The Estrogen + Histamine Connection

Ever noticed you tend to get headaches or migraines around your period or ovulation?

Do you get the sniffles every time you drink wine or coffee? Or a runny nose while eating?

Ever waken up in the middle of the night with your heart racing and full of anxiety?

Do you get moody and raging PMS before your period? Or ever get a bad case of the period poops?

Ever feel like a bloated whale from so much water retention?

Struggling with environmental and food allergies?

Maybe your skin is itchy or you’ve got some rosacea?

Welp girlfriend, you may be experiencing histamine intolerance. As if that didn’t suck enough estrogen LOVES to join in all this fun making the shit storm even worse.

Histamine is a super important player in our immune system and only becomes a problem when in excess. Histamine is needed to digest food, needed for exercise performance, brain function, and helps deliver nutrients to cells.

Histamine “intolerance” occurs when you have too much histamine than your body is able to break down. DAO is the enzyme responsible for breaking down histamines in the GI tract (hint: addressing gut health is key here)

Estrogen and histamine are intimately connected. Histamine and estrogen attach to the same receptors therefore estrogen will cause a release of histamine from the mast cells in the reproductive organs. Increased estrogen down regulates DAO and lowers progesterone levels which is needed to support DAO enzyme activity.

DAO also needs minerals and nutrients to do its job. Copper and Vitamin A in particular are absolutely necessary to break down histamine. I guarantee if you are having a hard time with histamines and estrogen, you are most likely copper deficient which is one piece of the puzzle.

Excess estrogen = excess histmine
Excess histamine = excess estrogen

This is why addressing both is mandatory and the blanket recommendation of eliminating high histamine foods does not work. It may relieve some symptoms temporarily but getting to the root of the problem is necessary to break the cycle.

Swipe right for some basic tips.

In this case working with someone and running labs like the GI Map and DUTCH can be really helpful.