Talk:Histamine

sources

Where in the name of all the is holy did this information come from?! There is not a single source cited in this entire article. I have flagged this and will be looking for sources. It would be nice if some emails were sent out to some professors requesting some help with a rewrite. Foolishben 18:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

nomenclature

The chemical structure is wrong. The hydrogen atoms should be shown on the ethylamine nitrogen atom and one of the ring nitrogen atoms.

From Gizzy:- Correct ... Well Done!!!

Imbalances

I can find absolutely no reference to histapenia or histadelia and the effects listed in any reputable medical sourcebook or database. None of the pharmacists I've worked with have heard of it, either, though I haven't spoken with my physician about it. What are the primary sources for this information? Archmage Brian 14:45, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

These words were coined in the early 1970s by Carl C. Pfeiffer, the director of the Brain Bio Center in Skillman (just north of Princeton), NJ (He'd been chief pharmacologist of the Navy for 20 years, and was both an MD and a PhD; his wife was also his colleague.) to indicate two of several postulated alternative mechanisms at work in "the schizophrenias". He wrote about four or five books for the general public and (I suspect) many scholarly papers. In particular, I recall them being discussed in _Mental and Elemental Nutrients_ and _Zinc and Other Micronutrients_ (?). Somebody else will have to look into this, though, since it's been many years since I read them. There is now another Brain Bio Center, located in Colorado, I think. Like Pfeiffer, they're continuing the work of the orthomolecular psychiatry school, founded by Abram Hoffer and Humphrey Osmond. If I recall correctly, histapenia is treated mainly with niacin and histadelia with pyridoxine, among numerous supporting nutrients and pharmaceuticals. --Marshall Price of Miami-- D021317c 12:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, the words I was referring to above are "histadelia" and "histapenia". Pfeiffer is in the hall of fame at http://www.orthomolecular.org/history/index.shtml D021317c 22:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Just registering my opinion on the removal of histadelia and histapenia: of course it's not accepted by mainstream medicine. Neither is homeopathy, so you think we should delete the pages on that? I honestly think homeopathy, natural medicine, alternative medicine, etc etc are all total utter bullshit and yes, delusions. Same for pretty much all kook science. However, even if we assume that the piece of text that remains on the page (that histamine levels are linked to schizophrenia), it is even more ridiculous - and cocky - to blindly say "Nothing can possibly ever go wrong with histamine activity and we know absolutely everything about it."

Saying that there's been no research on it, therefore it can't exist, is possibly worse still. It is known for a fact that histamine activity through the h3 receptor messes with the activities of a number of neurochemicals, so it would be utterly ridiculous to claim that it's impossible for histamine abnormalities to cause, say, mood swings. Research is needed.

But yes, wikipedia is not about new research. It's about reporting what other people have found, which both the original text and the new text with this section removed both completely fail to do: what it SHOULD be saying, REGARDLESS of whether the disorder exists, is that some people believe histamine may play a role in certain disorders, though the mainstream medical community has not acknowledged any problems.

As for me? I know that anecdotal evidence is utterly useless (AFAIK it's all UFOlogy has, and we all know how ridiculous THAT is), but it makes a bit of an impression on you when you find the first google result for histadelia has a long list of seemingly completely unrelated symptoms and you have had every one of them for as long as you can remember. Never believed in a single piece of "alternative medicine" or such before or since. Oh, and no doctor I've seen has been able to explain why I become murderously irritable (literally) and get an itchy rash at the same time at seemingly random times. 144.132.96.24 07:21, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I concur. Histamine imbalance is one area of alternative medicine that needs to be studied more. It is on MUCH firmer scientific footing than homeopathy, for instance. Which is more reasonable? That water has a "memory", or that histamine, which is a FRIGGING NEUROTRANSMITTER for Pete's sake, may have something to with moods. Considering the fact that modern medicine really is much further behind in the area of psychiatry than in other areas (why does lexapro work for some people, but not for others? No one knows why). Depression usually results in a low, or non-existant sex drive, but not for everyone. Histadelia is the perfect explanantion for why some people have depression with a (sometimes annoyingly) high sex drive. 71.222.142.147 18:26, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Uh, that was me. Also if someone says that's likely to be an allergic response: yes, histamine IS vital in the allergic response; if someone is having an allergic reaction their histamine levels WILL go up and that's something no sane doctor will deny. PianoSpleen 07:25, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know much about histapenia but histadelia sounds an awful lot like histamine intolerance, where the ratio between accumulated histamine and the enzymes required to metabolise histamine are unequal, either through excess histamine, or through a deficiency in the enzyme. This is not alternative medicine but a recognised medical condition more commonly associated with food intolerances and immunology than psychiatry (not because it involves the immune system directly, but because food intolerances are often confused with food allergies). The following article summarises some of the current information on histamine intolerance: http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/85/5/1185

There is also a more general article in wikipedia on food intolerances which has more links: Food Intolerance

Personally I think it is very misleading to say that health issues caused by high levels of histamine is not accepted by the mainstream medical community, only by alternative medicine. I was diagnosed by the mainstream medical community, thank you very much, and the doctors at the Royal Prince Alfred Allergy Clinic in Sydney don't seem to have a problem with it at all. 202.67.91.36 (talk) 23:35, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

H substance

What is H substance? The article says it is "held to be similar to histamine; or possibly to be histamine itself" - is this a misconception or a mistake? In other articles it appears to be a synonym for Substance H, which redirects to Hh antigen system. --apers0n 09:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Histamine inactivation

Your skin is irritated, the mast cells release histamine, you itch, you scratch. But how long does it take for the histamine to inactivate? What modifies this time? Does scratching inactivate the histamine, or otherwise reduce the itch?-69.87.200.131 00:43, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

• I've found that scratching makes hives worse, if anything. Sure, it helps the itching feel a little better, but it must make the hives release more histamine or something - as a sufferer of about 83923 allergies, it seems to be the case (for me, at least). flod logic 01:41, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

• • Scratching actually stimulates sensory neurons in the skin in the area of the itch, and in a sense overtakes the pathway the itch would travel down to the central nervous system. That's why the scratching only temporarily relieves the itching, and of course the scratching irritates the area further, and I imagine would release more histamine, like flod said. Anyway, I have no idea about histamine inactivation though... Ccroberts @ 04:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)