Because levels can fluctuate throughout the day. So it can be hard to get a grasp on when we’re just testing the blood, like at one point during the day. Testing for mast cell activation syndrome and histamine overload is a little tricky. We always look to the gut and then of course at your symptoms, your history, your symptoms and gut.

And that’s what’s going to inform us in regards to like, this client is probably dealing with a lot of histamine overload, but you can essentially start to tell if you play around with your diet a little bit. If you are eating foods that are higher in histamine, that would be things like fermented foods, alcohol, aged cheeses, aged meats, things like that. And you notice an increase in symptoms. That’s a big sign. And there’s also a lot of other like healthy foods that people eat all the time that can be higher in histamine as well. So.

things like avocado and spinach. So if you feel like you have, if you make a green smoothie in the morning and you’re like, I am bloated or I’m like running to the bathroom with diarrhea afterwards, that’s a big sign. But let’s get into some of the most common symptoms that we see in clients that are experiencing histamine overload. So this is going to look like headaches or migraines, pretty consistent ones too, hives or eczema, itching of the skin, lots of digestive issues. So chronic bloating, diarrhea,

Lots of different food sensitivities and intolerances. Nasal congestion, very common, or like post meal like nasal drip. Then we have fatigue, quote unquote allergies. So a lot of times clients come in to us and they’re like, yeah, I’m just, you know, it’s allergy season. I have lots of allergies. So they’re taking like Tylenol to manage headaches and they’re taking like Aleve or, you know, different allergy medications.

Hannah Aylward (09:18.735)
And after we do all of our work together, we clean up the gut, you know, there are quote unquote allergies. They’re not taking these medications anymore, which is pretty amazing. So a lot of times people like chalk things up to allergies when really there’s like an underlying histamine overload picture. With that being said, yes, of course, if you’re allergic to peanuts, don’t eat peanuts, right? That’s not really what I’m talking about. But if you’re someone who is like, oh yeah, I just like my allergies are acting up and you don’t really know why there’s probably something more to explore there. Other symptoms are going to be ovulation pain. So

That midpoint in your cycle, everyone’s ovulating at a different time. Typically for most of us, it’s around day 14 to day 18 or so. Really depends on your cycle. This is why tracking your cycle can be like a really helpful biomarker to have, because you can see when do you actually ovulate, which is important for like so many things. Pregnancy, preventing pregnancy, understanding how your body’s working. If you are ovulating, it’s really important to make sure that you are ovulating.

And then to kind of gain insight into, you know, potential histamine issues as well. And then you can learn a lot about your thyroid too. So tracking your cycle is a great little tool to use. However, going back to ovulation, right? So most of us are around days 14 to 18 or so. It can vary each and every cycle, which is why tracking is so helpful. But typically those with histamine overload will get a big increase in symptoms around ovulation. So it can be painful cramps. It can be lots of bloating, headaches, diarrhea.

Any of these like histamine symptoms can increase that ovulation and or they can increase like right before you get your period. So you may even feel like you’ve got the period flu where you feel like you’re like catching a cold or something right before your period hits. You may get an increase in headaches right before your period hits, moodiness, anxiety. These can be some other signs of histamine overload in addition to like painful period cramps and things like that.

Other signs, reflux, I mentioned earlier, nausea, anxiety, heart palpitations are another big sign, brain fog, issues concentrating, and then like I mentioned, food sensitivities and intolerances. Typically people are pretty sensitive to lots of different foods. And this is one of the times when the client is like, I can’t tell what it is. I’m trying to keep the food log. I seem to react to all sorts of foods. It’s not like one food, right? So it’s not just gluten. It’s not just dairy. It’s not just sugar or something like that.

Hannah Aylward (11:43.456)
you’re just like super reactive to lots of different foods. That could be a histamine issue. It’s also pretty consistent with like gut dysbiosis and fungal issues, like deeper issues in the gut environment. However, we know that those things also influence our histamine load. So we’ll get into that. And then other kind of like clues for you as you’re listening to this. So if you feel worse after eating fermented foods, kombucha, kimchi, sauerkraut, not always a histamine issue, but sometimes it is, could also be SIBO, could also be a fungal overgrowth.

If you feel worse after drinking bone broth, you’re like, I’m trying to heal my gut. I’m doing all this stuff that’s good for my gut and I’m drinking my bone broth. But you feel worse after bone broth is high in histamines. If you’re like, if you’ve got diarrhea, if it gives you bloating, if it gives you a headache, those are all signs that you may have, you know, a histamine overload picture. Collagen falls into that camp as well. Collagen can be higher in histamines. So it can feel a little confusing, right? Cause you’re like fermented foods, bone broth and collagen.

These are some of the best foods for my gut. What is going on? And all of these are higher, high in histamine. So that could be your missing piece here. Okay. So those are some of the most common symptoms. There’s a lot of them, as you can tell. A lot of these symptoms, like we see clients that have almost all of these symptoms. All of them, many of them have lots of these symptoms at once. So histamine.

Once again, involved in many different systems, many different processes in the body. It’s involved in immune reactions, digestion with stomach acid, that regulation of stomach acid plays a role in inflammation, et cetera, and the neurotransmitters, right? So when we have this overload picture, essentially like the simplest way to explain it is just we’ve got more histamine being produced than we can break down efficiently. And there’s kind of like two deeper reasons to that as well.

So we’re either overproducing it, the body is producing too much histamine, or, and or, could be both, the body is lacking what it needs to actually break down the histamine efficiently. So we’re going to get into all of this together here when looking at, you know, what is, like, why do we have histamine overload? So, you know, once again, if you’ve been listening to this podcast and you’ve been with me for a little while, you know that on my team, we take a deeper root cause functional approach to helping

Hannah Aylward (14:04.596)
women overcome their chronic digestive issues and, you know, lots of other stuff because digestive issues typically come with other stuff like low energy and period pain and skin issues. So we kind of address, we address it all. We really see it all. Right. So when I see someone that’s like comes in and they’re like, yeah, maybe, maybe they even know that they have a histamine issue. I’m always digging into why. Sometimes there is a genetic component to it. Yes. Some people don’t break down histamine as efficiently due to genetics.

But let me tell you, when we run these functional labs on our clients, when we dig deeper, it becomes pretty freaking clear why these clients are dealing with histamine issues and it has nothing to do with genetics. So I don’t want to like completely rule that out, right? But we always want to take a deeper look at all of this other stuff that’s contributing to this imbalance in histamine before we just call it genetics and move on. I was speaking with someone, gosh, a couple of weeks ago at this point, and she was like, well, what about

genetic component. And then after talking to her, I was like, girl, you’re living in mold. You’ve got so many gut issues. You’ve got all this other stuff. There’s just no way that this is just your genetics at this point, right? It’s just not your genetics. There’s so much more that we can explore here to get you feeling a lot, a lot better, right? Okay. So how do we actually like break down histamine, right? So the body produces two different enzymes to help us break down histamine.

diamine oxidase or DAO and histamine N-methyltransferase or HNMT. These are the primary enzymes responsible for metabolizing histamine. DAO production largely stems from the gut and the gut lining, which we’ll get into. And then HNMT is largely working in the liver to help us break down histamine. So when we’re looking at a histamine overload picture, we’re going, okay,

What is producing, what’s contributing to too much histamine? And then of course, can we break this down efficiently? So think about it like a, I like to use like a bucket analogy because we are getting exposure to this stuff all the time. There’s no way to take it all out, which is also why a low histamine diet is like a, can be a temporary little solution to get you a little bit of symptom management, but we have to be addressing the underlying stuff. Cause not only is a low histamine diet incredibly difficult to follow,

Hannah Aylward (16:27.616)
you’re taking out tons of healthy foods during this process too, right? It’s going to like severely alter your quality of life, but it’s still not addressing any of the reason why you need the low histamine diet in the first place, which is what we really want to address, right? What is contributing to the histamine overload picture? So we can’t avoid all of them. So when you’ve got this histamine overload picture, it’s basically this like bucket, like your histamine bucket is filling.

And if we don’t have little holes in the bucket or those enzymes to help us break down and kind of like sifting through this histamine, if we can’t get rid of some of this histamine, we can’t clear it efficiently, that bucket’s going to overflow. And that’s when we get lots and lots of symptoms. This is also why I call it histamine overload and not just like histamine intolerance, because you essentially have too much of it. It’s not really that you’re intolerant to it. It’s that you have too much of it. But I’m open to other people’s explanations on that.

If anyone wants to counteract me on that, I think it makes more sense to call it histamine overload. So, okay, let’s get into deeper root causes. First thing that I see causing histamine overload in clients is going to be different gut environment imbalances. This is going to include gut bacteria, bacterial overgrowths. This is going to include fungal overgrowths like candida. And then we can also have certain infections contribute to

the amount of histamine that’s actually being produced in the body. Different gut bacteria are mast cell liberators, and then some of them are also histamine releasers. So when we work with clients, we run functional stool testing on every single client that we see because it informs so much of the work that we do together. And it’s essentially how we see what is going on in the gut. What does your gut microbiome look like? What bacteria are there?

what parasites are there, what fungi are there. All of these things influence your immune system, your skin health, your digestion, your ability to tolerate foods. The list really goes on and on. Inflammation levels, metabolic function, thyroid function. These gut microorganisms influence all of this, right? So first thing is that we see a ton of bacterial overgrowth in our clients. Not every single client, which is why we have to test, but a lot of the times when we have these overgrown gut bacteria,

Hannah Aylward (18:47.348)
You know, some of them are these Masa liberators or there are these histamine releasing bacteria. So if you are, you know, trying to not get exposure to histamine through the food that you’re eating, for example, but you’ve got all of these gut bacteria in your microbiome that are releasing this histamine, you essentially can’t break it down as quickly as you need to, which is then leading to these symptoms. You know, yes, when we’re looking at enzyme production, that is very important in regards to getting rid of

too much histamine. However, we’re going to be fighting an uphill battle if we’ve got all these gut bacteria that are overproducing histamine, essentially. So we’ve got different gut bacteria that do this. There’s many different ones that we check for on the lab that we use. We also have Candida. Candida stimulates mast cells to release histamine. So Candida is a fungus or a yeast. It can trigger these mast cells to release histamine. So you’ll have too much histamine being released.

more than you can clear efficiently, leading to that bucket overflowing. And we see this very commonly in clients, you guys. This is not something that only a small handful of people deal with. When I speak to someone and they have symptoms of histamine overload and then I see their labs, I’m like, yep, I mean, it’s right here. It’s right here in front of us, right? And I can almost tell who will be more sensitive to things just simply based on their lab tests without them telling me anything.

Usually in my healing guts and shingabouts program, I go through GI maps with everyone and just do like an educational session after they’ve had their one-on-one session. I’ll always say like, here we go here. The histamine producing bacteria. Do you have symptoms of histamine overload like XYZ, know, chronic bloating, diarrhea, lots of food sensitivities, sinus congestion, headaches, painful periods, whatever. And whoever’s tested is they’re like, yeah, totally. I just never knew that it was coming from here before. So.

Our gut microorganisms largely influence our ability to break down histamine because essentially we’re producing too much of it. It’s coming from our gut microbiome and we’re producing too much of it. So that’s a big root cause here, which is, know, obviously I love the gut. I love the gut work. I work in gut health for a reason. Yes, I dealt with all my own gut symptoms and digestive issues, but I really think that

Hannah Aylward (21:04.52)
addressing the gut at the root cause level is like essentially taking a root cause approach to full system, full body system health, because the gut impacts so, much. So whenever I see any histamine stuff and I’ll see these people, I feel like there’s a trend right now on TikTok or something. People send me these things, right? And it’s like, my gosh, I had PMDD and now I’m taking antihistamine and now it’s so much better. I’m like, y’all, we got to look at your gut.

That’s what we really need to look at because we also don’t want you taking this antihistamine forever either. That’s going to decrease your stomach acid production long-term. We don’t want you on a medication like that long-term, right? So anyway, I wouldn’t in doubt go back to the gut, but we know that these gut microbes influence our ability to essentially break down histamine because we’re producing too much of it. So the other big things that contribute here are environmental factors. So mold is a

big, big one here. And this is one of the reasons, one of the many reasons why people that are living in mold or experiencing mold illness are super, super sensitive and reactive to stuff. So not every single client that we see is very reactive. However, I would say like 90 % of the clients that we see with high levels of mold that we that we’ll test for, right? We always run a mycotoxin test on these clients.

they’re super sensitive. They’re reactive to supplements. They’re reactive to many foods. They’re reactive to like smells and all sorts of stuff, fragrances, all of that. One of the reasons is because of the damage that it to the liver, mold and mycotoxins. But the other thing is that mold is really a trigger for those mast cells and mast cells help to protect the body from harm. So when you’re living in a dangerous exposure or maybe you’re out of that exposure, but you’re still dealing with the mold illness itself, this can make things a lot, a lot worse. So

This is also why, you I believe a lot of clients that have, or people really, that have mast cell activation syndrome, we always got to check for mold with that too, because we can try to clean up those gut bacteria. However, if we’re living in that exposure, we’re still going to be running into issues and unable to get the client feeling a lot better. So mold plays a big role there. So we’ve got gut bacteria, we’ve got fungi, right? Fungi and yeast in the gut.

Hannah Aylward (23:19.05)
There are other infections that can contribute to this as well that we can find in the gut. And then we have mold, living in mold, mold exposure, heavy mycotoxin exposure, that’s essentially causing this trigger. It’s triggering these mast cells. It’s causing this release of histamine. We are getting these reactions, flushing, these symptoms to all sorts of different foods and environmental exposures at that point. The other thing to note here is liver function.

So the liver plays a key role in detoxifying substances in the body, including things like histamine. So one of its main tasks is to break down histamine through the action of these specific enzymes that I’ve noted earlier. So we’ve got diamine oxidase, that DAO, and then we’ve got that HNMT enzyme that these are really the primary enzymes that are responsible for metabolizing histamine. And DAO works mainly in the gut and the bloodstream to degrade histamine.

but HNMT works in the liver and other tissues to help degrade histamine. So a healthy liver ensures that histamine is efficiently broken down and cleared from the body. Now, when the liver’s function is impaired or impacted, it can struggle to process and eliminate excess histamine, potentially leading to symptoms of that histamine overload picture. So when we’re working with clients, we’re essentially like always supporting liver function.

because the gut liver axis is strong, right? Your liver impacts your gut and your gut impacts your liver like largely. So there are many different mechanisms kind of through which this is happening, but to keep it short, your liver produces bile and bile is important for breaking down fats and absorbing fat soluble nutrients. So if your liver isn’t producing adequate bile, if the bile is too sludgy, if it’s too thick, if you’ve got some liver like function, like poor function issues, we won’t have enough bile.

And then we’ll have issues breaking down fats. And then we’ll also have issues absorbing fat-soluble nutrients. So that’s going to be things like vitamin A and vitamin D. So many people are low in vitamin D, right? And if you’re someone that’s like supplemented for a while and the levels haven’t gone up, it’s time to explore deeper reasons as to why that could be. Could be a bile issue, right? So that’s one of the ways through which our liver impacts our gut and our digestive function and our ability to tolerate foods and things like that.

Hannah Aylward (25:38.964)
Bile is also very antimicrobial in nature, so it helps to prevent and protect us from things like SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, helps to kind of keep that small intestine like relatively sterile, not entirely sterile. There are still some microorganisms in there, but it helps to like mitigate, you know, that risk for lots of overgrowth there because the bile is pushed into the small intestine and it’s antimicrobial. It’s the body is like doing all of this without us even thinking about it.

And like, what a gift. And I feel like I say this all the time, but once you understand how all of this works, you’re like, my body’s just doing this. I’m literally not even thinking about it. And so many times when we’re dealing with health issues and lots of symptoms, we can feel like the body is not working for us and their body is broken and all of that. But y’all, if you’re listening to this right now, you’re breathing without thinking about it. Your blood’s flowing without you doing anything.

you’re probably digesting something without any conscious effort, right? Like your body, this thing is a miracle. This is like the most complex technology that’s ever been created and it’s working to support you nonstop. Even if you’re dealing with a lot of inflammation, that’s the initial response. Your body is trying to protect you. So I just want to remind you that your body is incredibly capable and powerful and designed to do all of these things without you thinking. Sometimes we just kind of.

hit some bumps in the road and we can adjust those things and get you feeling a lot better. But back to the liver. So liver influences digestion, like I said, many different ways there, gut-liver axis, very strong. And then we have our gut bacteria and our gut microbiota that influence liver. So we’ll see like gut dysbiosis increases your risk for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. If you’ve had your gallbladder removed, we have to address your liver function.

And we also have to look at your gut. you know, they kind of never go, one never exists without the other. Typically those with gallbladder removals have gut issues as well because of everything that I’ve shared with you. So when we’re working with clients, my overall point is we are addressing liver function. We’re optimizing liver function. We’re supporting detoxification. We’re supporting drainage. And then we’re of course doing a lot of the steeper gut work. So the liver is really a key piece in

Hannah Aylward (27:50.974)
our ability to essentially break down histamine efficiently. So it’s like gut bacteria and microbes, fungi, yeast, infections, increasing the amount of histamine in the body. Liver helping to decrease and essentially break down histamine that we’re being exposed to, that is being produced in the body. And then we have to check our environment, right? Are we inundated with environmental triggers, like in the case of mold, mycotoxin illness?

where we’re just stimulating the release of histamine from those mast cells over and over again. The other way that the gut plays a big role in histamine overload is the gut lining. And you guys, like all of this goes together, right? So poor liver function gonna influence the gut, gut dysbiosis gonna cause breakdown in the gut barrier. So this is also why like it really truly takes a comprehensive approach to get someone feeling a lot better. But this should bring you a lot of…

reassurance if you feel like you’ve tried so many things. You’re like, I tried Armaroclostrum and I tried taking probiotics and I tried enzymes and I tried all this stuff, but like I’m still feeling like crap, right? We have to address all this stuff at once because the dysbiosis is going to cause the gut lining issues, it’s going to cause the poor absorption, it’s going to cause the issues breaking down the histamine. We have to check into enzyme production. We have to take a look at the liver, right?

All of these things are connected. So spot treating these things for lack of better phrasing, like, you know, just chucking in a probiotic or taking out gluten. it’s, not enough to do it for, it’s definitely not enough to do it for any of our clients. If you’re, if you’re listening to this, you don’t really have many digestive issues. That’s not the client that we see. We see the, we see the client with a lot of digestive issues. It’s looking to get better. the gut lining, right? Diamine oxidase or that DAO enzyme is primarily produced in the gut lining. So specifically in the enterocytes or the cells.

that are lining the small intestine. And DAO is that enzyme that is responsible for breaking down excess histamine in addition to that other one in the digestive system and in the bloodstream. So it really plays a key role in metabolizing histamine that comes from the food or that is being released in the body from different gut bacteria, from environmental exposures, et cetera. So if our gut lining is damaged, if we don’t have a strong gut barrier,

Hannah Aylward (30:08.414)
If the enterocytes are damaged in that small intestinal lining, we’re going to have issues producing adequate DAO enzyme. Therefore, we’re going to have issues breaking down histamine efficiently, and then that bucket’s going to overflow. So we’ve got to take a look at all of this, right? And as I mentioned, like gut dysbiosis, for example, when we’ve got an imbalance in our gut bacteria, if we’ve got an overgrowth of these histamine producing bacteria, this does not exist in a vacuum, right? It’s not just the gut dysbiosis.

It’s also contributing to that weakened barrier function or your gut lining. It’s going to contribute to leaky gut or that intestinal permeability, right? So all of this has to be addressed together. Then we also, of course, have to take into consideration, like, why do you have the gut dysbiosis in the first place? And there’s many reasons for that too. We got to take a very comprehensive approach here. The other key thing that can contribute to histamine overload is going to be different hormonal imbalances, including like cortisol,

and then estrogen dominance as well. And estrogen dominance can be high levels of estrogen. So the body isn’t like detoxifying estrogen efficiently, once again, going back to the liver, or we could also be low progesterone and that low progesterone, you know, in comparison to estrogen, that progesterone being low is going to make that estrogen look higher. you know, hormonal balance is kind of like thrown out there. There’s no perfect balance of your hormones, right?

Your hormones are kind of always doing this dance together. And when progesterone drops, it’s going to make, we’re going to have more estrogen than we’re going to have progesterone, right? So it’s like a seesaw. Like think of a seesaw, I think that’s what it’s called. A seesaw at like the park. And you sit on one side, it’s like one is estrogen, one’s progesterone. The progesterone goes down, estrogen is going to go up, right? And that doesn’t even mean that your estrogen levels are like high necessarily. Your progesterone is just so low. So.

I hope that that makes sense. hope I’m explaining this properly for you guys to really grasp this. But progesterone is incredibly important because it helps to stabilize mast cells. Progesterone is important for tons of different things. But in this context, in this conversation, it helps to stabilize mast cells. So low progesterone can also subtly contribute to the histamine overload picture. And then if we have high estrogen,

Hannah Aylward (32:31.182)
Estrogen, and there’s tons of research on this, can increase histamine release. These play off one another, right? So essentially, like when estrogen dominant, it can contribute to both increased histamine release and a decrease in DAO, that really important enzyme, a decrease in DAO activity, creating a perfect storm for histamine intolerance or histamine overload symptoms to take up shop, right?

creating a perfect storm for histamine overload symptoms to worsen and really like take hold here. So sometimes it’s higher estrogen, sometimes it’s lower progesterone, sometimes it’s both. We’re kind of like living in a time now where women are essentially like chronically low progesterone for many different reasons. One being the stress that everyone’s under. Stress is going to deplete progesterone. Another one being, that’s really because under stress cortisol will go up.

the body’s gonna prioritize that as opposed to producing more progesterone or under-fueling, you have to eat enough. Essentially, you have to help your body feel safe enough to ovulate in order to produce adequate progesterone because we produce progesterone when we ovulate. So if you’re not ovulating, including if you’re on hormonal birth control, you probably won’t have adequate progesterone, which can then contribute to some histamine overload picture.

I’m assuming, you know, when listening to this, you can also understand a little bit of why being on hormonal birth control for a long period of time could also be contributing to these symptoms of histamine overload as well because of how it’s going to influence your hormone balance, right? The other thing to note, just very quickly, is that, you know, if you were put on hormonal birth control for something that’s not like literally preventing pregnancy, which is why it was initially created, right?

For example, if you went into your doctor and they were like, you have acne, let’s get you on birth control. Or, you have painful periods, let’s get you on birth control. These root causes, what’s actually causing the painful periods, what’s actually causing the acne is not truly being addressed, right? So things are just getting worse and worse. Nothing’s really truly being addressed there. And then, know, the stuff is either laying dormant or it’s just like becoming something bigger.

Hannah Aylward (34:50.134)
And typically when we get off the birth control, you know, we’ll feel that. We’ll have those histamine overload symptoms if you don’t have them like while actively on the birth control. So birth control is very powerful for preventing pregnancy for sure. And I hold a lot of space for that conversation. It’s very nuanced. It’s very personal. There’s no judgment coming from me. We just want to, it’s like, I would say my biggest recommendation would be if you weren’t put on birth control for preventing pregnancy, if you’re on it for another reason, like let’s dig into why you needed it in the first place.

That will kind of like wrap up my little birth control spiel there so we can move on. So essentially, all of that can also influence your hormone balance, of course, contributing to that extra-denominant state, especially if you’re not ovulating on birth control, you wouldn’t be ovulating. So just to kind of wrap this up for identifying these biggest underlying root causes. So first one that we see, biggest underlying root causes of histamine overload, gut imbalances, right?

overgeneralization, when we run testing, we can dig a lot deeper into this topic. That’s going to include things like histamine producing bacteria, mast cell liberators, an overgrowth or an overabundance of these opportunistic dysbiotic gut bacteria. We see them all the time. And then other microorganisms like fungi or yeast, other infections, all of these can essentially fill that histamine bucket. So it’s not even that we have any issues producing the enzymes, right? It’s just that we’ve got too much of it.

we’re getting exposure to too much of it. This is once again why if you’re trialing a low histamine diet, you’re gonna be on this hamster wheel forever because this low histamine diet is not actually getting rid of this overgrowth of gut bacteria. It’s just minimizing or like reducing the amount of histamine that you’re being actively exposed to, which can help a little temporarily. And if you really need relief, like bring it in for a few days, you should notice it pretty quickly. However, it’s not gonna get you the results that you want if you’re not actually addressing this other stuff, right?

So the gut piece is huge. They’ve got bacteria or the microorganism piece. And then we’ve got our gut lining, right? With that DAO enzyme being produced in the gut lining, damage to the gut lining or the gut barrier will contribute to an inability to break down this histamine efficiently. Then we have those environmental factors, things like mold specifically. Then we have liver function. Any poor liver function can also contribute to an inability to break down histamine efficiently.

Hannah Aylward (37:14.414)
And then we’ve got those hormonal imbalances. So high estrogen, low progesterone. And the other note that I just want to make on that, you guys, because I’m realizing I forgot, is that’s why it can be great once again to track your cycle. Because if we see these symptoms get worse around ovulation, we’re actively asking our clients these questions. So when I’m in strategy calls with clients, I will ask, do your symptoms get worse around ovulation? Do they get worse right before your period?

you know, give me insight into that. How’s the health of your menstrual cycle? Let’s talk about all of this. Because if symptoms get worse around ovulation, that’s when estrogen is peaking right before it drops. And then it’s also going rising back up right before we menstruate. So as the estrogen rises, along with the estrogen comes the histamine. So we will see those flares during those times for that reason. So it can be nice to kind of take that into consideration. And then of course, you know, that low progesterone picture can also be playing a role. And when we

you know, widen the lens on all of that. It’s like addressing stress, adrenal function, liver function, all of that is what’s going to help, quote unquote, rebalance those hormones or support decreasing those high estrogen levels and increasing those good, I call progesterone like the juicy hormone, like good, juicy progesterone levels. Okay, so those are some of the biggest root causes there. So what do we do to actually manage this histamine overload that you might be experiencing?

If you were going to guess, yes, I was going to say we have to dig a lot, a lot deeper. So a first line approach, I’m a little hesitant to say this because I don’t want everyone like going to do this low histamine diet, but a first line approach, you’re like, if you’re just like, hmm, maybe this is causing something for me, but I’m not a hundred percent sure yet. You could trial a low histamine diet for just like a handful of days. Typically you’ll feel a difference pretty quickly and that will give you more insight into, okay. I actually feel better on this diet.

now it’s time to take the next steps. This is something you can Google, you guys. Google low histamine diet. You essentially want to pull out fermented foods, aged foods, some of the big hitters, and just see if you feel any different. I do not recommend doing this for a long period of time. Once again, it’s not a long-term solution. We’ve got to dig deeper. But if you are someone, if you listen to this and then you trial this diet for three to five days and you feel significantly better, we have our answer. We don’t have our answer in what’s causing your histamine overload yet. We would need to run labs.

Hannah Aylward (39:37.946)
But we kind of have our answer in regards to like, if this is, you know, contributing to your symptoms or not. So, you know, that’s like an easy at home trial thing that you can do, super low cost, isn’t really going to cost you anything, honestly. You can give that a shot. Next steps are going to really be, you know, running some labs. So we want to run functional stool testing for sure. That’s how we’re going to identify what’s going on in your gut. And then we can also, if necessary, run a mycotoxin panel. Not always necessary for everyone.

Typically, I can tell if you need it or not. We also have a lot of questionnaires that we’ll send to clients if we suspect it. Sometimes we’ll have you do an online exam too that’s super cheap. That’s like a kind of a nice starting point. And then if that comes back and you kind of like, quote unquote, fail that test, we can take the next step with a mycotoxin panel to test the levels of mold toxins in the body. But you definitely, definitely want to work with someone through this. So it doesn’t have to be us, right? But find someone that knows what they’re doing. Of course, we’d love to help you.

Find someone that knows what they’re doing and you want to get support through this because detoxing mold is no simple easy feat and you do not want to be blindly throwing a ton of supplements at your gut. Please don’t do it. Please promise me you won’t do it. You can do a lot more damage than good and then it’ll just like, you you’ll be spinning your wheels longer and longer and just honestly spending more money in the long run. So we want to run testing, stool testing, potentially micro toxin testing. Sometimes a nutrient panel can be helpful too.

because certain nutrient deficiencies can also contribute to histamine overloads. We need adequate copper, we need B6. These things are going to be helpful for essentially supporting the production of the enzyme to break down histamine, right? So nutrient deficiencies can also play a role in that as well, but we usually get tons of data and info from the stool testing alone and get people feeling better.

Really just from that and a mycotoxin panel, if need be, and then we just replete lots of nutrients in the diet and through some supplementation and that all works out. So that would be my best next step. If you’re just sick of trialing tons of stuff and you’re just so over it and you’re ready to get feeling better, I would say work with someone, get the testing, move on with your life, get the help that you need. That’s the point I hit. Right? So when I’m like, I always get, I will get to the point where I’m just like, honestly, this is not worth it. And it’s not just about my health, other things in my life.

Hannah Aylward (42:00.174)
where I’m like, you know what, let’s just dive in. And I’ll ask clients that too. I’m like, do you want to just dive in? You want to trickle in? How do we want to approach this? If we want to really just get you feeling immensely better in six months, let’s go. Let’s do it all. But of course, that choice is up to you. But for someone that’s like, the histamine overload symptoms are super frustrating. So if you’re just entirely over it, book a strategy call with me. The link for that is in the show notes. Let’s discuss. Let’s get you going.

we can get you feeling so much better. It’s like truly, truly night and day. And that’s what you deserve. decreasing histamines temporarily through the diet, yeah, can be helpful, not like a true game plan, right? Functional testing, absolutely, absolutely key. And then from there, we would really repair the gut. We would eradicate these overgrowths. We would eradicate any infections. We would support the enzyme production, support the gut barrier, support adequate digestive output.

that alone is going to get you feeling a lot, a lot better. That sounds very simple as I wrap it up, but that’s going to be a good couple months of work and a few steps in there, and that’s why the support’s really helpful too. Then there are certain supplements and any kind of natural supports that you can use as well to help your body break down histamine more efficiently. One of them is Nettle. I love a good Nettle infusion. You can get Nettle like the…

The loose herb, I get it at my local co-op. You can get it online, look for organic. And I brew a big nettle infusion. It’s loaded with minerals. It’s like anti-histamine. It’s very, very nourishing. It can be helpful for hair growth. It’s great. And typically it’s pretty cheap. So I get it at my local co-op and then I just make a herbal infusion, which is essentially like a really, really strong tea. So when you make a cup of tea, you’re just like putting the tea bag in there, know, steeping the tea bag for a couple of minutes, tossing it, drinking the liquid.

And infusion, do mine, I kind of set mine up before bed and I let it sit overnight. And then I press it or like drain, drain it, drain the water from the herbs. And then I sip on that. So it’s a lot stronger, right? It’s been steeping for, you know, at least eight hours. I let mine see longer than that. Probably like 12 hours. And then you can sip on it and it kind of just tastes like a regular black tea. That’s not sweetened. It doesn’t have too much of a taste. I like it. So that’s a nice little easy thing that you can trial.

Hannah Aylward (44:19.93)
See if that helps. Once again though, if you’ve got tons of overgrown bacteria that are producing loads of histamine, that alone is not gonna really be enough, if I’m being honest. But if you’re like on your journey and you wanna just try a couple things, that could be a good thing to trial. Quercetin is another great supplement that you can add in that can help to reduce histamine or like break down histamine more efficiently. Vitamin C is also a great supplement that you can bring in. You can get that in through Whole Foods. You could also get that in through supplementation.

Ideally looking for like a whole food vitamin C over a synthetic. That would be my preferred option. So those are, some that you can find in full script through my account or your local health food store or whatever. But I always recommend getting your supplements through a good quality provider. And then we have like stress management. So stress management is also going to be key because cortisol can contribute or kind of like kick off.

stimulate these mast cells. So cortisol, that stress hormone, can stimulate mast cells. So a big part of your histamine overload journey is also going to be stress management, managing your stress response, a lot of repletion, a lot of adrenal repletion, nourishment, nourishment, nourishment, proper sleep, like making sure to prioritize sleep, and learning tools to decrease your stress response, which can feel hard when you’re really in it because

If you didn’t notice earlier, the histamine overload can also cause anxiety and heart palpitations. So once again, the gut work is freaking game changing here. But in addition, quelling the stress response and proper stress management is going to be key. Nervous system regulation is going to be key because cortisol can stimulate those mast cells to produce more histamine. So that is very, very important. couldn’t really talk about this whole topic without mentioning that we’ve seen

you know, so many clients with histamine overload that I felt truly like have completely 180, like a million times better. I could list countless examples for you guys. there was one client, it was last year at this point, two clients come to mind in, I think it was the summer round of HDSB last year, but one of them came into the program. She had lots of chronic digestive issues. She had lots of different food sensitivities. She hadn’t eaten cheese in like 10 years. We identified some overgrown gut bacteria that were histamine producing bacteria in her gut.

Hannah Aylward (46:38.884)
We cleaned all those up. We did the rest of our gut work, our gut magic. And by the end of the program, she was eating like blue cheese. And I’ll never forget the call with her because she was just like, I never thought I’d be able to eat these foods again. She was eating blue cheese. She was eating like fermented pickles, all sorts of stuff. And she was feeling fine. No headaches, no digestive issues, no nothing. That’s because of all the gut work that we did together. And we always do some good adrenal and liver work too. The other client that comes to mind, she came into the program last year because we’re only in the, we’re only like in the middle of our

round, first round for this year. So last year she came in, she was taking a Zyrtec every single day and antihistamine every day. She literally said, she was like, there’s no way I couldn’t take it. Like I couldn’t breathe without the Zyrtec. She couldn’t get through a day without it. And she had really bad ovulation pain. So every cycle when she ovulated, she’d be out for like four days, really excruciating pain, severe ovulation pain for about four days each and every cycle, you know, and that’s so frustrating. It’s so frustrating to deal with stuff like that when you’re just trying to, you know, do your work and live your life.

And after our work together, she had a little bit of population pain for a couple of hours on day of, and that was after months of work. So just imagine after like eight months or 12 months of her implementing all of this and upkeeping, right? We come in, we do a lot of the intensive work and then we leave our clients with stuff to just like continue to upkeep their health. So that was pretty incredible because, you know, she was out for four days prior to that. By the end of the program, she didn’t eat a Zyrtec, had 180.

I think she also had reflux too. believe that was like her big histamine symptom along with the bloating. That was all gone. And then the opulation pain had gone from like four days straight where she was doubled over and like needing like, you know, medication to no more pain or excuse me, a little bit of pain a couple hours just that day. So pretty good progress, I would say for four months if I do say so myself. So just, you know, I like to share stories. I think it’s very expanding for you guys to hear this from like real life other people.

I have a whole highlight on my Instagram of like client wins and testimonials. I have a big multiple at this point. It’s so unorganized because there’s so many of them. You can always click through that stuff. I also have like a whole highlight on, gosh, I think it’s called testing and it like, I’m walking you guys through different case studies and tests and all of that. If you’re ever wanting to learn more about what we do and you don’t want to talk to me directly, you want to do it in silence behind the scenes, go watch this stuff. It’s all on my Instagram. We’ve got like so many client stories because we’ve helped like, my gosh, hundreds and hundreds of clients over the years. So it’s.

Hannah Aylward (49:07.002)
Pretty, pretty cool. So once again, kind of to like summarize all of this, and I hope this was helpful for you guys, all in all, know that you absolutely do not have to live with these symptoms. That’s just not the case. We’ve seen way too many clients turn around to ever believe that. I’ve helped way too many people to believe that they’re just stuck where they are. And then we always want to dig deeper, right? These deeper root causes of histamine overload can be the gut bacterial imbalance, the fungal imbalance, the different gut infections.

poor enzyme production, liver function, gut lining. So it’s really all coming back to the gut. And then of course we have that hormone piece as well, but the gut also influences our hormone balance and our estrogen levels. So we have to dig deeper into this kind of stuff. And this is exactly what we do with our clients to get them feeling better. So I hope this episode was helpful. I feel like histamine is really like having a moment right now, but no one’s truly explaining it and what it is and what to do about it. And there’s so much that can be done that isn’t just like taking quercetin.

Right? Because that’s a great support, but it’s still not getting to the bottom of all of it. We want to get to the bottom of this. We want to eliminate these symptoms. We don’t want to just support these symptoms with natural supplements instead of medication. We want to look at why all these symptoms, like the chronic bloating and the food sensitivities and the congestion and the sinus pressure and the headaches and the period pain, why are all these things happening in the first place? And we want to repair at that level.

So we’re not just managing these symptoms going forward, but we’re really eradicating some of this stuff, if not all of this stuff for you guys. So it’s the good work. I love it personally. So yeah, if you’re ready to kind of like take that next step, if you’re ready to get into some of the testing, you want to work with us one-on-one, you want to get the support, you want to go through this good gut repairing work and pretty much like 180 year life in six months, then we’d love to help you. once again, you can always book a strategy call with me in the show notes and we can chat through your case, your goals.

what you got going on and if you’re a good fit to work with us and how we can get you feeling better. big hugs to everyone listening. Thanks for taking the time. I hope this was super valuable and I’ll see you in next week’s episode. Bye.

Hannah Aylward (51:16.554)
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Nutrient Dense Podcast. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and come back next week for a new episode. See you then!