Should You Eat Breakfast?
This is different for everyone. For the liver to renew and detoxify sufficiently overnight, it is recommended that there be at least 12 hours between the last meal or snack of the day and breakfast. Healthy people can extend this period and thus practice their own daily cleansing mini-fasts (intermittent fasting). However, this should only be done if the person's adrenal glands are healthy. Other than this, eat in a way that keeps your blood sugar and energy levels balanced at all times.
In general, one or two set meals are better than constant snacking. Because snacking is stressful and triggers inflammation due to various physiological processes in the body. You should wait 4-6 hours between meals in order to detoxify your organs. If you tend to eat large meals in the evening, you should definitely eat a good breakfast and reduce your dinner.
If you already have all of this under control but still don't feel much better and have health issues, you may fundamentally have an intolerance or allergy to a certain food. An elimination diet needs to be applied. But this doesn't mean completely cutting out foods one after another and straining the body.
Yes, what you remove from your diet can be very decisive. If you truly cannot tolerate something, you won't be able to tolerate it later either. However, it's important to make the following distinction here: is the food you can't tolerate unhealthy, or are you simply eating too much of it? Just as important as removing foods that cannot be tolerated and giving the body a chance to renew itself is integrating certain foods into the diet. If you have histamine intolerance, a list of foods to avoid alone will not be enough for you. What healthy alternatives can be substituted for these foods should also be taught by a doctor and nutritionist. I believe that even if individuals simply start adding more simple foods rich in vegetables, vitamins, and minerals to their daily diet, this alone would help most people.
Now let's return to the elimination diet: lactose, gluten, and histamine intolerance are commonly seen. Lactose intolerance, which is usually a sign of disrupted gut flora, leads to histamine intolerance in many people.
HISTAMINE INTOLERANCE
Histamine is an important messenger substance throughout the entire body — that is, in the central nervous system, cardiovascular system, skin, respiratory tract, uterus, bone marrow, and gastrointestinal system. While the symptoms of histamine intolerance can be incredibly varied, its most important effect is on the immune system. In many allergic reactions in which histamine plays a role, the use of antihistamines, which are anti-inflammatory, is common. In a state of inflammation, histamine rapidly increases to fight the relevant pathogen, and afterward it is broken down by various enzymes (the DAO and HNMT enzymes) and rendered inactive. If it cannot be rendered inactive, and if on top of that you eat a diet rich in histamine, histamine intolerance emerges in the person.
Conditions that cause histamine intolerance:
- Genetic predisposition
- Stress
- Dysbiosis, SIBO, candidiasis
- Inflammatory bowel diseases (ulcerative colitis, Crohn's)
- Food intolerances (gluten, lactose)
- Vitamin and mineral deficiencies (zinc, copper, vitamin B)
- Improper nutrition
- Infections
- Hormonal disorders
- Medication use (birth control pills, painkillers, antidepressants)
Symptoms of histamine intolerance:
- Nausea, vomiting
- Gas, bloating
- Itching
- Headache
- Widespread muscle and joint pain, fibromyalgia symptoms
- Chronic fatigue and weakness
- Hot flashes, redness and swelling of the face
- Nasal congestion, allergic rhinitis, cold-like symptoms, and respiratory distress
- Palpitations, hypertension
- Menstrual irregularity
- Atopic dermatitis
- Difficulty falling asleep
- Brain fog
For more information on this and related topics, you may benefit from my book "The Anti-Inflammatory Nutrition Guide."