5 ms·

It's not the sodium, it's the glutamate (the "G" in MSG). Glutamate is an excitotoxin, and it's an additive in almost all processed foods, in various forms wit

by espeed 13y ago

It's not the sodium, it's the glutamate (the "G" in MSG). Glutamate is an excitotoxin, and it's an additive in almost all processed foods, in various forms with many different names (http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html). Excitotoxicity is the "pathological process by which nerve cells are damaged and killed by excessive stimulation by neurotransmitters such as glutamate and similar substances" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity). As the article says, when glutamate is consumed naturally, it is intertwined with fiber and other chemicals that regulate its uptake; however, glutamate additives are not and thus flood your body with glutamate, which can overload your blood-brain barrier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier) and disrupt the delicate balance. This is akin to Dr. Lustig's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lustig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lustig) findings on sugar (fructose): Eating whole fruits is fine because you're consuming fiber with the fructose (nature provides the antidote), but fruit juice is all fructose and no fiber so your body is flooded with fructose, which is toxic (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.htm...).

ricardobeat 13y ago
But nobody eats MSG by itself like fruit juice, won't mixing it to food that contains fiber and 'other chemicals' have the same effect?
- espeed 13y ago
  No, because adding extra glutamate means the ratio of glutamate will be higher than the counterbalance.
  - ricardobeat 13y ago
    That went over my head. What do you mean? When making a risotto I might use 100g of parmesan cheese, which can amount to ~8g of MSG according to the internets, plus eat tomatoes on the side. That's the equivalent of 12g of Ajinomoto, I can't imagine adding that much to any dish.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- 001sky 13y ago
  Take the sauce in a chinese stir fry. Its ingredients: water, corn starch, and msg. Maybe some other things (flavorings). That's not too much different than putting msg in fruit juice. In the sense that the msg is in a sugar solution with no natural chemistry mitigants or fiber. Because its ~suspended in solution, its not clear its uptake would be regulated by adjacet fiber. In research, the rats used as controls were fed nutritious food. Given a choice of water and alcohol to drink, these rats chose water. Rats fed [msg laced] junk food chose alcohol to drink over water. Unrelated, but interesting.
  - jzwinck 13y ago
    > Rats fed [msg laced] junk food chose alcohol to drink over water. Beer goes great with salty food. We know this already, but why?
    - 001sky 13y ago
      Stimulant (msg) and depressant (achohol) would be my guess.
    - brianleb 13y ago
      A simplified explanation: Salty food causes you to retain fluid due to osmotic pressure (see one of my other comments in this link). Alcohol is a diuretic, which causes you to expel fluid. There are more reasons, but this is the easiest to understand.
      - zeroonetwothree 13y ago
        Wine and many other alcoholic drinks don't go well with salty food. Clearly it just has to do with the flavor of beer specifically.
wismer 13y ago
I'm highly skeptical of Truthinlabeling.org. The person/group behind it seem to highlight a kindle book alleging a link between Alzheimer's and MSG? The information is also rather muddled and unclear. I would not consider this to be a reliable source. I'd also encourage anyone reading the above links to take a peek at this: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Excitotoxicity http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Excitotoxicity There are some notable discrepancies with the article and it seems clear that this is not a black and white issue, but rather complicated.
- tptacek 13y ago
  It's not complicated. It's been studied directly. It is an easy study to conduct. Give people MSG. Do they become symptomatic? The answer is no. This is the result you would expect, given the simple molecular structure of MSG and the fundamental role glutamic acid plays in the human body. If we had learned about table salt in the 1910s and knew it primarily by its formula name NaCl, people would believe all manner of weird things about salt, too. In fact, people do believe weird things about salt; there is a widespread and unsupported belief that moderation of sodium intake is a key public health concern, which it is not. It's the same with MSG. Dissolve MSG and you get sodium and an amino acid that is so important to our bodies that we produce it ourselves, without sourcing it from our food or the environment; an amino acid that is thus, unsurprisingly, hugely prevalent in foods we "naturally" eat.
  - wismer 13y ago
    I agree. My knowledge of the subject is little but the parent author of this thread came off as hyperbolic. I don't understand human biology well, so I left open the possibility that I may have an incorrect opinion, as it uneducated. My opinion is MSG is safe and delicious.
  - dsrguru 13y ago
    > In fact, people do believe weird things about salt; there is a widespread and unsupported belief that moderation of sodium intake is a key public health concern, which it is not. It's not an unsupported belief. Studies have shown that high sodium intake is a significant contributor to hypertension. Here is one such study: http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/3/235 http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/3/235. There is debate about whether consuming several thousand milligrams of sodium a day adversely affects blood pressure in everyone or only in some people, but that it's a major contributor to hypertension (9-17% of cases) is supported. If you have specific criticisms of the methodology of those kinds of studies or if you have links to sources that dispute the above, I'd be interesting in reading them. Or are you saying that what's unsupported is the notion that the above makes sodium intake a key public health concern?
refurb 13y ago
Just because something is a neurotoxin when put on cells in a petri dish, doesn't mean it's toxic to an intact, living organism. I have seen no proof that glutamate, when ingested orally, has any excitotoxicity activity.
tptacek 13y ago
This claim sounds non-falsifiable; it amounts to saying that glutamates (in any form) as an additive must be doing something different than glutamates in tomatoes, where it's "bound in fibers", just because. Where, for instance, is the fiber in Parmigiano cheese? Glutamate is very common in "natural" foodstuffs and plays key roles in our bodies. The notion that small quantities of glutamate (such as would be used to season food) render it toxic is an extraordinary claim, and requires extraordinary evidence.
- espeed 13y ago
  The quote from the Smithsonian Mag article -- "Glutamates that occur naturally in food come intertwined with different chemicals or fiber, which the body is naturally inclined to regulate" -- is by Amy Cheng Vollmer (http://www.swarthmore.edu/academics/biology/faculty-and-staff/amy-cheng-vollmer.xml http://www.swarthmore.edu/academics/biology/faculty-and-staf...), professor of biology at Swarthmore College. Some of the first evidence that glutamate additives were dangerous was provided by Dr. John W. Olney in 1969: "Brain Lesions, Obesity, and Other Disturbances in Mice Treated with Monosodium Glutamate" (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/164/3880/719 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/164/3880/719). Dr. Olney and Harvard scientist Dr. Jean Mayer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Mayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Mayer) independently came to the same conclusion and led to the food industry removing MSG from baby food (and later all the MSG variants) because a baby's blood-brain barrier isn't fully developed so it can't protect against increased glutamate consumption: The Harvard Crimson: Baby Food Manufacturers Will Suspend Use of MSG (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/10/27/baby-food-manufacturers-will-suspend-use/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/10/27/baby-food-manuf...) There is plenty of recent research that shows glutamate's effects on the brain... * Serum proteins bypass the blood-brain fluid barriers for extracellular entry to the central nervous system (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8491281 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8491281) * Excitatory Amino Acids in Neurologic Disorders (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199407283310414 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199407283310414) * Dana Foundation: Protecting the Brain from a Glutamate Storm (http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=7376 http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=7376) However, one of the most interesting reports is the government's 1995 Life Sciences Research Office (LSRO) of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) report: "Analysis of Adverse Reactions to Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)". The full FASEB 293 page report is not available online in digital form (http://books.google.com/books/about/Analysis_of_adverse_reactions_to_monosod.html?id=O1BrAAAAMAAJ http://books.google.com/books/about/Analysis_of_adverse_reac...). You can order a copy from the LSRO FASEB (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/FR-1995-10-03/95-24594/content-detail.html http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/FR-1995-10-03/95-24594/cont...), and there are a few used copies on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Adverse-Reactions-Monosodium-Glutamate/dp/0943029031/ http://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Adverse-Reactions-Monosodium-...). Here are a few statements from the report (I'll write up a more detailed blog post of my notes on this later): * Page 29: "The net result is that certain areas of the brain may be vulnerable to acute, large, magnitude fluctuations in plasma glutamate concentrations because flooding from adjacent circumentrical organs." * Page 42: "Levels of ingested MSG might be sufficient to raise the concentration of blood glutumate and related compounds enough to change the levels of these amino acids in the brain, particularly in the circumvention areas not protected by the blood-brain barrier." * Page 42-43 (regarding the Pineal gland): "The elevated levels of glutumate and related compounds would have adverse neuroexcitatory effects, be neurotoxic, and/or initiate a chain of metabolic events that would result in either neurotoxicity or the release of substances that would cause the neurological manifestations reportedly associated with MSG exposure." * Page 46: "It is conceivable that the consumption of MSG in genetically or otherwise predisposed individuals can exacerbate a preexisting neurological condition." * Page 100: "In contrast, glutumate concentrations in the extracellular fluid in brain regions not protected by the blood-brain barrier will closely mirror changes in circulating glutumate concentrations." * Page 103: "Theoretically, if blood levels seen in animals as a result of MSG challenge were achived in humans, similar lesions and/or neuroendocrine effects would be expected to occur." * See pages 28, 29, 43-48, 96, 100, and 104 for citations that the blood-brain barrier can be breached at several sites in the normal brain.

by espeed 13y ago

ricardobeat 13y ago

But nobody eats MSG by itself like fruit juice, won't mixing it to food that contains fiber and 'other chemicals' have the same effect?

espeed 13y ago
No, because adding extra glutamate means the ratio of glutamate will be higher than the counterbalance.
- ricardobeat 13y ago
  That went over my head. What do you mean? When making a risotto I might use 100g of parmesan cheese, which can amount to ~8g of MSG according to the internets, plus eat tomatoes on the side. That's the equivalent of 12g of Ajinomoto, I can't imagine adding that much to any dish.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
001sky 13y ago
Take the sauce in a chinese stir fry. Its ingredients: water, corn starch, and msg. Maybe some other things (flavorings). That's not too much different than putting msg in fruit juice. In the sense that the msg is in a sugar solution with no natural chemistry mitigants or fiber. Because its ~suspended in solution, its not clear its uptake would be regulated by adjacet fiber. In research, the rats used as controls were fed nutritious food. Given a choice of water and alcohol to drink, these rats chose water. Rats fed [msg laced] junk food chose alcohol to drink over water. Unrelated, but interesting.
- jzwinck 13y ago
  > Rats fed [msg laced] junk food chose alcohol to drink over water. Beer goes great with salty food. We know this already, but why?
  - 001sky 13y ago
    Stimulant (msg) and depressant (achohol) would be my guess.
  - brianleb 13y ago
    A simplified explanation: Salty food causes you to retain fluid due to osmotic pressure (see one of my other comments in this link). Alcohol is a diuretic, which causes you to expel fluid. There are more reasons, but this is the easiest to understand.
    - zeroonetwothree 13y ago
      Wine and many other alcoholic drinks don't go well with salty food. Clearly it just has to do with the flavor of beer specifically.

wismer 13y ago

I'm highly skeptical of Truthinlabeling.org. The person/group behind it seem to highlight a kindle book alleging a link between Alzheimer's and MSG? The information is also rather muddled and unclear. I would not consider this to be a reliable source. I'd also encourage anyone reading the above links to take a peek at this: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Excitotoxicity http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Excitotoxicity There are some notable discrepancies with the article and it seems clear that this is not a black and white issue, but rather complicated.

tptacek 13y ago
It's not complicated. It's been studied directly. It is an easy study to conduct. Give people MSG. Do they become symptomatic? The answer is no. This is the result you would expect, given the simple molecular structure of MSG and the fundamental role glutamic acid plays in the human body. If we had learned about table salt in the 1910s and knew it primarily by its formula name NaCl, people would believe all manner of weird things about salt, too. In fact, people do believe weird things about salt; there is a widespread and unsupported belief that moderation of sodium intake is a key public health concern, which it is not. It's the same with MSG. Dissolve MSG and you get sodium and an amino acid that is so important to our bodies that we produce it ourselves, without sourcing it from our food or the environment; an amino acid that is thus, unsurprisingly, hugely prevalent in foods we "naturally" eat.
- wismer 13y ago
  I agree. My knowledge of the subject is little but the parent author of this thread came off as hyperbolic. I don't understand human biology well, so I left open the possibility that I may have an incorrect opinion, as it uneducated. My opinion is MSG is safe and delicious.
- dsrguru 13y ago
  > In fact, people do believe weird things about salt; there is a widespread and unsupported belief that moderation of sodium intake is a key public health concern, which it is not. It's not an unsupported belief. Studies have shown that high sodium intake is a significant contributor to hypertension. Here is one such study: http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/3/235 http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/3/235. There is debate about whether consuming several thousand milligrams of sodium a day adversely affects blood pressure in everyone or only in some people, but that it's a major contributor to hypertension (9-17% of cases) is supported. If you have specific criticisms of the methodology of those kinds of studies or if you have links to sources that dispute the above, I'd be interesting in reading them. Or are you saying that what's unsupported is the notion that the above makes sodium intake a key public health concern?

refurb 13y ago

Just because something is a neurotoxin when put on cells in a petri dish, doesn't mean it's toxic to an intact, living organism. I have seen no proof that glutamate, when ingested orally, has any excitotoxicity activity.

tptacek 13y ago

This claim sounds non-falsifiable; it amounts to saying that glutamates (in any form) as an additive must be doing something different than glutamates in tomatoes, where it's "bound in fibers", just because. Where, for instance, is the fiber in Parmigiano cheese? Glutamate is very common in "natural" foodstuffs and plays key roles in our bodies. The notion that small quantities of glutamate (such as would be used to season food) render it toxic is an extraordinary claim, and requires extraordinary evidence.

espeed 13y ago
The quote from the Smithsonian Mag article -- "Glutamates that occur naturally in food come intertwined with different chemicals or fiber, which the body is naturally inclined to regulate" -- is by Amy Cheng Vollmer (http://www.swarthmore.edu/academics/biology/faculty-and-staff/amy-cheng-vollmer.xml http://www.swarthmore.edu/academics/biology/faculty-and-staf...), professor of biology at Swarthmore College. Some of the first evidence that glutamate additives were dangerous was provided by Dr. John W. Olney in 1969: "Brain Lesions, Obesity, and Other Disturbances in Mice Treated with Monosodium Glutamate" (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/164/3880/719 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/164/3880/719). Dr. Olney and Harvard scientist Dr. Jean Mayer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Mayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Mayer) independently came to the same conclusion and led to the food industry removing MSG from baby food (and later all the MSG variants) because a baby's blood-brain barrier isn't fully developed so it can't protect against increased glutamate consumption: The Harvard Crimson: Baby Food Manufacturers Will Suspend Use of MSG (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/10/27/baby-food-manufacturers-will-suspend-use/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/10/27/baby-food-manuf...) There is plenty of recent research that shows glutamate's effects on the brain... * Serum proteins bypass the blood-brain fluid barriers for extracellular entry to the central nervous system (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8491281 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8491281) * Excitatory Amino Acids in Neurologic Disorders (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199407283310414 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199407283310414) * Dana Foundation: Protecting the Brain from a Glutamate Storm (http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=7376 http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=7376) However, one of the most interesting reports is the government's 1995 Life Sciences Research Office (LSRO) of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) report: "Analysis of Adverse Reactions to Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)". The full FASEB 293 page report is not available online in digital form (http://books.google.com/books/about/Analysis_of_adverse_reactions_to_monosod.html?id=O1BrAAAAMAAJ http://books.google.com/books/about/Analysis_of_adverse_reac...). You can order a copy from the LSRO FASEB (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/FR-1995-10-03/95-24594/content-detail.html http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/FR-1995-10-03/95-24594/cont...), and there are a few used copies on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Adverse-Reactions-Monosodium-Glutamate/dp/0943029031/ http://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Adverse-Reactions-Monosodium-...). Here are a few statements from the report (I'll write up a more detailed blog post of my notes on this later): * Page 29: "The net result is that certain areas of the brain may be vulnerable to acute, large, magnitude fluctuations in plasma glutamate concentrations because flooding from adjacent circumentrical organs." * Page 42: "Levels of ingested MSG might be sufficient to raise the concentration of blood glutumate and related compounds enough to change the levels of these amino acids in the brain, particularly in the circumvention areas not protected by the blood-brain barrier." * Page 42-43 (regarding the Pineal gland): "The elevated levels of glutumate and related compounds would have adverse neuroexcitatory effects, be neurotoxic, and/or initiate a chain of metabolic events that would result in either neurotoxicity or the release of substances that would cause the neurological manifestations reportedly associated with MSG exposure." * Page 46: "It is conceivable that the consumption of MSG in genetically or otherwise predisposed individuals can exacerbate a preexisting neurological condition." * Page 100: "In contrast, glutumate concentrations in the extracellular fluid in brain regions not protected by the blood-brain barrier will closely mirror changes in circulating glutumate concentrations." * Page 103: "Theoretically, if blood levels seen in animals as a result of MSG challenge were achived in humans, similar lesions and/or neuroendocrine effects would be expected to occur." * See pages 28, 29, 43-48, 96, 100, and 104 for citations that the blood-brain barrier can be breached at several sites in the normal brain.