Histidine--a suppressor amino acid?

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,

Lately I've been on a search for missing amino acid. We know that tyrosine

is the amino acid precursor of thyroxin. Junebug, who has pheochromocytoma

which is a disease that I'm learning about but which seems to be a disease of

excess epinephrine, informed me that tyrosine is also a precursor of

epinephrine. Epinephrine is a stimulating adrenal hormone. When I realized

that tyrosine might be a precursor to many stimulatory endocrine hormones, I

reasoned that there must also be an amino acid precursor to inhibitory

endocrine hormones. Hyperthyroidics, pheos, and people with autoimmune

diseases seem to be lacking in one or more inhibitory hormones which would

normally provide suppression to the thyroid, adrenals, and the immune system.

I have recently obtained a great book on amino acids, called " The Healing

Nutrients Within " by Braverman, M.D. et.al.(1997). It has 500 pages

devoted to amino acids. In studying the amino acids I have come across two so

far that appear as very promising candidates. One is tryptophan which is the

amino acid from which niacin is made (One book called tryptophan the real

vitamin and niacin the metabolite). Louise (LDunphy) sent me information

about serotonin today and tryptophan is also a serotonin precursor. I am

accumulating more information on tryptophan and will present it later.

The big news today is about histidine. Everyone has heard of histamine and

anti-histimines. Histamine is made from the amino acid histidine. The

chapter title is Histidine, Arthritis Fighter. Let me start out with a direct

quote from the book to see if it will catch your interest:

Histidine may help copper transport and has a mild anti-inflammatory

effect because of an L-histidine-copper-threonine complex that exists in the

blood. Large doses of zinc (55 mg in liquid) causes a 10 to 20 percent

decrease of serum histidine in humans due to its antagonistic effect on

copper. However, a low dosage of zinc or prolonged zinc therapy will raise

serum histidine and blood histamine. Hoekstra of the University of Wisconsin

(1969) reviewed how zinc and/or manganese deficiency interferes with the

normal metabolism of histidine to histamine. Histidine loading may lower

serum zinc and raise serum iron. Vitamin E deficiency results in depletion of

histidine from muscle. The significance of these findings is not clear. "

Let's look at this first. I love that last sentence. They don't have a clue

about what any of this means, but we do. I'm just thankful that they put this

information in even though they didn't understand it. Threonine is another

amino acid that I intend to study. Apparently copper is bound to histidine in

the blood in this histidine-copper-threonine complex. Whether copper is

always bound to histidine and whether histidine is essential for copper

transport and metabolism are very interesting questions. We know that high

levels of zinc lower copper levels, so this is interesting that the zinc also

lowers histidine levels. This lends support to the possibility that copper

and histidine are usually bound together. We know that zinc and manganese

work together with copper, so the fact that deficiencies of either will

interfere with conversion of histidine to histamine fits in. High amounts of

histidine will lower serum zinc and raise serum iron. This is the same as

copper. So taking lots of histidine works the same as taking lots of copper.

For this to occur, it would make sense if copper and histidine were intimately

bound. We also see that vitamin E is involved, but I don't see the full

connection there yet.

All that is VERY intriguing. Let's look on. There is a chart which shows

the levels of histidine in the blood of men and women (in umole/100 ml). Men:

6-9. Women 3-11. That also is interesting. Not only can women have lower

levels than men but they can have higher levels. Whenever I see a sexual

difference in anything like this, I think of the sexual differences in thyroid

conditions. Maybe very low levels could be hyperthyroidism and very high

levels could be hypothyroidism.

We have seen that copper deficiency is involved in rheumatoid arthritis

(remember the copper bracelets?). Histidine is also involved in arthritis.

" Out of the twenty-two reported studies on amino acids in rheumatoid

arthritis, histidine is the only amino acid consistently found to be

abnormal. " " Eight of studies show low histidine levels in blood serum. Low

histidine levels are also found in arthritic synovial fluid--the transparent,

viscid, lubricating fluid secreted by joint membranes. "

Treating patients with rheumatoid arthritis with histidine caused

improvements. Also arthritis therapies like gold, and the drugs, chloroquine

and D-penicillamine " have an indirect preservation effect on histidine which

may be related to their effectiveness in rheumatoid arthritis.

So histidine, like copper, seems to suppress the immune system attack in

arthritis. Also, it is noted that alcohol lowers histidine plasma levels

significantly. Remember that alcohol destroys vitamin B1 (thiamine) and

thereby interferes with copper utilization?

Histamine is also related to psychiatric problems. " High histidine and

histamine levels have been found in patients with psychiatric disturbances

such as depression, blank mind, compulsive personality, obsession, rituals,

and phobias. Some schizophrenics (about 20 percent) are high in histamine.

Low histamine patients are seen to have pyschiatric disturbances such as

hyperactivity, mania, paranoia, hallucinations, and abnormal ideation. " The

Nutrition Almanac says that emotional problems are also found in people with

high or low levels of copper. Again, it seems that high or low levels of

either histidine or copper can cause psychiatric problems. This is further

evidence that copper and histidine are bound. I think that the high copper

and histidine levels in these studies are caused by zinc and possibly

manganese deficiencies, but we should still be careful about supplementing

with high amounts of copper, especially without zinc.

Histidine is also related to stress, which we've seen is an important factor

in hyperthyroidism. " During stress, histidine is needed more than any other

amino acid. " It appears that stress, especially when an insufficient amount

of protein is eaten, somehow uses up large quantities of histidine. If

histidine is involved in suppressor endocrine hormones, as I suspect, then

stress could lead, by way of histidine depletion, to hyperthyroidism and

autoimmune diseases.

Some people have claimed that histidine helps relieve allergic disorders, but

there is little evidence about this yet. But if this is true, then histidine

would seem to have broad ranging involvement in inhibitory functions such as

the immune system.

By now you're probably wondering if histidine deficiency is a contributor to

hyperthyroidism, how is histidine related to sex. Interestingly enough,

histidine is converted to histamine, and histamine is the chemical responsible

for the feeling of an orgasm. It's also responsible for the feeling you get

when sneezing. Maybe that's why sneezing feels so good.

Interestingly when I read about histidine I remembered that I used to take it

as a supplement many months before I got hyperthyroidism. I had used it

thinking that it would increase the sexual response. I thought that I still

had some left, because I usually don't finish using up supplements like that.

I looked and couldn't find it, so I guess that I found it useful. The other

side is that high sexual activity may deplete our bodies of histamine and

histidine. Maybe high sexual activity (and lots of sneezing) can be a

contributor to hyperT.

Given all this intriguing information about histidine, the last step is

whether we can find any evidence that histidine is involved in hormones. The

book says that histidine readily forms peptides with other amino acids and one

is a known hormone which is active in the intestine. Many hormones are

composed of polypeptide chains so there is a good possibility that histidine

is somehow involved in many other hormones. Apparently, as the book says, the

study of " histidine peptides is a part of a new and growing field in

medicine. "

So there is a description of one amino acid that to me seems not only

intimately involved in copper metabolism, but one which could very well be

involved in inhibitory endocrine hormones.

I intend to get some histidine and experiment with it.

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