How does histamine work?
But it seems counter-productive to give doses of histamine to people who already have high levels in their bodies, right? Remember that the body is an amazing self-regulating machine. Basically by giving histamine to the body in small doses, the body responds by slowing down it’s own production and eventually shutting itself off. You can imagine this concept is similar to the breaker switch in a fuse box. When there is an excess of electricity or an electrical hazard in a home, the breaker switches to the off position. Consequently, the power in the house is turned off. Similarly, the extra histamine in the body is turned off. The use of histamine, for example, stopped skin swelling and inflammation in ragweed-sensitive people when they were exposed to ragweed (7). In fact, a medical drug known to have “histamine-like” action has demonstrated a beneficial effect to grass-pollen sufferers’ (8). This exact concept in science is termed “auto-regulation”. In fact, it is a basic principle t
