Histamines and inflammation

Do histamines worsen inflammation ?

Before answering the question at hand, let us talk about what histamines even are. Histamines are chemicals that your body releases as part of an immune response, they play a major role in allergies, but also in vasodilation. Vasodilation is the widening of blood vessels, histamines also cause them to be more permeable, which means immune cells can reach damaged tissue. For a healthy individual or a cut, for example, this is great, the body repairs what is damaged through natural inflammation and moves on. As for someone with an autoimmune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis, this whole process is not so great. Because your body mistakenly identifies your own tissue as dangerous, instead of repairing it or leaving it alone, it attacks it, breaking down cartilage, synovial lining, or bones (over time).

So how do histamines and inflammation come together. Autoimmunity causes the immune system to be overactive, histamines signal to nearby blood vessels that there is a threat, therefore histamines act as a kind of 'fuel to the fire'. Promoting pain, swelling, and heat in joints, increasing cytokine production and enhancing immune cell activation. Many people with an auto immune disease are more sensitive to histamines or have trouble breaking them down, leading to rashes, headaches,flare-ups, brain fog, digestive symptoms, and more.

The answer to the question therefore is, yes, if you have an autoimmune disease histamines can worsen inflammation.