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It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

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Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#151

Post by michh »

bookface wrote: post #149
michh wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Evil bankers exist of lots of ethnicities and faiths but lots of people do (often but not always subconsciously) link greedy bankers and jewish people. Just like using unhealthy or even dangerous additives is often linked to Chinese cuisine even though they're used just as much in tons of other cuisines as well. Equating an existent stereotype with one which doesn't actually exist and saying "it's not that ba…

I didn't originally see the connection between MSG and Chinese food as coming from a place of racism, but you might be right. I'm still not so sure though. If somebody said to you "I got food poisoning from a Chinese restaurant last night", would you say "That's racist! An Italian restaurant could have just as easily given you food poisoning."? It's pointless to try to tell people what is and isn't offensive. Normall…

Perhaps the stereotype of Chinese restaurants specifically being untrustworthy/unhealthy/unhygienic (i.e. Chinese chefs don't care about their customers / they're not up to our western standards) isn't universal, but it definitely exists in some parts of the world. MSG is an example of that, another one is the myth that you might just be eating cat or dog being advertised as something different (also often applied to Korean food in a similarly racist way).

Not saying it's high on the prioritised list of racist tropes we need to be fighting, but yeah, it's there.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#152

Post by dsrguru »

tptacek wrote: post #140
wismer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 There are some notable discrepancies with t…

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…

> 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. 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?

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#153

Post by Pitarou »

tptacek wrote: post #138
Pitarou wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what I know: 1. I occasionally get symptoms often associated with MSG. Terrible headache, confusion, nasal drip, nausea, and so on. It can put me out of action for about 12 hours. 2. I invariably get these symptoms about 24 hours after I've eaten processed foods with an unusually rich flavour and which have, somewhere in their ingredients, either MSG or something that might conceal MSG (e.g. "flavourings"). I…

The "synthetic" MSG you're referring to isn't synthesized, it's cultured by bacteria in sugar. There is a chemical process to create MSG, but it is significantly more expensive; the shift to fermentation happened in the '70s, so you may never have had chemically synthesized MSG.

Thanks for pointing that out. So "synthetic" is the wrong word. Maybe "industrially produced"?

Anyway, if it's made by bacteria, that suggests that it's enantiopure, so there goes one of my hypotheses about the cause of the problem. The ones I'm left with are:

- it's something else entirely that's making me ill

- the naturally-occurring MSG is bound up with other substances in some way that makes it safe for me to consume

I guess there's nothing for it other than for me to pick a weekend when I'm not busy, swallow a teaspoon of the stuff, and see what happens.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#154

Post by espeed »

tptacek wrote: post #92
espeed wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ). 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…

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…

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-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).

Dr. Olney and Harvard scientist Dr. 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-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)

* Excitatory Amino Acids in Neurologic Disorders (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)

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_reac...). You can order a copy from the LSRO FASEB (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-...).

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.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#155

Post by sjwright »

pessimizer wrote: post #133
sjwright wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with the OP; there's no reason to suggest there is anything racist about the label Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. It appears a few people have been hyper-sensitized to a bad definition of racism.

You mean other than the implication that it is exclusive to restaurants owned by the Chinese?

That's quite naive -- and dare I say a little racist -- to assume that all chinese restaurants are owned by Chinese people, or that Chinese people only run chinese restaurants.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#156

Post by sjwright »

hristov wrote: post #86
sjwright wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your attempt at a rationalization is logically flawed to the point of embarrassment.

If you think there is a logical flaw in my argument say what it is. If you do not feel like saying what it is, then do not post. You must be very proud of yourself for composing a sentence with several big words in it, but it means absolutely nothing.

The logical flaw is that you assume that all studies are worthy of consideration, and the hidden inference that equal weight should be given to a study regardless of its methodology or rigor.

Good information generally cancels out bad information. I have no particular opinion about the veracity of any MSG claim, but there have been so many bad dietary studies published. I would urge a skeptical default position on any result, and only moderate skepticism based on evidence of sample size, methodology and rigor.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#157

Post by tptacek »

dsrguru wrote: post #152
tptacek wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 . There is debate about whether consuming se…

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23213158

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#158

Post by tptacek »

Pitarou wrote: post #153
tptacek wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "synthetic" MSG you're referring to isn't synthesized, it's cultured by bacteria in sugar. There is a chemical process to create MSG, but it is significantly more expensive; the shift to fermentation happened in the '70s, so you may never have had chemically synthesized MSG.

Thanks for pointing that out. So "synthetic" is the wrong word. Maybe "industrially produced"? Anyway, if it's made by bacteria, that suggests that it's enantiopure, so there goes one of my hypotheses about the cause of the problem. The ones I'm left with are: - it's something else entirely that's making me ill - the naturally-occurring MSG is bound up with other substances in some way that makes it safe for me to co…

Try eating some Roquefort cheese; it's almost nothing but salt, fat, water, and protein, half of which is glutamic acid.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#159

Post by dsrguru »

tptacek wrote: post #157
dsrguru wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 . There is debate about whether consuming se…

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23213158

Thanks for the link. I can only access the abstract, but conflicting results "over the extent to which elevated salt consumption has adverse implications for population health" is very different from saying that "there is a widespread and unsupported belief that moderation of sodium intake is a key public health concern, which it is not."

It sounds like the article concludes, contrary to your memory, that as a result of non-objective scientific practices, the public incorrectly believes that high sodium intake is definitely a huge problem for all, when in reality, it's either a huge problem for all, or it's a huge problem for some, or it's a huge problem for some and a small problem for others, or it's a small problem for some.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#160

Post by Figs »

tptacek wrote: post #139
Figs wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone conducted a study to test if the headaches are actually just dehydration?

Yes, but the result was "we couldn't induce headaches at all, except in subjects who had in fact consumed a placebo". Studies have decisively refuted a link between MSG and CRS.

I meant -- has anyone tried to see if people who complain about headaches after eating at Chinese restaurants are just dehydrated from eating too much salt?
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