Low Tyramine Diet
The following foods all contain tyramine, but at different concentrations. Most patients can tolerate a certain amount of tyramine per day, but if they eat in excess of this then they will develop symptoms. The foods are therefore divided into three groups, high, medium and low, and you may find, for example, that you are able to tolerate one or two items from group 2 but if, in addition, you have an item from group l then this precipitates a headache.
After a period of months your tolerance level should increase, but this can only be ascertained by trying a higher tyramine containing food and seeing whether it causes symptoms.
| 1. High: | |
| All cheese except Gouda and Cottage Cheese | Chocolate |
| Marmite and other yeast extracts | Beef |
| Beer, stout, ale, port | Liver |
| Wine (especially red) | Hung game |
| Pickled herrings | |
| 2. Medium: | |
| Spinach | Fermented (hard) sausage or Salami |
| Oranges | Pepperoni |
| Prunes | Broad beans |
| Raisins | Egg plants |
| Walnuts | Figs |
| Canned meats | Avocados |
| Mango | |
| 3. Low | |
| Soy Sauce | Bananas |
| Cottage cheese | Tomatoes |
| Gouda cheese | Plums |
| Eggs | Pork |
| 4. Very Low | |
| Potatoes | Yoghurt |
| Milk, cream | Chicken |
Foods not mentioned above are free of tyramine.
Please note that any diets and dietary advice in the Patient Guidance section of our website are only intended for the patients attending our own clinics in Southampton and London. These diets are based on a recommendation made by one of the Centre doctors after an appropriate consultation. Our advice relating to use of a particular restricted diet is really only appropriate for individual patients who have consulted us and have been individually assessed by one of the doctors from the Centre and advised that they should follow a particular dietary regime. We do not recommend that people use restricted diets without proper medical supervision. We also recommend to our patients that they should not use a restricted diet for more than 6 weeks in the first instance without further consultation with us, as it may result in nutritional deficiencies. Sometimes food exclusion diets may be clinically effective in the long term, but their management will require a balanced nutritional approach.
We hope that visitors to our website who are not our patients will find much to interest them in this website; we aim to present useful, practical, considered and authoritative information on Complementary and Integrated Medicine. We strongly advise that you should not follow a restricted diet without proper medical supervision by a qualified practitioner.
