Food which interferes in histamine metabolism

Several foods provoke histamine accumulation in the organism, but not all are necessarily rich in this amine.

Until now, the cause had been searched for in food, but the origin of this syndrome is in the individual itself, being food the access road of the component that leads to this accumulation. In order to help histamine accumulation, food labeling has been proposed to indicate its presence, as it is done with those compounds related to food allergies.

Only by providing proven existence of people (particularly sensitive) or situations (diseases or pharmacological treatments) that result in histaminosis, will food industry accept the challenge of obtaining low histamine foods, applying production technologies that directly indicate in which stages of the production process histamine is most likely to be formed.

Besides rich-histamine foods, other factors causing histamine accumulation in the organism should be taken into account. Therefore, if rich-histamine foods were labeled, it would seem appropriate to clarify that food is not the only factor interfering in histamine metabolism.

These factors may be other biogenic amines that compete with histamine through the same metabolism routes, endogenous histamine releasing substances or even blocking enzyme Diamine Oxidase (DAO) components, such as acetyl aldehyde (ALDH) present in alcohol. Like histamine, biogenic amines could be modified applying technologies, but neither the methodology nor its costs have been described yet.

For this reason, it is recommended to follow a diet low in histamine, but not as a single preventative measure, since there are more obstacles to be taken into account. Several parameters should be modified, and this would make achieving a balanced diet difficult.