So in terms of foods or probiotics, the species that are notorious for histamine production are Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus reuteri, and Lactobacillus bulgaricus, which is in yogurt and which is one of the reasons why fermented foods are generally off the list with people histamine intolerance.
Neutral species that have been studied include Streptococcus thermophilus, which is also in yogurt, and Lactobacillus rhamnosus.
And then histamine-degrading bacteria stains include Bifidobacterium infantis, which is one of the strains that’s found in breast milk and really important for babies, but it’s also been shown to be really effective in IBS, and I wonder if there isn’t some correlation there between histamine intolerance in some cases and IBS, but it may not have anything to do with that. I mean, Bifidobacterium infantis has a lot of beneficial effects. Bifidobacterium longum, which is a more typical kind of bifidobacteria, and then Lactobacillus plantarum.
Soil-based organisms, which we just discussed, appear to either neutral or histamine degrading, depending on the sources that you look at. In my clinical experience, I think they’re histamine degrading because I see improvement in people that are taking soil-based organisms that have histamine intolerance.
