Novel Herbs For Histamine Intolerance & Hay Fever

I’m always on the hunt for different allergy supporting herbal medicines. That’s because I treat a ton of histamine intolerance and mast cell mediated conditions in the Byron Herbalist clinic and because most of those patients can be hyper-reactive and not tolerant of many front line therapies. 

I picture a rolodex in my head and when I’m reviewing a new patients symptoms and history am flipping through possible solutions. The biggest insight is when someone has been through frontline, second line and sometimes third line therapies and either didn’t see any improvements OR actually didn’t tolerate the treatments. 

Here I NEED to have an alternative approach otherwise we won’t get very far. 

So today I wanted to take a step deeper into some of the more novel antihistamine herbs that I’ll recommend for specific patients with histamine intolerance, hay fever, mast cell activation syndrome or if I suspect that histamine is driving their symptoms. 

Common Symptoms of Histamine Intolerance

Before we jump into the herbs I’ll cover the most common symptoms that make me suspect histamine is at play including 

These are just some of the common symptoms that make me suspect histamine overload or histamine intolerance is at play but to tell you the truth it’s often the big picture.

Maybe a patient will say I wake up with a stuffy nose. Ok…maybe histamine is at play. But if they say I’m fine and then I eat a big bowl of fermented vegetables and I get post nasal drip, my skin gets itchy and I get a headache then I start having stronger suspicions that histamine intolerance is at play!

Novel Herbs for Histamine Intolerance 

There are some frontline herbs that I will turn to again and again for histamine intolerance. I’ve written about it before here and will keep on writing about it.

The more experience I gain treating this issue the more I’ve fine tuned my approach for individual needs.

Perilla Herb for Histamine Intolerance

When I first saw proper, high quality perilla leaf I knew it was a herb I would be using. You might think that’s a bit bizarre but it really is quite stunning. 

Our perilla comes from a fantastic Chinese Medicine herbal supplier here in Australia called empirical health and in the Chinese Materia Medica they consider perilla a herb that releases the exterior and treats wind-cold conditions. 

I like perilla a lot. I find it quite easy to take (some herbs are really quite difficult to take due to their unpleasant taste which makes compliance an issue). In Japan they use perilla as a remedy for fish and crab meat allergy (1).

Perilla and its constituents have been shown to reduce serum IgE, histamine and TNF-a (2). These are all players in the allergic cascade either triggering mast cell degranulation or a by product of degranulation

Perilla has been shown to stabilise mast cells and reduce histamine and proinflammatory cytokine release (3).

I’m absolutely obsessed with mast cells. I think they are a player or main driver in MANY of the chronically unwell patients I work with in the clinic and stabilising these mast cells is often one of the first things I’m looking to do to actually get a person feeling better even if we haven’t addressed the root cause yet and I think this summary from a paper on perilla about mast cells is insightful. 

The study above was looking into luteolin which is a flavonoid found in perilla and found that it 

Albizia Herb for Histamine Intolerance

Albizia is a herbal medicine that comes from both Chinese Medicine where they say it nourishes the heart and calms the spirit and Ayurvedic medicine as well. 

This is a new herb to my practice and lately I have been simply grinding it down to a powder and dispensing it as a raw herb. About 90% of the herbs we process wind up in herbal tinctures that use a ratio specific to each herb of alcohol and water to extract the herbal constituents into a tincture that is easy to dispense and store. 

The problem with herbal tinctures for allergic patients is the alcohol. Some histamine intolerant people are just TOO sensitive to take even the tiny tiny dose of alcohol twice daily. It will flare their symptoms. So to get around this issue raw herbs are the way to go. Here we have them simply steep the raw herb in boiling water for 4-12 hours, strain and consume throughout the day and I’ve seen quite remarkable results with albizia in terms of tolerance and improvements in extremely reactive and intolerant patients. 

The data we have on albizia shows that it can suppress histamine signalling by inhibiting histamine 1 receptors and histidine decarboxylase gene transcription (5).

What does that mean?

H1 receptors are found throughout the body and are considered one of the major receptors involved in many histamine intolerance cases

The most important insight here is that most over the counter antihistamine DRUGS are H1 blockers. Simply google the antihistamine you’re taking and look at the mechanism of action. It will likely say an H1 blocker.

On the histidine decarboxylase gene transcription suppression this is slightly more complex

Histidine decarboxylase is the enzyme that converts histidine in our body INTO histamine. It is a natural and normal process but if you have too much histamine in your body then inhibiting or suppressing that enzyme short term can buy you time and get you feeling better so you can take on the task of actually finding the long term cure! 

Albizia has also been shown to stabilise mast cells (7).

Mast cells are a major major source of histamine intolerance or histamine overload and I think of this source as immune mediated as in your immune system is being triggered to respond to a stimuli or antigen (aka a problem) and is releasing histamine and other pro-inflammatory messenger molecules in an attempt to resolve the problem. 

There was an interesting animal study in the journal Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicity where they studied the effect of a polyphenol called catechin in albizia on provoked mast cells. The researchers saw significant mast cell stability stability meaning they did not degranulate and release histamine. 

I’m not surprised here and will turn to polyphenols like flavonoids to help stabilise mast cells each and every week in the clinic. I normally see quite dramatic improvements with this approach in most patients.

My Thoughts on Treating Histamine Intolerance Clinically

While these herbs can help the most important thing is to find and treat the why. Why are you histamine intolerant? Is it coming from the gut, the immune system, slow genetics or even nutrient deficiencies?

Histamine supporting herbs can help buy us some time as well as nutrients and diet (both big players to calm the overactive and inflamed body) but getting to the why is the long term cure.

More on that soon so stay tuned!

References & Resources

1. Anti-allergic effect of Perilla frutescens and its active constituents
2. A Review on Bioactivities of Perilla: Progress in Research on the Functions of Perilla as Medicine and Food
3. Inhibitory Effect of Mast Cell-Mediated Immediate-Type Allergic Reactions in Rats by Perilla Frutescens
4. Anti-Inflammatory and Antipruritic Effects of Luteolin from Perilla (P. frutescens L.) Leaves
5. Albizia lebbeck suppresses histamine signaling by the inhibition of histamine H1 receptor and histidine decarboxylase gene transcriptions
6. Histamine and histamine intolerance
7. Anti-allergic activity of standardized extract of Albizia lebbeck with reference to catechin as a phytomarker