Effect of Dietary Amines on Intraocular Pressure

The following two blog posts illustrate that foods high in biogenic amines can significantly raise intraocular pressure for some people. (Biogenic amines are defined below.)

"In my case, free glutamates (MSG in all its various and sundry forms, in particular) will always spike my eye pressure by as much as 6 points."

Effect of Diet and Other Environmental Factors on IOP | FitEyes.com

Dietary Amines and Free Glutamates | FitEyes.com

From Dr. Jill's blog, here is a nice description of biogenic amines:

Biogenic Amines... Histamine is one of them!

A biogenic amine is a potent signaling molecule made from an amino acid. Histamine, for example, is made from the common amino acid histidine (amino acids are what proteins are made of). Meat and fish are rich in protein, so they are chock full of amino acids.

Histamine and other biogenic amines are found lurking primarily in aged, cured, fermented, cultured, and spoiled foods.

Here is a list of the most common biogenic amines and the amino acids they are made from.

• Arginine—Agmatine, Putrescine, Spermine, Spermidine
• Histidine—Histamine
• Lysine—Cadaverine
• Ornithine—Putrescine, Spermine, Spermidine
• Phenylalanine—Phenylethylamine
• Tryptophan—Tryptamine, Serotonin
• Tyrosine–Tyramine

Histamine and methylation, from Dr. Jill

Methylation is the act of a carbon and three hydrogens (namely a methyl group) attaching itself to an enzyme in your body. When this methyl group attaches to an enzyme, the enzyme performs a specific action. One thing you might not realize is that methylation is responsible for is the breakdown of histamine. A methyl group is made and then floats around until it finds a specific binding site. In this case, the methyl group binds to histamine. When a methyl group binds to histamine, histamine breaks apart and goes away.   Many patients who have one or more methylation SNPs, like MTHFR have a hard time breaking down histamine, which can wreak havoc on the body in many ways!

If you haven't been tested and want to find out if you have this common genetic mutation, you can ask your doctor to order MTHFR gene mutation testing through LabCorp.   Better yet you can order a genetic profile directly without a physician order online through 23andMe for only $99.

Here are Dr. Jill's full blog posts on this topic:

Functional Wisdom...healthy updates from Dr. Jill!: Health Tips for Anyone with a MTHFR Gene Mutation...
http://doccarnahan.blogspot.com/2014/02/health-tips-for-anyone-with-mthf...

Functional Wisdom...healthy updates from Dr. Jill!: Histamine Intolerance: Could this be the cause of your problems?
http://doccarnahan.blogspot.com/2013/11/histamine-intolerance-could-this...