Some people say that if you start eating after a few days of fasting, they are sprinkled with hives.
There are several explanations for this case.
Histamine in food
Histamine is a biologically active substance, from which, with hives, everything swells and itches.
This histamine is produced in our body and stored in mast cells. Cells can release histamine from themselves and hives will develop.
The most interesting thing is that histamine can be eaten ready-made with food. We have already discussed scombroid poisoning, when histamine is formed in fish and causes poisoning.
This happens in dark meats of mackerel, tuna or similar mackerel fish. Their meat contains the amino acid histidine, which microbes can convert into histamine. That is, such a fish will lie down for a couple of hours at room temperature, and there is already a chance of being poisoned with histamine. Hot flashes, nausea, abdominal pain, palpitations, rashes, all things will begin. It is said that a similar poisoning occurs from Swiss cheese. There, too, microbes ferment something.
Histamine is not destroyed by freezing and heat treatment, so it will not go anywhere from the food. Either he is in them, or he will become more than it was. But it won't get smaller.
So, in addition to spoiled fish, histamine is also present in a pile of products. In aged cheese, in fermented vegetables like sauerkraut, in yoghurt, in sausages, in yeast bread.
There is an idea on this topic. I have not met official confirmation, but it sounds like this: In our intestines there is an enzyme diamine oxidase, which destroys histamine from food. If we starve, then this enzyme becomes less. Well, the type of activity in the intestine decreases. And so we come out of fasting and start eating. And we eat histamine with food. But there is no enzyme. And histamine goes straight into the bloodstream and triggers hives.
Personally, I do not really trust this theory, because I have not read scientific evidence and I know for sure that there are such dietary supplements with diamine oxidase. That is, maybe they are just being promoted. I have not seen any official medical advice on diamine oxidase.
Hives from hunger
The Japanese published a story about a kid who had hives caused by hunger. And as soon as the boy had a snack, the urticaria passed. There, too, it was somehow tied to histamine, but in a different way.
There the idea was also about the intestines, but only about mast cells, which live in the intestines. If we are hungry, these mast cells in the intestines secrete histamine, which floats down the portal vein to the liver and forces it to make ketone bodies to nourish our brain and muscles.
And somehow (not entirely clear to the Japanese and to me) against this background, urticaria can creep out. That is, at the peak of fasting. After eating, this urticaria decreases.
Hunger for the good
And there are also stories when with chronic urticaria from hunger, on the contrary, it became better. That is already the third option.
What to do
Everything is very simple and at the same time complicated. The situation is incomprehensible. No one can clearly explain why, after getting out of fasting, someone starts having hives. So just don't starve. Is it logical?
