Over the last 2 years, we have always talked about how important our diet plate married to our unique biology is important for our health. Dietary solutions have become overrated & every 3rd person claims to be an expert in providing your right dietary solution- which is too good to be true!. The fact is what works for your neighbour or colleague, may not work for you. What works for you is a diet aligned with your unique biology which can only be determined by decoding your biological functions & the various compounds & byproducts that are produced when the food you eat is broken down & digested by microbes living in your gut. These compounds impact our resilience, health, energy & how we age. Unfortunately, we still buy in wrong & standard claims that this particular diet may be quantified nutrition, ketosis, high protein or any other fat diet will help you improve your weight since the same has worked for your friend.
We miss out on an important aspect- our body is unique & has a unique response to food we eat. AND people who guide us inappropriately, do not even understand how the food is broken down, who are actually digesting the food we eat. As a matter of fact, these people think our digestive system is independent of the brain & has no role to play except excretion of the waste. Let us decode this today & shed light on role of microbes living in our large intestine in digesting the foods & how eating something which does not marries our unique biology can lead to imbalance in our gut & food intolerances.
Our bodies are not equipped to break down every part of food we eat & sometimes some foods can cause allergic reactions since it feeds harmful folks living in our gut. The symptoms of food allergies & intolerances may vary but many of these microbial & gene expression interactions can lead to bloating, fatigue, vomiting, gassy constipation, migraines, acidic, heartburn & even GI discomfort. Many of these issues stem from the gut when our gut is in an imbalanced stage & releases harmful byproducts that makes our immune system overactive, thereby releasing antibodies.
These antibodies then get into various tissues & cause chronic inflammatory reaction into that tissue when a food peeps through this gap between the cells on the wall of the gut or when these tissues encounter a bacteria that has moved from gut to bloodstream & other parts of the body. This is the reason why we we experience lactose intolerance, gluten intolerance (feel bloated or gassy when we consume gluten or milk based products) or even celiac disease( autoimmune disease).
The point is it is difficult to point out which foods may be source of your discomfort unless you can deep dive into biological functions taking place in your body- whether the digestive enzymes being released by your microbes are not able to metabolize chemicals in the food you are eating into beneficial compounds.
In fact, you may be experiencing symptoms associated with related issues- Histamine Intolerance!
You must be connecting histamine with seasonal allergies & medication associated with it. These drugs & medication work to combat the production of histamines, a compound our body generates as a response to immune or allergy reaction. You may encounter rashes, stuffy nose & frequent sneezing during peak allergy season. In fact, Histamine is a beneficial signal telling that a foreign invader/pathogen is trying to occupy a place & helps in alerting our immune system for a potential threat. These all symptoms as mentioned above are responses of immune system against the threat.
Our body is well equipped to tackle the situation of histamine production through an enzyme called diamine oxidase. This enzyme is produced when histamine production rises & helps to clear histamine to keep it at acceptable level. However, if the rate of release of this enzyme is slow as compared to histamine production, the level of histamine can rise & can even cause food poisoning. This is referred to as histamine intolerance.
Here is where we go all wrong, we go to a doctor & we are given over the counter medication to fend off histamine production. These medications disrupt the gut microbiome balance. In fact, we do not know that it is our dietary choices that are causing an immune response, making our immune system overactive. It is hard to determine if your symptoms match up with a specific food allergy. So the focus should be to determine what is causing histamine intolerance.
If you are trying to reduce histamine production through OTC drugs & medication, it is not going to help since histamine is not only produced in the body but we also get histamine from certain foods as well.
Histamine rich foods are really common ones we eat on a daily basis. In fact you may be consuming foods that don’t contain histamine but actually release histamines into your bloodstream.
Various species of yeasts and bacteria in our gut have been shown to combat histamine production by boosting your immune system and defending against histamine-related inflammation. Other natural antioxidants – like vitamin C – can actually help diamine oxidase in breaking down histamine production.
We at Genefitletics help you decode the impact of each food on your overall health at a biological level & provide you with the right dietary recommendations based on your unique biology to help you bring your gut in balance & improve production of beneficial molecules. For more details on how we are decoding, sequencing & analysing your gut microbes to provide you personalised dietary recommendations that can fend off food intolerances, hop on for a free discovery call with us here:
