Histamine lowering probiotic strain regimen

[dihard]

I recently seem to have become intolerant to certain foods that seem to match the histamine intolerance avoidance lists. Histamine is a possible factor in CPPS and from what I researched on big component of dealing with histamine intolerance is your gut flora. Apparently certain strains actually increase histamine or degrade it. Thus taking the wrong probiotic could actually be making you worse. I have been drinking tons of homemade kefir but learned this may have tilted my flora balance towards the histamine producing strains l casei and l bulgaricus which are very common in milk ferments. This combined with the insult to my flora from a standard 6 week antibiotic course could have caused this tilt towards histamine producing dominance and pushed me over the edge in histamine reactions. In a way this is a good thing because I can now easily detect which foods increase my histamine whereas before it was probably causing sub-acute irritation making it difficult to identify problem foods.

I've done a bunch of research compiling which strains are histamine producing/degrading and then looked at various brands to see which are a best fit. I also included CFU count and price per pill to help optimize your choice. They are ordered roughly in order of my personal picks.

+ indicates it's one of the good strains. x one of the bad ones. x? possibly bad.

- Brands
- Nature's way reuteri https://www.amazon.com/Natures-Way-Prim ... B000FL9EAG
- 5 billion CFUs, $.25
- cheap option to get two good strains and no bad
- +L Rhamnosus
L Acidophilus
+L Reuteri

- Prescript Assist - soil based organisms https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JB2GOFI
- 145 million CFUs, $.83 - cfu count not comparable to others in this list
- Arthrobacter agilis, Arthrobacter citreus, Arthrobacter globiformis, Arthrobacter luteus, Arthrobacter simplex, Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, Azotobacter chroococcum, Azotobacter paspali, Azospirillum brasiliense, Azospirillum lipoferum, Bacillus brevis, Bacillus marcerans, Bacillus pumilus, Bacillus polymyxa, Bacillus subtilis, Bacteroides lipolyticum, Bacteriodes succinogenes, Brevibacterium lipolyticum, Brevibacterium stationis, Kurthia zopfii, Myrothecium verrucaria, Pseudomonas calcis, Pseudomonas dentrificans, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Pseudomonas glathei, Phanerochaete chrysosporium, Streptomyces fradiae, Streptomyces cellulosae, Streptomyces griseoflavus

- Pure Encapsulations Probiotic 50B http://www.vitacost.com/pure-encapsulat ... 0-capsules
- Buy direct for ice
- 50 billion, fridge, 1$
- Safest (no histamine), 5x more cfu's than Seeking Health,
- Lactobacillus acidophilus,
+Lactobacillus rhamnosus,
+Lactobacillus plantarum,
+Bifidobacterium longum
Bifidobacterium lactis

- Align https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0031RGL66
- B Infantis

- Now Saccharomyces Boulardii https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053W995W

- Probiota Bifido has no lactobacillus https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A86JHMI
- 10 billion CFUs, $.80
- Bifidobacterium bifidum (4+ billion CFUs)
+Bifidobacterium longum (3+ billion CFUs)
Bifidobacterium lactis (2+ billion CFUs)
Bifidobacterium breve (1+ billion CFUs)

- Ortho Molecular Ortho Biotic https://www.amazon.com/Ortho-Molecular- ... B01D8VMTX8
- Good but overlaps on rhamnosus in reuteri pearls and 100b strength double cost of vsl with no boulardii.
- Proprietary blend 20 billion CFU https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000H3B0CW 1$ each
- Lactobacillus acidophilus
x?Lactobacillus paracasei
Bifidobacterium lactis
Bifidobacterium bifidum
+Lactobacillus plantarum
+Lactobacillus rhamnosus
+Saccharomyces boulardii
- 100bil https://www.amazon.com/Ortho-Molecular- ... B01D8VMTX8 $2 each, no boulardii
- 225bil https://www.amazon.com/Ortho-Molecular- ... B005T7DPK6 $4 per packet
- 20bil powder https://www.amazon.com/Ortho-Molecular- ... B000LVFKOE 1$ serving

- VSL#3 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CBY7MX6
- 115 billion CFUs 1$
- Streptococcus thermophilus
Bifidobacterium breve
+Bifidobacterium longum*
+Bifidobacterium infantis*
Lactobacillus acidophilus
+Lactobacillus plantarum
x?Lactobacillus paracasei
x?Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus †
- Best deal but has two that may be histamine producing unless the questionable/reclassified ones are histamine degrading
- * Reclassified as B. lactis
† Recently reclassified as L. helveticus

- Primal Probiotics
- $.75
- 10 billion CFUs
- Bacillus coagulans,
Bacillus subtilis,
Bacillus clausii,
+Lactobacillus plantarum,
Bifidobacteria bifidus,
+Saccharomyces boulardii,
Potato Starch.

- Solar Advanced Multi-Billion Dophilus
- L. acidophilus, LA-5
B. lactis, BB-12
L. paracasei, L. CASEI 431
+L. rhamnosus GG, LGG
- 5 billion CFUs


Reuteri Pearls are a good economical option if you want just one cheap probiotic. Pure Encapsulations Probiotic 50B is probably the best overall in terms of strength, coverage, and safe histamine strains. Get it from Vitacost not Amazon because Vitacost stores it and ships on ice. For single strains to round it out Align has b infantis and a Saccharomyces Boulardii might be helpful. Prescript Assist is unique from the rest in that it provides soil organisms instead of milk organisms, Chris Kresser says he gets good results with them and thinks they are histamine degrading.

A good rotation might be
- Wide spectrum: Prescript Assist and Pure Encapsulations 50B - main all the time or rotate
- Singles rotating: Reuteri pearls, Align (b infantis), Now Saccharomyces Boulardii

I think a prebiotic is just as if not more important than a probiotic and should also be included. There are a bunch of different types of prebiotic and I don't think there's any consensus on which is best so I personally buy one of these two products (from the same company) that blends many prebiotics into one powder:

- Oligo30 https://www.amazon.com/Broad-Spectrum-P ... B01B4ZE4LK - more types
- Great Gut https://www.amazon.com/Extra-Strength-P ... B01MTJXNGS - dairy free


If you want to analyze other supplements here is the raw list of histamine producing/degrading/neutral strains I compiled from various sources:

- Histamine categories
- Histamine degrading
- Bifidobacterium infantis

Bifidobacterium longum

Lactobacillus reuteri (raises histamine in the short term but elevates anti inflammatory cAMP levels)

But also Lactobacillus plantarum
- L. paracasei
- Most bifidobacteria
- Bifidobacterium infantis and then Lactobacillus rhamnosus and salivarius and sporogenes and Lactobacillus gasser
- L. rhamnosus and Lactobacillus helveticus
- Saccharomyces-Boulardii
- Lactobacillus curvatus
Lactobacillus sakei
Lactobacillus sp.
Weisella hellenica
Leuconostoc mesenteroides
Leuconostoc sp.
Escherichia faecium sp.group
Sarcina lutea
- Amasi strains - Lactobacillus plantarum, Bifdocaterium lactis, and Bifidobacterium longum

- Histamine neutral
- Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus Lactis, Lactococcus Lactis, and Lactobacillus plant arum

- Histamine producing (and tyramine)
- Lactobacillus casei
- Lactobacillus Bulgaricus
- Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus reuteri, Lactobacillus plantarum (Ema added it may produce tyramine though), and Lactococcus lactis, Enterococcus faecalis, and various types of E. coli.
- Lactobacillus delbrueckii
- Lactobacillus brevis
Lactobacillu buchneri
Lactobacillus fermentum
Lactobacillus sp.
- Bacillus cereus
Bacillus subtilis
- Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus - histamine only, 1/3 of casei

[webslave]

Remember a quick way to mop up circulating histamine is Vitamin C.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23666445

[dihard]

I definitely seem to have issues with bladder/urethral irritation with C. I've moved from buffered to ester-c which is even more buffered and just recently started going around a gram twice a day and felt urinary flow being impaired/painful. But C is definitely a much cheaper option to try first.

[dihard]

Are there any other supplements/medications other than vitamin C that directly mop up histamine? Antihistamines blocks histamine receptors and quercetin/cromelin/curcumin stabilize mast cells, but is there anything that actually lowers serum histamine like C has been shown to? Unfortunately vitamin C irritates my bladder/urethra in the amount that is needed to lower histamine and I'm wondering if there are any other similar substances to look at.