Would be interested to hear anything from people who have experienced a food allergy or intolerance towards tomatoes, something the NHS seems very skeptical on.
Tomatoes contain a lot of histamine, and can trigger mast cell degranulation, which I think should offer at least some explanation why acid reflux with tomatoes is so common. Typically reflux isn’t seen as a sign of intolerance or allergies, but seems that’s actually a sign of mild intolerance and mast stabilizers actually work better than antacids in many people.
There are people who say that all nightshades are “bad”, but I never heard anyone complain about potatoes in the same way.
I’m not sure these are true allergies, although those are probably possible. Some allergies that are very common in Europe (peach allergy/LTP syndrome) seem very rare in the US, and vice versa with peanuts.
In case of an LTP allergy, or fruit-vegetable allergy syndrome, you could trivially have people cross-react to tomatoes because LTP proteins are ubiquitous across species.
From my research into inflammation the only solid take away I had is that not a single person in the world truly understand what allergy is, and what to do with, except for rather crude tools like epinephrine and antihistamines. Even food allergy desensitization with Xolair barely works and mostly fails, and that’s the best we can come up with after 70 years of research.
If we gonna go down this route, some drs rx gleevec/imatinib, and some people self-medicate with veterinary drug masitinib, which failed human trials due to liver issues but otherwise was very helpful.
Usually it would be used in a context of some form of systemic mast cell disease, mcas or mastocytosis etc, with multiple systemic issues and insufficient response to anti-mediator therapy, which are basically h1 or h2 blockers plus aspirin, plus/minus singlulair and possibly Xolair. in addition to allergic/inflammatory-like issues such patients have all kinde of other problems, bone density loss, neuropathies, etc etc.
Some drs prefer low dose gleevec before giving chronic systemic steroids, but that seems to be a rather small minority (I only know of 2 in the US). The justification would be that instead of taking massive doses of mutilple drugs daily for life, instead you take a low dose of single agent that fixes all the problems. Seems to work for some people, and maybe in some carefully selected patients drugs like gleevec would eventually become first line agents. There are a couple of genetics groups that are working on elucidating exact pathways that seem to be disregulated, and once there is some clarity there, potentially cleaner, better targeted TKIs can be developed.
If something gives significant reflux - I’d personally avoid the trigger, or if that’s not possible, then maybe 20-40-80mg famotidine.
Allergy is funny like that. Millions walk around with undiagnosed milk allergy, and have a constantly congested or slightly runny nose, commonly attributed to anything but allergy. In reality it has often nothing to do with pollen or colds at all, and magically goes away as soon as anything milk/cheese/butter-related is eliminated.
I just feel reflux seems to be under appreciated by most allergists, who tend to rely too much on skin prick tests, and discount symptoms “oh everyone has reflux etc”, and don’t investigate history well enough either. Basically a cookie cutter approach.
It maybe indeed moot from the treatment perspective, of course, because either dx will result in “just take famotidine”, but chronic allergic inflammation significantly elevates risks of osteoporosis, arthritis, etc, which I would think an informed patient would like to be aware of. H1/H2 blockers are mostly symptomatic treatment, and probably don’t lower risks of long term complications by much.
Allergy sadly remains a voodoo science.
It's unfortunate because I really like tomatoes. I grew up on a farm, and as a child really enjoyed a fresh ripe tomato sliced thin with the slices topped with salt and pepper, or eating thin slices of tomatoes with ham on fresh baked bread. Truly heavenly. Unfortunately also something I can never have again as long as I live.
If you offered me $1000 to eat a ripe tomato off the vine, I’m not sure i could do it.
https://timelord.nl/gezondheid/biologische-hefbomen.html?lan...
Histamine apparently caused a lot of itching, which I always took for normal. Using antihistamine tablets make me stop pulling my eyebrows. I did not write that in the blogpost, there a small bit of shame involved.
Here's some pseudoscience, you may also find the parent comment that it is in reply to interesting.
That's why for example I don't mind the tomato sauce on pizza, but put whole slices of it on a burger and I will remove them before I eat it.
For me, it's itchy around the lips, but no more than that.
Independently (or maybe not?) from that I get an insane acid reflux after eating any kind of tomato. I don't get that with other acidic foods. The pain gets so crazy I've considered calling the hospital because I thought I was going to die. Obviously I don't eat them anymore.
Edit: Thought I would add, my doc suspects it is an acid-reflux response but wasn't sure why it would be isolated to tomatoes.
I had to give up tomatoes and potatoes
Without going into too much personal detail if you'd rather not, what form did the issues take?
Was your physical or mental wellbeing negatively affected until you cut them out? On whose advice did you do this?
Or, was it instead a case where you cut them out, in case a hypothetical issue developed?
Also curious to know if you have allergies or other foods that disagree... (sorry for being so nosy)
What’s the mechanism with potatoes? They seem like a mostly safe food.
Potatoes are not on the 'Auto Immune Protocol', which I haven't looked in to the rationale behind unfortunately and I am completely out of my field of expertise. They are categorized as nightshades, like tomatoes.
As you can see above, some lists claim potatoes are high in histamine. I think that new or green potatoes contain (glyco)alkaloids and that the 'eyes' are also not to be eaten. Sweet potato is said to be fine.
https://branchesofwellnessacupuncture.com/assets/uploads/201...