Episode 35: Can Allergies Stall Weight Loss?
One person may be managing allergies a lot more closely than the next person. It varies so much because it is the body's unbalanced response in the immune system, which is unique as every individual goes. But does your runny nose and itching eyes stall weight loss? Haylie Pomroy aims to answer this huge question by diving deep into the hormone called histamine. She explains its role in addressing allergies, how to boost the immune system with Vitamin C, and what people with auto-immune disorders should do with it. Haylie also imparts three important tips in bringing back balance to your body and how to monitor your immune system when getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
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Can Allergies Stall Weight Loss?
I’m your nutritionist, wellness expert and a person sitting here thinking about you guys all the time, ideas and ways that we can help you and your metabolism. One thing that has been coming up a lot is how allergies affect weight loss. A lot of people that are dealing with allergies seem to be finding that their weight loss has stalled and it hit a plateau. It's maybe slowed down some. People are struggling with how to make that connection, what's going on in the metabolism, what happens in the metabolism and why the scale and the Kleenex box seemed to somehow go together. I gathered a few people that are very close and have access to me, whether it's over dinner, in a team meeting or a social gathering. They seem to be asking me a lot of questions about what's going on in their bodies.
I feel like as a community, we can learn a lot through personal struggles, triumphs and sharing our experiences. A couple of things I wanted to science geek out with you and talk about a few science facts around is allergies. I'm going to pull all of these amazing people in here to ask me questions and ask me anything, but let's all get on the same page here. First and foremost, I want to make sure that you all recognize and realize that allergies are an unbalanced response in the immune system.
We have this big, strong immune response, sometimes called reactivity. I think now, people are learning more about their immune systems than they ever have, which is cool, exciting and fun. Let me distill it down that this reactivity is supposed to be a sacred reactivity. Times when you are exposed to a virus, a venom like a snake bite, bacteria, parasitic exposure, even a chemical exposure or a heavy metal toxin.
We are supposed to have this response or this reactivity in the body that tells our immune system to attack, target or flush out rapidly this negative thing that we have been exposed to. Oftentimes, with things like adrenal fatigue, you are exhausted, you have had immune stress or immune stimulus. Even with the recent vaccine, that's an immune stimulus. Maybe you are someone who struggles with an autoimmune disorder or you have had a lot of environmental exposures, like mold in your building, or you had the house painted, a new couch or bed. Sometimes, the body can become imbalanced in dealing with those immune responses. It can start to secrete immune hormones to things that should be considered safe, like pet hair, grass, pollens and trees. The immune system becomes confused and a confused message starts to trigger a response in certain areas of the body.
I want to make sure that we all are together before we start talking about questions about our bodies, specifically that any kind of allergy is an immune response. A food allergy is different than a food sensitivity. This is truly an immune response. This immune response primarily takes place in these cells called mast cells. Mast cells are all over the body but they conjugate around the lining of the lungs and the GI tract under the surface of the skin. There are a lot of them in the nose, the throat and then the mouth. This is why we see common allergy responses manifest in those areas. We have runny noses, swollen eyes, maybe difficult breathing, hives or things like that.
Histamine
That's because those cells that are in those areas secrete a hormone called histamine. It's a chemical compound. It's natural in the body. We secret it all day, every day. It's part of our adaptogenic hormone profiles and how we adapt because all day long, we are exposed to viruses, bacteria and chemicals (especially in our environment), cleaning and food chemicals. We are constantly secreting histamine, just like we constantly secrete cortisol. It's all about keeping it in balance so that it doesn't go out of control and create this allergy response.
The same hormones that make you wake up and jump up are the same hormones that can secrete inflammation.
A lot of us have heard about the word histamine from commercials for allergy medications, they say histamine blockers. Maybe some last 12 hours, 24 hours, quick-acting or slow-acting, but I want you guys to think about it as this natural chemical compound that the body secretes in these targeted areas. Histamine can disrupt hormones that we call prostaglandins, which are all of our sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, things that regulate blood sugar, glucocorticoids, blood pressure and mineral corticoids. That's one of the reasons why we can have a blood pressure change with allergies and why we can have a blood sugar change with allergies. It also can disrupt how we utilize Vitamin D. If you are having a lot of allergies, you might find when you go get your labs run that you have a significant Vitamin D deficiency. The other thing that histamine affects is insulin and our ability to take blood sugars into the cells to be metabolized. It can slow the metabolism because we become insulin resistant when histamine levels become too high.
The other real kicker here is our bodies are constantly secreting histamine. It's a natural thing that happens in our bodies. It's one of the protection mechanisms that we have that keep us healthy. When it becomes out of balance, we start to have these inflammatory symptoms, insulin resistance and the majority of the way our body clears histamine so it gets rid of any excess, is through a process called methylation. It sounds like this big, very scary word but methylation is how the liver takes things that are bad for us or in excess and breaks it down into something that we can secrete through our urine or stool, sweat and tears. Remember, the reason why we talk about methylation a lot in our community is that it regulates fat-soluble toxin metabolism and fat loss.
I want you to think about a power plant that is constantly breaking down fat and fat-soluble toxins to get it out of the body, breaking down cholesterol, stored fat. Your immune system is having a strong reaction to something that should otherwise be safe. All of a sudden, this power plant is monopolized by trying to flush out excess histamine. One of the first things that it does is slows the metabolism of fat, specially stored fat. We can see pooling in cholesterol, in triglycerides, around our bellies, hips and thighs simply because we have too much histamine in the body because our mechanisms for creating histamine, metabolizing histamine has gone awry.
We call this an allergy syndrome and it can definitely affect the scale. Given that information, I feel like my friends and my colleagues ask me a lot of questions about what's going on in their bodies. I thought we should all get together now and have them ask me some of these questions with you so we can start to slowly unravel maybe some of the imbalances that are going on in your body. Kate, I'm going to call on you first. You can ask me anything about this allergy complex, what's going on in the body, and how we can support it and balance it.
Vitamin C
I saw that you launched Vitamin C supplements. I usually use Vitamin C during cold and flu season to keep me healthy and help me to avoid getting sick. Can you tell us how using Vitamin C would help us out in the springtime?
Let me start by saying it took us a very long time to find the raw ingredients and source what we felt was valuable in Vitamin C. A lot of my clients that are dealing with autoimmune disorders have serious health issues. One of the things that we do is IV Vitamin C therapies. The reason why we do it in an IV form is that the majority of the supplements out there are corn-derived in their Vitamin C source. It's very hard in the United States to source a Vitamin C that's not corn-derived. As you know, corn can be a catalyst for inflammation, insulin imbalance and corn, itself, promote histamine. It took us a very long time to find a tapioca base that we could get in a high enough concentration and could be formulated in a way that could be easily delivered to the body.
Vitamin C is super important in the tissues that I talked about where mast cells are produced. Vitamin C is a nutrient that is important to the GI lining, nasal passages, throat, collagen, elastin and fibrinogen that's just above the layers of the skin. We want to think about this as nurturing those tissues that host the mast cells we talked about. First and foremost, the more of those tissues are nurtured, the more stable their response will be during allergy season.
Vitamin C is well-researched and well adopted from an immune perspective. One of the reasons why we look at allowing a therapeutic level of Vitamin C to be administered during allergy season is because it helps stabilize our body's mast cell response. The best way, Kate, to say this is it’s phenomenal for allergies. It was hard to get something that was clean and pure. We are not going to do it if we can't do it neurotically perfect. I'm very excited about this but I want you to think about Vitamin C strengthens the tissues and nurtures the mast cells so they become smarter in their response to things that are dangerous like viruses and benign like trees, grasses, weeds, pollens and cat hair.
It can help when a person feels like, “I'm reactive to everything. I don't even know what to avoid anymore.” We want to strengthen the mast cells’ response. We want to make those mast cells super smart so that they don't create a huge cytokine storm. I know a lot of people are talking about that, especially with COVID, a huge immune response in the lungs, nose, eyes, mouth and GI tract. I am very excited about that. I don't have to do my IV Vitamin Cs, which I typically do in the spring to help my body not go into an autoimmune flare. Thanks for asking. Steve, I know that you have some interesting allergy questions that you have been asking me and I have said, “Save it. Let's do it in front of our community.”
Morning Sneezes
Thanks, Haylie. I feel good. I'm healthy, thanks to all your great supplements. Within 2020 and I'm not as young as I used to be, every morning when I get up, I sneeze for 15 or 20 minutes. My environment hasn't changed. I'm trying to pinpoint what's going on. I know it's allergy season but for me, this has been going on for the better part of the year. It subsides sort of mid-morning and the rest of the day, I’m perfectly normal. I'm perplexed to try to figure out why every morning I get up and it's a sneeze of thought around here at my house. Is there anything you can do or anything you would have that can help me?
There are a couple of things that we want to think about. This is great that you brought this up because when I'm working with a client and we talk about allergies, a lot of times, we try to journal and I say, “Is it worse at night? Is it worse mid-days? Is it worse first thing in the morning? You are saying when you wake up, you are having this huge histamine response. We want to look at the rhythms of the body and what's going on. We have Metabolism Histamine, which has natural anti-histamines so it can help inhibit the body from producing a high level of histamine. You might try taking that before bed.
Sleeping is the best way to rebuild, restore, and lose weight.
It's more from a preventative perspective, which Metabolism Histamine can help with that, but it's fascinating when you wake up first thing in the morning. When we wake in the morning, our body elevates cortisol, which is a natural steroid and our autonomic nervous system changes from a parasympathetic override to a sympathetic override. Let me distill that down for a second. We secrete wake-up hormones in the morning. Those hormones are adaptive. If you have to wake up and run out of the door for a meeting, you secrete more of those hormones. Maybe if it's a leisurely Sunday, you see your body—because of the knowledge base that it has, the brain cells and the way everything interacts—will say, “I can wake up in a little more leisurely way.”
There's less adrenal secretion when you are waking up leisurely and having to jump out of bed. In general, those flight and fight hormones are always secreted at a higher level earlier in the morning. Those can be what they call pro-inflammatory hormones. The same hormones that make you wake up and jump up are the same hormones that can secrete inflammation. In your body, we want to reduce the body's histamine output. We would probably do that more in the evening when you are in more sympathetic tones. We would probably even have you do the 3,000 milligrams of Vitamin C right before bed. Again, it sounds like your mast cells are hyper-reactive.
When your body starts to secrete those wake hormones, it says, "Wake up and have this huge immune response!" What we want to do is we want to wake up and have a nice morning. I would probably combine those both, in the beginning, do a higher dose of the Metabolism Histamine, like 3,000 of the Vitamin C in the evening and then I would do your regular dose of Metabolism Histamine first thing in the morning. What we want to do is saturate that tissue. That Vitamin C is going to be a key component so that your Metabolism Histamine can be more effective. Another little trick with the Metabolism Histamine is when you take it in the morning, take it with Metabolism Energy.
Metabolism Energy also has a natural anti-histamine in the form of quercetin, which is a plant extract. It's a bioflavonoid but it has amino acids that help increase the rate of supplement delivery into the tissue. I'm going to give this to you one more time. In your Metabolism Histamine, we have herbs that help tell the mast cells, "Do not to secrete as much histamine." For some reason, you are in adrenal overdrive so that you are an overachiever in your histamine production as you produce your adrenal wake-up hormones. We are going to nurture those at night so that the Metabolism Histamine gets to the tissue more readily.
We are going to add Metabolism Energy in the morning. I would load Vitamin C and Metabolism Histamine at night and Metabolism Histamine and Metabolism Energy in the morning. Let's see if that works and that helps. You might also consider doing a week-long Phase 1 Super Intensive because that will nurture the adrenals and help you be an overachiever in other areas of life, as opposed to an overachiever in the secretion of histamine when you wake up in the morning.
I have written all this down and that's the direction I'm heading. Thanks very much.
Zyrtec, Benadryl, Claritin
Let's get our next question in there. Eiland, are you ready?
It was interesting knowing everything that Steve was going through and what the prognosis and diagnosis were for that. My only question around that is, why wouldn't he take something like Zyrtec, Benadryl or even Claritin before bed, something like that, over the counter?
Those drugs and medications are phenomenal for crisis intervention, like if you get bitten by a rattlesnake. We hike a lot or we horseback ride a lot. For our dogs and ourselves, we carry diphenhydramine, which is the generic form of Benadryl. In an anaphylaxis situation, an EpiPen is an epinephrine, which is the opposing hormone to what Steve is secreting. The issue with those is the histamine blockers. They block the receptor site for histamine in the tissue. Think of it like you are playing soccer and Benadryl is like the goalie, keeping the soccer ball from getting into the net and the end result being a score.
As I said earlier, histamine is secreted in all of our bodies every day. It is so important as part of our immune complex. It is what helps us fight off viruses effectively and respond appropriately with lymphocytes, monocytes and phagocytosis, to bacterial exposure and potential infection. Long-term use of a histamine blocker can disrupt your body's immune response when you need it. The other thing is those medications don't purify the blood or the tissue. They don't help the body metabolize the histamine that's pooling in the blood. What will happen is, as they wear off, typically the allergies will become worse and worse.
What we will notice is that the allergy response can get higher or you will have secondary symptoms like constipation or joint pain and people ask, “Is that a side effect of the drug?” It's not a side effect of the drug. It's a side effect of the pooling of the histamine in the body. The other thing that will happen when you are within those side effects is weight gain. It’s one of the symptoms of those histamine blockers. Remember how I talked earlier about how the power plant that breaks down historical fat and metabolizes cholesterol also relies a lot on the process called methylation? Methylation is how we clear histamine. If you have a ton of pooling of histamine day-after-day while you are taking your anti-histamines and your histamine continues to pool, it will monopolize the body's ability to metabolize fat efficiently.
It's twofold. One, it makes me nervous that we are tricking the immune system and we need our immune systems now. Number two, it's not about the scale when we metabolize fat and fat-soluble toxins. We do see the numbers go down on the scale but we see a significant increase in our health. That's what we are shooting for here but that's a great question. Why not pop an anti-histamine? In crisis intervention, I'm all for it. In health proliferation, it is not the way to go. Katie, what can I answer for you?
Pop an anti-histamine for crisis intervention but never for health proliferation.
Auto-Immune Disorders
I know you have talked about your struggles with an autoimmune disorder and I struggle with an autoimmune disorder as well. I was wondering, what would you recommend on a daily basis for someone who struggles with autoimmune disorders?
We have this lovely thing in common. It goes back to Eiland's question. We talked a lot about fat loss, methylation and the reduction of fat-soluble toxins. There are several nutrients, but there are two key nutrients that we look at. One is folic acid and the other is B12 in a methylated form. Go grab your supplement bottles. If you are taking a B vitamin, you are getting a B injection or you are taking a multivitamin with B in it, make sure that it says the word methylcobalamin, not cyanocobalamin. Cyanocobalamin is extremely hard for our body to metabolize and it does not help facilitate the methylation process efficiently. In our supplement world, we use a sublingual B12 with folic acid and methylated B12 because it is difficult to get B efficiently orally. We like to supplement with a sublingual where it dissolves under the tongue. Again, it keeps me from having to run in and get those B shots.
There are some people that feel like allergies are part of the autoimmune cascade because the elevated mast cell production of histamine creates an immune response to the very tissue that is in our own body, which that's the definition of autoimmune. I have ITP, which means my immune system attacks my own platelets. We shouldn't be doing that. Many other autoimmune diseases will attack lung tissue, bone marrow and connective tissue. There are a lot of individuals that will see a rheumatologist for their allergies, which rheumatologists are primarily the docs that they see for autoimmune. Daily, there are a couple of things that I do to keep my allergies from not causing an autoimmune flare. I’m very diligent about my Metabolism B12 & Folate sublingual tablets.
The other thing is—and it's funny because the name doesn't, to me, describes the power of what's in it—I take the Metabolism Energy beverage in the morning and at noon. As I had said earlier, there is quercetin, which is a natural anti-histamine. It's a natural anti-inflammatory benefit. It also has L-arginine and an amino acid called citrulline. These are amino acids that are valet delivery drivers for other key nutrients. It's a catalyst therapy. It's why it gives energy. It doesn't give energy because it's a stimulus but it gives energy because it helps deliver nutrients to the powerhouse of the cell called the mitochondria to metabolize things. The end by-product of that is ATP or what we see in our bodies as excess energy to be able to use for other functions.
Again, to support methylation, I'm good with the Metabolism B12 & Folate sublingual. I know that I talk a lot about taking Metabolism Energy when I travel and oxygen tissue saturation. It's important because my autoimmune disorder attacks the platelets. With any autoimmune disorder that attacks any tissue in the body, it's important that we hand-deliver nutrients to those tissues because our bodies are otherwise compromised in being able to absorb nutrients. I'm always drinking Metabolism Energy while I travel for that reason. I like that you asked me from an autoimmune perspective. Having that amino acid complex with quercetin helps the delivery of all other nutrients. It’s an important one for sure, for me and will be for you. What's our next question?
I have Hashimoto's and I feel like I'm in a constant state of inflammation to the point where I’m outside when it's dusk time, I'm literally running inside because if I get a mosquito bite, it lasts at least a week. It's really bad. I also have problems with sometimes my ring can come off perfectly fine and the next day, I can't get it off no matter what. Is there something I can do to reset my whole body?
We have all agreed that allergies are part of the immune complex. Your description was perfect. Just so everybody knows, Hashimoto's is an autoimmune disorder. They call it Hashimoto's Thyroiditis because our bodies create autoantibodies where our immune system attacks its own tissue. Hashimoto's Thyroiditis attacks the tissue of the thyroid although its immune cascade will hyper-produced mast cell production. People with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis have per capita, per cell, more mast cells in their tissues. As you were talking about that pustule, pus response, swelling response, when you react, that's because you have more of the cells that light themselves on fire, for lack of a better description, when you have an allergy response. You can get that strong response. The Metabolism Free Radicals have some key components in them.
We have heard a lot about cytokine storm and COX-2 inhibitors when you talk about arthritis medications. There are some metabolic pathways that, when the body gets ramped up and fired up about having this strong immune response, get way out of control and balancing those pathways can take a multi-pronged approach. With individuals that are in this state, we have them do at least fourteen days of the Pain and Inflammation Protocol.
The Pain and Inflammation Protocol uses the Metabolism Shake, which has a lot of natural Vitamin C in it through food-based things like spirulina, kale and spinach. It has a lot of chlorella in it, which is a very strong and potent Vitamin C source. It also has turmeric, which is a fabulous anti-inflammatory. We layer that with the I-burn foods, a lot of the raw foods like watermelon, spinaches, kale and jicamas. We add in Metabolism Free Radicals. Metabolism Free Radicals have a couple of things in them. It's salicin, which is a white willow bark extract and Boswellia, which is an enzyme that comes from a pineapple extract. Both of those can nourish and nurture the mast cells to get them to cool their jets.
This helps Hashimoto's specifically because those antibodies have a strong affinity for the thyroid. Remember, the thyroid is the powerhouse gland of the metabolism. We can see a lot of swelling, edema and wild weight gain swings for sure. In an individual like yourself and what you are asking me, I would definitely layer in the Metabolism Histamine to see if we can cool off the histamine secretion. The Metabolism Shake works a lot on the liver and adds a lot of food for the methylation process. We need to get that histamine level flushed out of your body efficiently. It would probably also layer in the Metabolism B12 and Folate. I would be taking my Vitamin C and I would probably take that in the PM hours for someone that's in a flare state like this.
Again, remember we rest, rebuild, restore and lose weight while we sleep. If we can flood the body with 3,000 milligrams of Vitamin C while we sleep, it will help nourish those tissues that housed those mast cells. It will help reduce that very strong, fiery, inflammatory response. I would consider taking your Vitamin C right before bed. I would probably take your Metabolism B12 and Folate throughout the day to help facilitate the flushing out of this histamine. Remember B12 is water-soluble so it's better to take a couple twice a day as opposed to taking 5 or 6 at once like some of my clients like to do because they taste so good. I would probably add my Metabolism Histamine. I would add a higher dose, again, because of the flaring state that you are in. I would double my dose at night.
Getting Back Into Balance
I would take my regular dose during the day and I would sit on the metabolism energy probably twice a day. I want you to download that Pain and Inflammation Protocol. Even if you get the two shakes in a day and focus on that food list, it will help. There are three things that I always like people to think about: that the body has to do when it's getting back into balance; the body has to clear histamine effectively in the bloodstream and the tissue; and the only way we do this now is from micronutrients, foods and supplementation. There is no drug on the planet yet that can help with this. The first step is we want to clear the cooled histamine.
Do not aim for zero cortisol or zero histamine but for the perfect amount of hormones to make the immune system healthy and effective.
The second thing that we want to do is rebalance the immune system so that it doesn't see "safe things." Even the mosquito bite, we want to have a nice, healthy response to that, flush that out and add lymphocytes. That's what the swelling and the redness cause. I put Metabolism Histamine on bug bites, but we need to rebalance the body so that you have a nice, healthy response. That is going to be by nourishing those mast cells in the tissues around it. There is no drug yet to do this. There are immunosuppressants but again, that becomes very scary when we talk about needing our immune system now more than ever. The second stage is rebalancing the immune system, we can only do it one way and that's from micronutrients. It's micronutrient-dependent. That metabolic process is micronutrient-dependent.
The third thing is we need to balance and rebalance the hormones of inflammation and insulin-resistance in a body like yours. I believe that the primary thing with this is food and supplements but this is a time, too where you could focus on doing things, like bodywork, lymphatic massage, deep tissue, massage, acupuncture, sauna and exercise. Remember we need to strengthen the tissues, the lymphatic tissue, the connective tissue, the subcutaneous tissue right under the skin, the lungs, the nasal passage, the throat, and the GI tract. All of those tissues need to be nourished and supported because the stability of those tissues is what determines the functional behavior of an allergy response or the erratic behavior of an allergy response. Those are kinds of the things that our body needs to do. I'm going to open it for anybody who has one last question before I wrap things up for our community.
Can I ask a follow-up question on that? How do you put Metabolism Histamine directly onto your bug bite?
I do 1 of 2 things. Sometimes I add a little bit of water and put it on but if I can, I try to put a little bit of coconut oil and mix it in coconut oil. I will open like 3 or 4 capsules and I will put it in coconut oil. I try to make it potent. I will put it like in a little jar and I use it every time I think about it. It helps. I find it beneficial. If it's a strong venom like a spider bite, sometimes I will add a little bit of baking soda to it because it has that astringent and pH-balancing property. It works for me better than any of the others. I have used it for poison ivy too. It has been beneficial. Anybody else? Last chance.
Hereditary Or Environmental
I have one more question. Are allergies usually hereditary or is it’s environmental that usually triggers them?
There is a hereditary component in the genetic expression of metabolic pathways being compromised. In my family, I have talked a lot about being homozygous methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase deficient. What that means is I have a genetic snip and I believe this is why I manifested the autoimmune disorder that I did. I also believe that this is why I had such puny health in my life. I lost a significant part of my kidney function. Mast cells also are on the kidneys. I have this genetic snip that doesn't allow my body to methylate efficiently. There's homozygous heterozygous, meaning you have both genes for it or you have a singular gene for it. It’s an inexpensive test to run now. If you are either homo or heterozygous, you can be compromised anywhere from 30% up to 78% efficiency in your methylation. Your ability to purify histamine can have a genetic expression. There's another genetic snip, which is how you process glutathione, which glutathione helps with liver detox. There's a genetic snip that we look for that's called Superoxide Dismutase or SOD.
That genetic snip can make the liver less efficient in cleaving the histamine into its counterparts or into our natural anti-histamines. We do have natural histamine, the H1 histamine blockers. If you have that genetic snip, you can be less efficient in all aspects of liver detoxification. We find those people have alcohol sensitivities. Sometimes Pacific Islanders and individuals from China, find genetically that there is a more propensity towards not being able to use glutathione efficiently, which can cause alcohol allergies. We find it oftentimes also with addiction. As I said, epinephrin is what's in an EpiPen. When we secrete histamine in our bodies, we get a natural epinephrin when histamine levels get too high and natural epinephrine secretion, which hits us in the brain of a feel-good stimulus, a little bit of a high, especially with kids. We always ask, “What's your favorite food? What do you crave?” Oftentimes in children, they are craving foods that they are allergic to because there's that endorphin response that they get after the histamine levels start to get too high.
As we get older, Steve, thank you for mentioning, our epinephrine secretion is almost non-existent. We get this nice histamine pool. We get swollen eyes, runny noses, and hives but we don't get the epinephrin hit like kids get when they have allergies. We need to work on balancing our allergies. Leilani, there is definitely a genetic component. However, as I was talking about the power plant, if our body is dealing with a lot of fat-soluble toxins, things like food additives, preservatives, dyes, colors, chemicals, perfumes, hairsprays and mascara's that are ladened with heavy metals, we get overwhelmed or bombarded by that methylation expectation in our body so that it can be genetically compromised but it can also be environmentally overloaded.
When that happens, our body is not able to process histamine and excrete histamine as efficiently as possible so it can pool. It’s environmental and genetic. I have an interesting analogy when we talk about an allergy to a bee sting all the way to an autoimmune response and the cascade of immune responses that happens within that. It's when a friend becomes a foe. We are so overwhelmed that everything starts to feel like a villain to our immune system. The goal here is that we have homeostasis and peace in our body so that when something of danger comes into our surroundings, we can react appropriately, swiftly and most importantly, in a way that protects our bodies and doesn't harm our bodies.
COVID-19 Vaccine
I hope that helps. Let me leave you with a couple of things to think about. If you have a vaccine of any kind, remember that they are designed to modify your immune system. This is the fundamental principle of how inoculations work. There's the good to that. There's also the part that your body has to reconcile and might need some extra TLC to bring your immune responses back into balance. If you are participating in partaking in that, I want you to be diligent in journaling about your body's allergy response. Recognizing that over the next twelve months, as your body cycles through the immune response to this support, that there might be some changes and signals. Your body might need to go through a protocol to help nurture the adaptogenic hormones, the histamine, secretion and the immune response.
The other thing to think about is if you have been participating in wearing masks often. They have helped filter out a lot of bad things from the environment, not getting into your nose and in your mouth. Personally, I'm an advocate of it. I like when a surgeon that's doing surgery on me has a mask on. However, our body is adaptive. It's amazing and wonderful. This is a new filter that we have never had in our bodies before. That's also filtering out certain bacteria, pollens and inhalant allergy substances that maybe in the past, we have secreted a small amount of histamine too. We have had no real allergy responses but it has been a mechanism and keeps our immune system in homeostasis. This is different. Any time we do anything different to our environment, we have to adapt to that new norm.
You must look for signs that you might need more support. The other thing is if you have had added stress now, sudden changes in the environment and advancing in age like some of us are, this can tax the body and slow down, or take out of balance, the adrenal’s ability to respond, to secrete histamine, metabolize histamine, flush histamine and have an appropriate immune response. We don't want any immune response, zero cortisol and histamines. We want the perfect amount to make our body's immune system healthy and effective. If you are taking a histamine blocker, strive towards balancing the body so that we don't have to block those receptor sites because histamine is a valuable player in the immune response. Think about metabolizing that and flushing it through your bloodstream. Always be in awe of your body.
Remember, allergies are a part of the immune system. The immune system is vital in our survival. More importantly, a healthy immune system is critical in us being healthy, happy and having an abundance of energy. I hope this was helpful. Please make sure that you ask tons of questions in our membership community. We love to hear from you. Let's see if we can use Kleenex to wipe dirt off the floor and not need it anymore for our precious noses. Thanks for coming. I appreciate it. I hope this helps all of you on your journey to health and wellness.
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One person may be managing allergies a lot more closely than the next person. It varies so much because it is the body's unbalanced response in the immune system, which is unique as every individual goes. But does your runny nose and itching eyes stall weight loss? Haylie Pomroy aims to answer this huge question by diving deep into the hormone called histamine. She explains its role in addressing allergies, how to boost the immune system with Vitamin C, and what people with auto-immune disorders should do with it. Haylie also imparts three important tips in bringing back balance to your body and how to monitor your immune system when getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
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Can Allergies Stall Weight Loss?
I’m your nutritionist, wellness expert and a person sitting here thinking about you guys all the time, ideas and ways that we can help you and your metabolism. One thing that has been coming up a lot is how allergies affect weight loss. A lot of people that are dealing with allergies seem to be finding that their weight loss has stalled and it hit a plateau. It's maybe slowed down some. People are struggling with how to make that connection, what's going on in the metabolism, what happens in the metabolism and why the scale and the Kleenex box seemed to somehow go together. I gathered a few people that are very close and have access to me, whether it's over dinner, in a team meeting or a social gathering. They seem to be asking me a lot of questions about what's going on in their bodies.
I feel like as a community, we can learn a lot through personal struggles, triumphs and sharing our experiences. A couple of things I wanted to science geek out with you and talk about a few science facts around is allergies. I'm going to pull all of these amazing people in here to ask me questions and ask me anything, but let's all get on the same page here. First and foremost, I want to make sure that you all recognize and realize that allergies are an unbalanced response in the immune system.
We have this big, strong immune response, sometimes called reactivity. I think now, people are learning more about their immune systems than they ever have, which is cool, exciting and fun. Let me distill it down that this reactivity is supposed to be a sacred reactivity. Times when you are exposed to a virus, a venom like a snake bite, bacteria, parasitic exposure, even a chemical exposure or a heavy metal toxin.
We are supposed to have this response or this reactivity in the body that tells our immune system to attack, target or flush out rapidly this negative thing that we have been exposed to. Oftentimes, with things like adrenal fatigue, you are exhausted, you have had immune stress or immune stimulus. Even with the recent vaccine, that's an immune stimulus. Maybe you are someone who struggles with an autoimmune disorder or you have had a lot of environmental exposures, like mold in your building, or you had the house painted, a new couch or bed. Sometimes, the body can become imbalanced in dealing with those immune responses. It can start to secrete immune hormones to things that should be considered safe, like pet hair, grass, pollens and trees. The immune system becomes confused and a confused message starts to trigger a response in certain areas of the body.
I want to make sure that we all are together before we start talking about questions about our bodies, specifically that any kind of allergy is an immune response. A food allergy is different than a food sensitivity. This is truly an immune response. This immune response primarily takes place in these cells called mast cells. Mast cells are all over the body but they conjugate around the lining of the lungs and the GI tract under the surface of the skin. There are a lot of them in the nose, the throat and then the mouth. This is why we see common allergy responses manifest in those areas. We have runny noses, swollen eyes, maybe difficult breathing, hives or things like that.
Histamine
That's because those cells that are in those areas secrete a hormone called histamine. It's a chemical compound. It's natural in the body. We secret it all day, every day. It's part of our adaptogenic hormone profiles and how we adapt because all day long, we are exposed to viruses, bacteria and chemicals (especially in our environment), cleaning and food chemicals. We are constantly secreting histamine, just like we constantly secrete cortisol. It's all about keeping it in balance so that it doesn't go out of control and create this allergy response.
The same hormones that make you wake up and jump up are the same hormones that can secrete inflammation.
A lot of us have heard about the word histamine from commercials for allergy medications, they say histamine blockers. Maybe some last 12 hours, 24 hours, quick-acting or slow-acting, but I want you guys to think about it as this natural chemical compound that the body secretes in these targeted areas. Histamine can disrupt hormones that we call prostaglandins, which are all of our sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, things that regulate blood sugar, glucocorticoids, blood pressure and mineral corticoids. That's one of the reasons why we can have a blood pressure change with allergies and why we can have a blood sugar change with allergies. It also can disrupt how we utilize Vitamin D. If you are having a lot of allergies, you might find when you go get your labs run that you have a significant Vitamin D deficiency. The other thing that histamine affects is insulin and our ability to take blood sugars into the cells to be metabolized. It can slow the metabolism because we become insulin resistant when histamine levels become too high.
The other real kicker here is our bodies are constantly secreting histamine. It's a natural thing that happens in our bodies. It's one of the protection mechanisms that we have that keep us healthy. When it becomes out of balance, we start to have these inflammatory symptoms, insulin resistance and the majority of the way our body clears histamine so it gets rid of any excess, is through a process called methylation. It sounds like this big, very scary word but methylation is how the liver takes things that are bad for us or in excess and breaks it down into something that we can secrete through our urine or stool, sweat and tears. Remember, the reason why we talk about methylation a lot in our community is that it regulates fat-soluble toxin metabolism and fat loss.
I want you to think about a power plant that is constantly breaking down fat and fat-soluble toxins to get it out of the body, breaking down cholesterol, stored fat. Your immune system is having a strong reaction to something that should otherwise be safe. All of a sudden, this power plant is monopolized by trying to flush out excess histamine. One of the first things that it does is slows the metabolism of fat, specially stored fat. We can see pooling in cholesterol, in triglycerides, around our bellies, hips and thighs simply because we have too much histamine in the body because our mechanisms for creating histamine, metabolizing histamine has gone awry.
We call this an allergy syndrome and it can definitely affect the scale. Given that information, I feel like my friends and my colleagues ask me a lot of questions about what's going on in their bodies. I thought we should all get together now and have them ask me some of these questions with you so we can start to slowly unravel maybe some of the imbalances that are going on in your body. Kate, I'm going to call on you first. You can ask me anything about this allergy complex, what's going on in the body, and how we can support it and balance it.
Vitamin C
I saw that you launched Vitamin C supplements. I usually use Vitamin C during cold and flu season to keep me healthy and help me to avoid getting sick. Can you tell us how using Vitamin C would help us out in the springtime?
Let me start by saying it took us a very long time to find the raw ingredients and source what we felt was valuable in Vitamin C. A lot of my clients that are dealing with autoimmune disorders have serious health issues. One of the things that we do is IV Vitamin C therapies. The reason why we do it in an IV form is that the majority of the supplements out there are corn-derived in their Vitamin C source. It's very hard in the United States to source a Vitamin C that's not corn-derived. As you know, corn can be a catalyst for inflammation, insulin imbalance and corn, itself, promote histamine. It took us a very long time to find a tapioca base that we could get in a high enough concentration and could be formulated in a way that could be easily delivered to the body.
Vitamin C is super important in the tissues that I talked about where mast cells are produced. Vitamin C is a nutrient that is important to the GI lining, nasal passages, throat, collagen, elastin and fibrinogen that's just above the layers of the skin. We want to think about this as nurturing those tissues that host the mast cells we talked about. First and foremost, the more of those tissues are nurtured, the more stable their response will be during allergy season.
Vitamin C is well-researched and well adopted from an immune perspective. One of the reasons why we look at allowing a therapeutic level of Vitamin C to be administered during allergy season is because it helps stabilize our body's mast cell response. The best way, Kate, to say this is it’s phenomenal for allergies. It was hard to get something that was clean and pure. We are not going to do it if we can't do it neurotically perfect. I'm very excited about this but I want you to think about Vitamin C strengthens the tissues and nurtures the mast cells so they become smarter in their response to things that are dangerous like viruses and benign like trees, grasses, weeds, pollens and cat hair.
It can help when a person feels like, “I'm reactive to everything. I don't even know what to avoid anymore.” We want to strengthen the mast cells’ response. We want to make those mast cells super smart so that they don't create a huge cytokine storm. I know a lot of people are talking about that, especially with COVID, a huge immune response in the lungs, nose, eyes, mouth and GI tract. I am very excited about that. I don't have to do my IV Vitamin Cs, which I typically do in the spring to help my body not go into an autoimmune flare. Thanks for asking. Steve, I know that you have some interesting allergy questions that you have been asking me and I have said, “Save it. Let's do it in front of our community.”
Morning Sneezes
Thanks, Haylie. I feel good. I'm healthy, thanks to all your great supplements. Within 2020 and I'm not as young as I used to be, every morning when I get up, I sneeze for 15 or 20 minutes. My environment hasn't changed. I'm trying to pinpoint what's going on. I know it's allergy season but for me, this has been going on for the better part of the year. It subsides sort of mid-morning and the rest of the day, I’m perfectly normal. I'm perplexed to try to figure out why every morning I get up and it's a sneeze of thought around here at my house. Is there anything you can do or anything you would have that can help me?
There are a couple of things that we want to think about. This is great that you brought this up because when I'm working with a client and we talk about allergies, a lot of times, we try to journal and I say, “Is it worse at night? Is it worse mid-days? Is it worse first thing in the morning? You are saying when you wake up, you are having this huge histamine response. We want to look at the rhythms of the body and what's going on. We have Metabolism Histamine, which has natural anti-histamines so it can help inhibit the body from producing a high level of histamine. You might try taking that before bed.
Sleeping is the best way to rebuild, restore, and lose weight.
It's more from a preventative perspective, which Metabolism Histamine can help with that, but it's fascinating when you wake up first thing in the morning. When we wake in the morning, our body elevates cortisol, which is a natural steroid and our autonomic nervous system changes from a parasympathetic override to a sympathetic override. Let me distill that down for a second. We secrete wake-up hormones in the morning. Those hormones are adaptive. If you have to wake up and run out of the door for a meeting, you secrete more of those hormones. Maybe if it's a leisurely Sunday, you see your body—because of the knowledge base that it has, the brain cells and the way everything interacts—will say, “I can wake up in a little more leisurely way.”
There's less adrenal secretion when you are waking up leisurely and having to jump out of bed. In general, those flight and fight hormones are always secreted at a higher level earlier in the morning. Those can be what they call pro-inflammatory hormones. The same hormones that make you wake up and jump up are the same hormones that can secrete inflammation. In your body, we want to reduce the body's histamine output. We would probably do that more in the evening when you are in more sympathetic tones. We would probably even have you do the 3,000 milligrams of Vitamin C right before bed. Again, it sounds like your mast cells are hyper-reactive.
When your body starts to secrete those wake hormones, it says, "Wake up and have this huge immune response!" What we want to do is we want to wake up and have a nice morning. I would probably combine those both, in the beginning, do a higher dose of the Metabolism Histamine, like 3,000 of the Vitamin C in the evening and then I would do your regular dose of Metabolism Histamine first thing in the morning. What we want to do is saturate that tissue. That Vitamin C is going to be a key component so that your Metabolism Histamine can be more effective. Another little trick with the Metabolism Histamine is when you take it in the morning, take it with Metabolism Energy.
Metabolism Energy also has a natural anti-histamine in the form of quercetin, which is a plant extract. It's a bioflavonoid but it has amino acids that help increase the rate of supplement delivery into the tissue. I'm going to give this to you one more time. In your Metabolism Histamine, we have herbs that help tell the mast cells, "Do not to secrete as much histamine." For some reason, you are in adrenal overdrive so that you are an overachiever in your histamine production as you produce your adrenal wake-up hormones. We are going to nurture those at night so that the Metabolism Histamine gets to the tissue more readily.
We are going to add Metabolism Energy in the morning. I would load Vitamin C and Metabolism Histamine at night and Metabolism Histamine and Metabolism Energy in the morning. Let's see if that works and that helps. You might also consider doing a week-long Phase 1 Super Intensive because that will nurture the adrenals and help you be an overachiever in other areas of life, as opposed to an overachiever in the secretion of histamine when you wake up in the morning.
I have written all this down and that's the direction I'm heading. Thanks very much.
Zyrtec, Benadryl, Claritin
Let's get our next question in there. Eiland, are you ready?
It was interesting knowing everything that Steve was going through and what the prognosis and diagnosis were for that. My only question around that is, why wouldn't he take something like Zyrtec, Benadryl or even Claritin before bed, something like that, over the counter?
Those drugs and medications are phenomenal for crisis intervention, like if you get bitten by a rattlesnake. We hike a lot or we horseback ride a lot. For our dogs and ourselves, we carry diphenhydramine, which is the generic form of Benadryl. In an anaphylaxis situation, an EpiPen is an epinephrine, which is the opposing hormone to what Steve is secreting. The issue with those is the histamine blockers. They block the receptor site for histamine in the tissue. Think of it like you are playing soccer and Benadryl is like the goalie, keeping the soccer ball from getting into the net and the end result being a score.
As I said earlier, histamine is secreted in all of our bodies every day. It is so important as part of our immune complex. It is what helps us fight off viruses effectively and respond appropriately with lymphocytes, monocytes and phagocytosis, to bacterial exposure and potential infection. Long-term use of a histamine blocker can disrupt your body's immune response when you need it. The other thing is those medications don't purify the blood or the tissue. They don't help the body metabolize the histamine that's pooling in the blood. What will happen is, as they wear off, typically the allergies will become worse and worse.
What we will notice is that the allergy response can get higher or you will have secondary symptoms like constipation or joint pain and people ask, “Is that a side effect of the drug?” It's not a side effect of the drug. It's a side effect of the pooling of the histamine in the body. The other thing that will happen when you are within those side effects is weight gain. It’s one of the symptoms of those histamine blockers. Remember how I talked earlier about how the power plant that breaks down historical fat and metabolizes cholesterol also relies a lot on the process called methylation? Methylation is how we clear histamine. If you have a ton of pooling of histamine day-after-day while you are taking your anti-histamines and your histamine continues to pool, it will monopolize the body's ability to metabolize fat efficiently.
It's twofold. One, it makes me nervous that we are tricking the immune system and we need our immune systems now. Number two, it's not about the scale when we metabolize fat and fat-soluble toxins. We do see the numbers go down on the scale but we see a significant increase in our health. That's what we are shooting for here but that's a great question. Why not pop an anti-histamine? In crisis intervention, I'm all for it. In health proliferation, it is not the way to go. Katie, what can I answer for you?
Pop an anti-histamine for crisis intervention but never for health proliferation.
Auto-Immune Disorders
I know you have talked about your struggles with an autoimmune disorder and I struggle with an autoimmune disorder as well. I was wondering, what would you recommend on a daily basis for someone who struggles with autoimmune disorders?
We have this lovely thing in common. It goes back to Eiland's question. We talked a lot about fat loss, methylation and the reduction of fat-soluble toxins. There are several nutrients, but there are two key nutrients that we look at. One is folic acid and the other is B12 in a methylated form. Go grab your supplement bottles. If you are taking a B vitamin, you are getting a B injection or you are taking a multivitamin with B in it, make sure that it says the word methylcobalamin, not cyanocobalamin. Cyanocobalamin is extremely hard for our body to metabolize and it does not help facilitate the methylation process efficiently. In our supplement world, we use a sublingual B12 with folic acid and methylated B12 because it is difficult to get B efficiently orally. We like to supplement with a sublingual where it dissolves under the tongue. Again, it keeps me from having to run in and get those B shots.
There are some people that feel like allergies are part of the autoimmune cascade because the elevated mast cell production of histamine creates an immune response to the very tissue that is in our own body, which that's the definition of autoimmune. I have ITP, which means my immune system attacks my own platelets. We shouldn't be doing that. Many other autoimmune diseases will attack lung tissue, bone marrow and connective tissue. There are a lot of individuals that will see a rheumatologist for their allergies, which rheumatologists are primarily the docs that they see for autoimmune. Daily, there are a couple of things that I do to keep my allergies from not causing an autoimmune flare. I’m very diligent about my Metabolism B12 & Folate sublingual tablets.
The other thing is—and it's funny because the name doesn't, to me, describes the power of what's in it—I take the Metabolism Energy beverage in the morning and at noon. As I had said earlier, there is quercetin, which is a natural anti-histamine. It's a natural anti-inflammatory benefit. It also has L-arginine and an amino acid called citrulline. These are amino acids that are valet delivery drivers for other key nutrients. It's a catalyst therapy. It's why it gives energy. It doesn't give energy because it's a stimulus but it gives energy because it helps deliver nutrients to the powerhouse of the cell called the mitochondria to metabolize things. The end by-product of that is ATP or what we see in our bodies as excess energy to be able to use for other functions.
Again, to support methylation, I'm good with the Metabolism B12 & Folate sublingual. I know that I talk a lot about taking Metabolism Energy when I travel and oxygen tissue saturation. It's important because my autoimmune disorder attacks the platelets. With any autoimmune disorder that attacks any tissue in the body, it's important that we hand-deliver nutrients to those tissues because our bodies are otherwise compromised in being able to absorb nutrients. I'm always drinking Metabolism Energy while I travel for that reason. I like that you asked me from an autoimmune perspective. Having that amino acid complex with quercetin helps the delivery of all other nutrients. It’s an important one for sure, for me and will be for you. What's our next question?
I have Hashimoto's and I feel like I'm in a constant state of inflammation to the point where I’m outside when it's dusk time, I'm literally running inside because if I get a mosquito bite, it lasts at least a week. It's really bad. I also have problems with sometimes my ring can come off perfectly fine and the next day, I can't get it off no matter what. Is there something I can do to reset my whole body?
We have all agreed that allergies are part of the immune complex. Your description was perfect. Just so everybody knows, Hashimoto's is an autoimmune disorder. They call it Hashimoto's Thyroiditis because our bodies create autoantibodies where our immune system attacks its own tissue. Hashimoto's Thyroiditis attacks the tissue of the thyroid although its immune cascade will hyper-produced mast cell production. People with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis have per capita, per cell, more mast cells in their tissues. As you were talking about that pustule, pus response, swelling response, when you react, that's because you have more of the cells that light themselves on fire, for lack of a better description, when you have an allergy response. You can get that strong response. The Metabolism Free Radicals have some key components in them.
We have heard a lot about cytokine storm and COX-2 inhibitors when you talk about arthritis medications. There are some metabolic pathways that, when the body gets ramped up and fired up about having this strong immune response, get way out of control and balancing those pathways can take a multi-pronged approach. With individuals that are in this state, we have them do at least fourteen days of the Pain and Inflammation Protocol.
The Pain and Inflammation Protocol uses the Metabolism Shake, which has a lot of natural Vitamin C in it through food-based things like spirulina, kale and spinach. It has a lot of chlorella in it, which is a very strong and potent Vitamin C source. It also has turmeric, which is a fabulous anti-inflammatory. We layer that with the I-burn foods, a lot of the raw foods like watermelon, spinaches, kale and jicamas. We add in Metabolism Free Radicals. Metabolism Free Radicals have a couple of things in them. It's salicin, which is a white willow bark extract and Boswellia, which is an enzyme that comes from a pineapple extract. Both of those can nourish and nurture the mast cells to get them to cool their jets.
This helps Hashimoto's specifically because those antibodies have a strong affinity for the thyroid. Remember, the thyroid is the powerhouse gland of the metabolism. We can see a lot of swelling, edema and wild weight gain swings for sure. In an individual like yourself and what you are asking me, I would definitely layer in the Metabolism Histamine to see if we can cool off the histamine secretion. The Metabolism Shake works a lot on the liver and adds a lot of food for the methylation process. We need to get that histamine level flushed out of your body efficiently. It would probably also layer in the Metabolism B12 and Folate. I would be taking my Vitamin C and I would probably take that in the PM hours for someone that's in a flare state like this.
Again, remember we rest, rebuild, restore and lose weight while we sleep. If we can flood the body with 3,000 milligrams of Vitamin C while we sleep, it will help nourish those tissues that housed those mast cells. It will help reduce that very strong, fiery, inflammatory response. I would consider taking your Vitamin C right before bed. I would probably take your Metabolism B12 and Folate throughout the day to help facilitate the flushing out of this histamine. Remember B12 is water-soluble so it's better to take a couple twice a day as opposed to taking 5 or 6 at once like some of my clients like to do because they taste so good. I would probably add my Metabolism Histamine. I would add a higher dose, again, because of the flaring state that you are in. I would double my dose at night.
Getting Back Into Balance
I would take my regular dose during the day and I would sit on the metabolism energy probably twice a day. I want you to download that Pain and Inflammation Protocol. Even if you get the two shakes in a day and focus on that food list, it will help. There are three things that I always like people to think about: that the body has to do when it's getting back into balance; the body has to clear histamine effectively in the bloodstream and the tissue; and the only way we do this now is from micronutrients, foods and supplementation. There is no drug on the planet yet that can help with this. The first step is we want to clear the cooled histamine.
Do not aim for zero cortisol or zero histamine but for the perfect amount of hormones to make the immune system healthy and effective.
The second thing that we want to do is rebalance the immune system so that it doesn't see "safe things." Even the mosquito bite, we want to have a nice, healthy response to that, flush that out and add lymphocytes. That's what the swelling and the redness cause. I put Metabolism Histamine on bug bites, but we need to rebalance the body so that you have a nice, healthy response. That is going to be by nourishing those mast cells in the tissues around it. There is no drug yet to do this. There are immunosuppressants but again, that becomes very scary when we talk about needing our immune system now more than ever. The second stage is rebalancing the immune system, we can only do it one way and that's from micronutrients. It's micronutrient-dependent. That metabolic process is micronutrient-dependent.
The third thing is we need to balance and rebalance the hormones of inflammation and insulin-resistance in a body like yours. I believe that the primary thing with this is food and supplements but this is a time, too where you could focus on doing things, like bodywork, lymphatic massage, deep tissue, massage, acupuncture, sauna and exercise. Remember we need to strengthen the tissues, the lymphatic tissue, the connective tissue, the subcutaneous tissue right under the skin, the lungs, the nasal passage, the throat, and the GI tract. All of those tissues need to be nourished and supported because the stability of those tissues is what determines the functional behavior of an allergy response or the erratic behavior of an allergy response. Those are kinds of the things that our body needs to do. I'm going to open it for anybody who has one last question before I wrap things up for our community.
Can I ask a follow-up question on that? How do you put Metabolism Histamine directly onto your bug bite?
I do 1 of 2 things. Sometimes I add a little bit of water and put it on but if I can, I try to put a little bit of coconut oil and mix it in coconut oil. I will open like 3 or 4 capsules and I will put it in coconut oil. I try to make it potent. I will put it like in a little jar and I use it every time I think about it. It helps. I find it beneficial. If it's a strong venom like a spider bite, sometimes I will add a little bit of baking soda to it because it has that astringent and pH-balancing property. It works for me better than any of the others. I have used it for poison ivy too. It has been beneficial. Anybody else? Last chance.
Hereditary Or Environmental
I have one more question. Are allergies usually hereditary or is it’s environmental that usually triggers them?
There is a hereditary component in the genetic expression of metabolic pathways being compromised. In my family, I have talked a lot about being homozygous methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase deficient. What that means is I have a genetic snip and I believe this is why I manifested the autoimmune disorder that I did. I also believe that this is why I had such puny health in my life. I lost a significant part of my kidney function. Mast cells also are on the kidneys. I have this genetic snip that doesn't allow my body to methylate efficiently. There's homozygous heterozygous, meaning you have both genes for it or you have a singular gene for it. It’s an inexpensive test to run now. If you are either homo or heterozygous, you can be compromised anywhere from 30% up to 78% efficiency in your methylation. Your ability to purify histamine can have a genetic expression. There's another genetic snip, which is how you process glutathione, which glutathione helps with liver detox. There's a genetic snip that we look for that's called Superoxide Dismutase or SOD.
That genetic snip can make the liver less efficient in cleaving the histamine into its counterparts or into our natural anti-histamines. We do have natural histamine, the H1 histamine blockers. If you have that genetic snip, you can be less efficient in all aspects of liver detoxification. We find those people have alcohol sensitivities. Sometimes Pacific Islanders and individuals from China, find genetically that there is a more propensity towards not being able to use glutathione efficiently, which can cause alcohol allergies. We find it oftentimes also with addiction. As I said, epinephrin is what's in an EpiPen. When we secrete histamine in our bodies, we get a natural epinephrin when histamine levels get too high and natural epinephrine secretion, which hits us in the brain of a feel-good stimulus, a little bit of a high, especially with kids. We always ask, “What's your favorite food? What do you crave?” Oftentimes in children, they are craving foods that they are allergic to because there's that endorphin response that they get after the histamine levels start to get too high.
As we get older, Steve, thank you for mentioning, our epinephrine secretion is almost non-existent. We get this nice histamine pool. We get swollen eyes, runny noses, and hives but we don't get the epinephrin hit like kids get when they have allergies. We need to work on balancing our allergies. Leilani, there is definitely a genetic component. However, as I was talking about the power plant, if our body is dealing with a lot of fat-soluble toxins, things like food additives, preservatives, dyes, colors, chemicals, perfumes, hairsprays and mascara's that are ladened with heavy metals, we get overwhelmed or bombarded by that methylation expectation in our body so that it can be genetically compromised but it can also be environmentally overloaded.
When that happens, our body is not able to process histamine and excrete histamine as efficiently as possible so it can pool. It’s environmental and genetic. I have an interesting analogy when we talk about an allergy to a bee sting all the way to an autoimmune response and the cascade of immune responses that happens within that. It's when a friend becomes a foe. We are so overwhelmed that everything starts to feel like a villain to our immune system. The goal here is that we have homeostasis and peace in our body so that when something of danger comes into our surroundings, we can react appropriately, swiftly and most importantly, in a way that protects our bodies and doesn't harm our bodies.
COVID-19 Vaccine
I hope that helps. Let me leave you with a couple of things to think about. If you have a vaccine of any kind, remember that they are designed to modify your immune system. This is the fundamental principle of how inoculations work. There's the good to that. There's also the part that your body has to reconcile and might need some extra TLC to bring your immune responses back into balance. If you are participating in partaking in that, I want you to be diligent in journaling about your body's allergy response. Recognizing that over the next twelve months, as your body cycles through the immune response to this support, that there might be some changes and signals. Your body might need to go through a protocol to help nurture the adaptogenic hormones, the histamine, secretion and the immune response.
The other thing to think about is if you have been participating in wearing masks often. They have helped filter out a lot of bad things from the environment, not getting into your nose and in your mouth. Personally, I'm an advocate of it. I like when a surgeon that's doing surgery on me has a mask on. However, our body is adaptive. It's amazing and wonderful. This is a new filter that we have never had in our bodies before. That's also filtering out certain bacteria, pollens and inhalant allergy substances that maybe in the past, we have secreted a small amount of histamine too. We have had no real allergy responses but it has been a mechanism and keeps our immune system in homeostasis. This is different. Any time we do anything different to our environment, we have to adapt to that new norm.
You must look for signs that you might need more support. The other thing is if you have had added stress now, sudden changes in the environment and advancing in age like some of us are, this can tax the body and slow down, or take out of balance, the adrenal’s ability to respond, to secrete histamine, metabolize histamine, flush histamine and have an appropriate immune response. We don't want any immune response, zero cortisol and histamines. We want the perfect amount to make our body's immune system healthy and effective. If you are taking a histamine blocker, strive towards balancing the body so that we don't have to block those receptor sites because histamine is a valuable player in the immune response. Think about metabolizing that and flushing it through your bloodstream. Always be in awe of your body.
Remember, allergies are a part of the immune system. The immune system is vital in our survival. More importantly, a healthy immune system is critical in us being healthy, happy and having an abundance of energy. I hope this was helpful. Please make sure that you ask tons of questions in our membership community. We love to hear from you. Let's see if we can use Kleenex to wipe dirt off the floor and not need it anymore for our precious noses. Thanks for coming. I appreciate it. I hope this helps all of you on your journey to health and wellness.
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Noted Links:
- Metabolism Buffered Vitamin C
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- Pain and Inflammation Protocol
- Pain and Inflammation Protocol Workbook
- Phase 1 Super Intensive
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