Histamine plays a part in induction of drinking by food intake

Drinking occurs around meal time in most mammals. Food-related drinking accounts for approximately 70% of daily fluid intake for rats, but little is known of the mechanisms by which eating elicits drinking. That eating and vagal stimulation elicit the release of histamine from gastric mucosa, together with the fact that drinking elicited by eating or exogenous histamine depends on an intact abdominal vagus, suggests a role for endogenous histamine as a component of food-related drinking in the rat. I report here that the combined antagonism of peripheral H1 and H2 receptors for histamine (1) attenuates drinking elicited by normal food-contingent stimulation of the gastrointestinal tract and (2) abolishes drinking elicited by pregastric food-contingent stimulation during sham feeding in the rat.