Histamine, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

managing

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Histamine is perplexing to me. Help straighten me out.

It appears to be good in the brain (reduces anxiety).
β-Alanine ingestion increases muscle carnosine content and combat specific performance in soldiers

But bad elsewhere in the body. Its release by mast cells is mol synonymous with allergies and asthma.

It appears that histidine and maybe b-alanine (and carnosine) can increase histamine. But under other circumstances any of those may decrease it.

Also, b-alanine may reduce ATP generation (which is reversed by taurine).
Mitochondrial defects associated with β-alanine toxicity: relevance to hyper-beta-alaninemia

Meanwhile, histidine plays a role in stabilizing and enhancing ATP production in mitochondria.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/bi00777a016

Carnosine may have similar functions to histidine.
Effects of dietary supplementation of carnosine on mitochondrial dysfunction, amyloid pathology, and cognitive deficits in 3xTg-AD mice. - PubMed - NCBI

Meanwhile, Dr. Peat advises against taking aminos in isolation (with whole-protein foods is ok).

And @haidut has suggested that b-alanine supplementation will deplete histidine, and therefore histamine. But will it affect histamine in the brain?

What is the proper strategy? How does one optimize brain histamine while minimizing it elsewhere? What can you add to this complex equation (of your own, or from Dr. Peat?)

EDIT: Also, ATP stimulates the release of histamine (and vice-versa).
Histamine secretion from mast cells stimulated with ATP

Histamine seems to be universally good, except for its participation in allergies/asthma. Is this a pathological action? If so, how to mediate?
 
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Markus

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I asked Chris Masterjohn and his guests on the latest Q&A about beta-alanine supplementation and they didn't think it would deplete histidine so I wouldn't worry about that.
 

NathanK

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BA shares transport with histidine and taurine. There are studies using BA to deplete taurine and our body stores more taurine than histidine

Histamine and H receptors are a fascinating subject and like all neurotransmitters and hormones they wear many different hats. There is some good base information in this read: Histamine
 

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