The Link Between Gluten and Histamine Intolernace

Have you been having tummy troubles?  Do you struggle with constipation or diarrhea, pain and/or bloating?

What about your mood - are you feeling depressed or anxious? A lot of these symptoms don’t seem to have any cause and your doctor may put them down to stress and give you some vague advice about eating well and doing some exercise.

But, if we dig a little deeper, you may find that gluten is actually related to your symptoms.

 

What is gluten?

Everyone has heard of gluten and you probably know someone who has cut it out of their diet.  But, what is it?

The simple answer is that it is a group of proteins found in various cereals including wheat, barley and rye. It helps to give baked goods their structure, so it is found in many products, making it quite difficult to avoid.
 
We will commonly find it in bread, cakes, biscuits, pasta and pastries (1).
 

Gluten and gut issues

It is very common these days for people to assume that any problems they are having with their gut are related to eating wheat or gluten. And they will tell you that they are allergic to it.
 
But, you don’t have to have an actual allergy to a food for it to give you a hard time. More often than not, people will have what we call a food intolerance. In the case of gluten or wheat, the full, long name for it is non-celiac gluten/wheat sensitivity. In other words you do not have celiac disease, but you do have some kind of adverse response when you eat gluten. 

A doctor can arrive at this diagnosis when gluten has been linked to your non-specific, non-allergic gastrointestinal symptoms.  These include things like abdominal pain and bloating, constipation or diarrhea.The best way to assess the link is through an elimination diet. If you cut gluten out of your diet and your symptoms improve, you may very well be sensitive to it (2).

Gluten and histamine intolerance

If you have been following this blog, you know that I am all about identifying and managing histamine intolerance by eating low histamine foods. Let me give you a quick recap to remind you of what histamine intolerance is, so that you can understand how gluten may be related to the symptoms you're experiencing.

 

Histamine is involved in our immune response. It is known to stimulate gastric acid secretion, inflammation and the contraction of smooth muscles, such as those found in the intestines. It is released by cells found all over the body, including in the gut, called mast cells and basophils. It is also found in various foods, which is why eating foods with a low histamine level can help to improve your symptoms (3).

Histamine binds to 4 different receptors, spread throughout the body. This means that histamine intolerance symptoms tend to occur in the intestines, but also at other sites in the body.

 

The most common symptoms experienced by people with histamine intolerance are seen in the gut and include bloating, pain, constipation and/or diarrhea. But histamine can also cause dizziness, heart palpitations, headaches, difficulty breathing, anxiety, skin rashes and more (3).

You may have noticed that the symptoms experienced in the gut of people with histamine intolerance are identical to those experienced by people with a gluten intolerance. The first step is to try a low histamine diet - however, if your symptoms still haven't fully resolved, gluten may be another common irritant that's at play.

 

 

 

Interestingly other symptoms associated with gluten sensitivity are a foggy brain, headache, anxiety , skin rashes and bone or joint pain (4, 5). Is this merely a coincidence? Or is there more to it? Let’s have a closer look.

Gluten, Histamine Intolerance and IBS

Generally, gluten containing foods have a low histamine level. However they are commonly prepared with or eaten alongside high-histamine foods. A good example is bread baked with gluten-containing wheat flour, using yeast (high histamine content) as a raising agent.

 

Foods like pasta or pizza are often served with tomatoes, which have a high histamine level, and other high-histamine seasonings. Many people have diagnosed themselves with a gluten intolerance and cut gluten out of their diet, in addition to high histamine foods, resulting in relief of their symptoms (6).

But, if it is not a true gluten allergy, why do they find relief? Scientists are still trying to figure this out, but they have noticed that, although people who have a problem with gluten don’t have a more traditional allergic response, an immune response is in fact stimulated when these people eat gluten-containing foods.

 

They have seen that mast cells are present in higher numbers in the intestines of people who report being sensitive to gluten. And there is also an increased activation of mast cells, which as we know, results in the release of histamine (7).

Wheat and gluten have been linked to IBS for a long time. And more recently, histamine has also been shown to cause IBS symptoms. The typical IBS symptoms of abdominal pain, bloating and constipation and/or diarrhea are a common link between a gluten sensitivity and a histamine sensitivity (8).

 

It may be the gluten causing some symptoms and histamine that is causing other  symptoms, and many people may not realize it's a combination of the two. If the gluten is causing the release of histamine, and you have histamine intolerance, researchers are now suggesting that an antihistamine may be considered as a treatment for IBS (8).

Looking at these overlapping symptoms, do you think that gluten may be the root cause of your problem? Have you considered whether it is the gluten itself or whether it is causing elevated histamine levels in your gut? It may be worth it to have a good look at your diet to try and establish the possible connection.

 

This is why I recommend using my free low histamine diet guide, which is more than just a foods list but, rather, addresses additional issues such as common intolerances. I'll provide you with tools such as a food diary and explain how to properly use this to not only identify symptom triggers and outlying food intolerances, but how to use that info to reduce symptoms to an absolute minimum.

 

Click below to get the free low histamine diet guide and get all of the info you need to best tailor your diet for minimizing symptoms: 

 

 

References

1. Tuck C, Biesiekierski J, Schmid-Grendelmeier P, Pohl D. Food Intolerances. Nutrients. 2019;11(7):1684. 
2. Schnedl W, Tillich M, Schenk M, Enko D, Mangge H. Food intolerance/malabsorption may occur in rare diseases. Intractable & Rare Diseases Research. 2020;9(2):126-129. 
3. Comas-Basté O, Sánchez-Pérez S, Veciana-Nogués M, Latorre-Moratalla M, Vidal-Carou M. Histamine Intolerance: The Current State of the Art. Biomolecules. 2020;10(8):1181. 
4. Cardoso-Silva D, Delbue D, Itzlinger A, Moerkens R, Withoff S, Branchi F et al. Intestinal Barrier Function in Gluten-Related Disorders. Nutrients. 2019;11(10):2325. 
5. Elli L, Branchi F, Tomba C, Villalta D, Norsa L, Ferretti F et al. Diagnosis of gluten related disorders: Celiac disease, wheat allergy and non-celiac gluten sensitivity. World Journal of Gastroenterology. 2015;21(23):7110-7119. 
6. Schnedl W, Enko D. Histamine Intolerance Originates in the Gut. Nutrients. 2021;13(4):1262. 
7. Magen E, Chikovani T. Possible therapeutic role of IgE blockade in irritable bowel syndrome. World Journal of Gastroenterology. 2016;22(43):9451. 
8. Zhang L, Song J, Hou X. Mast Cells and Irritable Bowel Syndrome: From the Bench to the Bedside. Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility. 2016;22(2):181-192.