DR Healthcare es una compañía biomédica especializada en déficit de DAO, la enzima DiaminoOxidasa, y biofuncionalismo (biología funcional y genómica)

La histamina se interpone en Navidad

Diciembre de 2016.- Se acercan las fiestas de Navidad. Y en Navidad todo se altera; los horarios se alargan, las emociones aumentan, el alcohol se excede, las comidas se exageran y, en consecuencia, muchas personas pueden ver también alterada su buena salud, pues tendrán digestiones pesadas, flatulencias, sensación de hinchazón, dolor de cabeza, contracturas o migraña.

Una molécula presente en la mayoría de los alimentos "navideños", tiene que ver con todos esos síntomas: La histamina. Una amina biógena especialmente presente y abundante en los alimentos que se consumen en las fiestas de navidad. Se calcula que de cada cien personas, 20 tienen un déficit en la actividad de la enzima DAO, siendo tres veces más frecuente en mujeres que en hombres por cuanto la mujer tiene genéticamente menor actividad DAO.

El déficit de DAO es una alteración en el metabolismo que se presenta cuando por algún motivo existe una desproporción entre la histamina ingerida en la dieta y la capacidad de degradarla intestinalmente, lo que provoca que la histamina ingerida se acumule en la sangre y desencadene múltiples efectos no deseados. Los síntomas más frecuentes derivados del déficit de DAO son trastornos gastrointestinales y migraña, teniendo relación directa con los dolores musculares y la piel seca o atópica, síntomas que claramente se agudizan en Navidad.

La histamina se encuentra presente en todos los alimentos, en mayor o menor medida, ya sean de origen animal o vegetal, y debe ser metabolizada para poderse eliminar sin ningún inconveniente. Las personas que son deficitarias de la principal enzima responsable de la degradación de la histamina, la enzima DAO, deben llevar una alimentación adecuada y suplementada con la enzima para evitar los sintomas. Pero hay momentos puntuales en los que resulta muy difícil seguir una dieta pautada baja en histamina, como es la Navidad.

Además son momentos en los que la histamina ingerida puede afectar también a personas que no tienen dicha deficiencia enzimática durante el año, pues los excesos alimenticios de estos días bloquean o inhiben su normal actividad funcional. Por tradición, la navidad se acompaña de ciertos alimentos típicamente histamínicos como son los canapés, los aperitivos con embutidos, los ahumados, las salsas variadas como la bechamel de los canelones o la salsa tártara del pescado; el marisco, las conservas como las anchoas, las especies como el curri o la canela, los turrones, los polvorones o el roscón de reyes, el cava, el champagne y otras bebidas alcohólicas 

 . . .Son muchos los alimentos implicados y por ello nuestro consejo es consumirlos con moderación y, si hace falta por ser genéticamente predispuesto, sustituir alguno por otro y preventivamente suplementar los menús navideños con enzima DAO.

R&D&I

Research, develop and innovate

Research constitutes the most important value of DR Healthcare, providing new innovative biofunctional products that improve the health and wellbeing of people, especially those suffering DAO deficiency

The compromise of our scientists with excellence and innovation is essential for the discovery and development of safe and effective biofunctional products to treat diseases and/or physiological disorders which is part of our therapeutic targets such as migraine and other types of cephaleas, fibromyalgia, respiratory disorders, and gastrointestinal disorders, derived from the DAO deficiency.

DR Healthcare has signed cooperation agreements with universities and scientific societies.

The scientist at DR Healthcare play a key role in all stages of the research and development process, from inception of a new research program to the regulatory approval of a new biofunctional product.

Our work uses the most advanced state of the art technologies to study the underlying mechanisms causing the pathology. This knowledge is applied to the identification, design and trial of new biofunctional products with therapeutic potential.

The R&D+I centre of DR Healthcare is based in Barcelona. The centre is responsible for the planning and implementation of research and innovation programmes in two well differentiated product lines about DAO deficiency:

1. Clinical diagnostic products related to the activity of diamine oxidase.

2. Biofunctional products for the dietary treatment of symptoms and / or chronic diseases associated with a DAO deficiency.

What is DAO Deficiency?

DAO Deficiency

Is an alteration in the metabolism of food histamine that appears when Diamine Oxidase (DAO) enzyme activity is low, in other words, when for some reason there is a significant deficiency in the functional activity of the main enzyme in the metabolism of histamine.
The imbalance between ingested histamine and the histamine released from the histamine storage cells, and the capacity for histamine degradation, leads to histamine accumulation in plasma and the occurrence of adverse effects on health.

Food Proteins

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Differentiation of adverse effects

In healthy people, histamine taken with food is degraded quickly by Diamine Oxidase (DAO) enzyme, but people with low functional DAO activity have the risk of suffering histamine intolerance or food histaminosis.
Unlike food allergy, the occurrence of symptoms or adverse effects is not linked to the intake of specific food; not only can it be related to a wide variety of food with different histamine contents, symptoms can also occur even after the ingestion of products with low histamine levels. This imposed considerable difficulty when establishing a maximum tolerable dose; in fact, there is no clear consensus on this value.
Values that range from 50μg of histamine (in one serving of wine, 125ml, for example) to 60-75mg, prior pure histamine administration, have been listed as triggers of DAO Deficiency symptoms.

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Due to the wide variety of symptoms derived from DAO Deficiency, which represent chronic pathologies with a high prevalence in population, immediate research and advances on its origin and possible treatments are required.
It is not necessary for all symptoms to manifest, although most patients with low functional DAO activity present an average of three of those symptoms, being migraine the prevalent one.
20% of patients experience 1 or 2 of these associated symptoms, 41.3% of patients experience 3 or 4 of these symptoms and 33.8% present more than 5.

The most frequent symptoms derived from DAO Deficiency are:

Migraine and other vascular headaches.

Gastrointestinal disorders, especially those associated with irritable bowel syndrome, such as constipation, diarrhea, satiety, flatulence or swollen feeling.

Dermatological disorders such as dry skin, atopy or psoriasis.

Soft-tissue pains usually diagnosed as fibromyalgia

Chronic fatigue

In childhood and adolescence, DAO deficiency has been linked to attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Histamine process within the organism:

Route of histamine in the body

Route of histamine in the body histamina In the metabolism of histamine, when it should be degraded by DAO enzyme in order to become N-acetyl aldehyde imidazole, an accumulation of the amine is produced due to the lack of enzyme in the intestinal mucosa cells. Low enzyme activity causes the concentration of histamine, which comes from the food and is generally considered normal, not to be metabolized and a transepithelial permeation of exogenous histamine.

This way, histamine enters the bloodstream increasing its plasma concentration and once located in blood it spreads throughout the body

Migrasin

logo migrasin sin cafeína

Migrasin® is a food for special medical uses that is used in the dietary treatment of migraine.