Nutrition therapy for adverse reactions to histamine in food and beverages.

Abstract

Adverse reactions to food are suspected in one third of the German population, but only 10% of these assumed hypersensitivity reactions can be clinically confirmed. While diagnosis of food allergies is fairly easy due to objective laboratory parameters, non-allergic hypersensitivity reactions are difficult to diagnose because these objective markers are lacking so far. Adverse reactions to histamine are often suspected to be the cause of a wide range of symptoms, especially when no allergic pathomechanism can be identified. In order to confirm such a suspicion, it is inevitable to validate a reproducible association between consumption of histamine-rich food and beverages and symptoms to identify causative agents and to exclude other disorders. Thereafter, avoidance tests should be performed on the basis of individual requirements. General advice with a lot of restraints is often unnecessarily strict. Nutrition therapy aims at a reduction of symptoms to a minimum while maintaining a high quality of life.