Non-celiac gluten sensitivity: people without celiac disease avoiding gluten-is it due to histamine intolerance?

Food intolerance/malabsorption is caused by food ingredients, carbohydrates (mainly lactose and fructose), proteins (gluten), and biogenic amines (histamine) which cause nonspecific gastrointestinal and extra-intestinal symptoms. Here we focus on possible etiologic factors of intolerance/malabsorption especially in people with non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) or the so-called people without celiac disease avoiding gluten (PWCDAG) and histamine intolerance.

Recognizing the recently described symptoms of NCGS (PWCDAG) we review correlations and parallels to histamine intolerance (HIT).

We show that intestinal and extra-intestinal NCGS (PWCDAG) symptoms are very similar to those which can be found in histamine intolerance.

After a detailed diagnostic workup for all possible etiologic factors in every patient, a targeted dietary intervention for single or possibly combined intolerance/malabsorption might be more effective than a short-term diet low in fermentable oligo-, di- and monosaccharides and polyols (FODMAP) or the untargeted uncritical use of gluten-free diets.