January 2021

It’s “just sodium and the amino acid glutamate, which is found in nature” is how Leslie Nemo, writing in discovermagazine.com, leads into the latest piece of MSG-is-good-for-you propaganda that’s been sent to us recently.

Not having a party to go to on New Year’s Eve, I thought it might be fun to pick apart what Nemo had to say about monosodium glutamate, starting with her title: MSG Isn’t Bad For You, According to Science.

So, let’s start at the beginning with “According to Science.” My guess is that Nemo’s version of science is what David Michaels wrote about in his book The Triumph of Doubt, Dark Money and the Science of Deception.”

The Triumph of Doubt reveals how “science for hire” tactics that can be traced from Big Tobacco to the current day affects food, cosmetics, cars and even professional sports.

If, for example, you use only subjects who have never had any reactions known to be caused by MSG, chances are good that the subjects in your study won’t have MSG reactions. If you limit your subjects to people on anti-migraine drugs, chances are good that your subjects won’t have migraines. Research by Ajinomoto (likely the world’s largest producer of MSG) has been carried out by a variety of academics from various universities and medical schools who were given study protocols and supervised by Andrew G. Ebert (Ajinomoto’s agent in charge of research at the time). Although they had common elements, no two studies were identical.

There was, however, one element that was shared by all — the use of excitotoxic amino acids in “placebos.” By giving subjects placebos that cause the same reactions as those caused by MSG, there could be as many reactions to placebos as there are to MSG test material. From that, researchers could declare they had demonstrated that people really don’t react to MSG. But to make sure the conclusion that MSG is harmless would be beyond reproach, glutamate-industry researchers guaranteed that subjects would react to placebos with the same reactions that are caused by MSG. They did that by using aspartame as the toxic ingredient in their placebos, which worked well because the aspartic acid in aspartame and the glutamic acid in MSG cause virtually identical reactions (as well as identical brain damage). Having set that up, glutamate-industry researchers (and the propaganda artists who quote them) will say “These people aren’t sensitive to MSG, they reacted to the placebo too.”

What Leslie Nemo would have us believe may sound like science but doesn’t begin to be sound science. First Nemo claims that research hasn’t backed up claims that physical symptoms develop after eating MSG. Study participants she says, given MSG or a placebo capsule are typically just as likely to get headaches or numbness, no matter which one they consumed.

Such studies would have been done under the direction of Dr. Ebert wherein placebos contained amino acids known to cause the same brain damage and reactions as those caused by the glutamic acid in MSG.

Another study mentioned in the Discover article was of 60 individuals, finding that two who had ingested MSG broth felt tightness or numbness — but so did six people who had coffee and spiced tomato juice which didn’t contain MSG.

In that study, the key to producing negative results (no effect of MSG) would have been to add “Equal” and/or aspartame to the coffee and spiced tomato juice “which didn’t contain MSG.” Both of those additives contain aspartic acid, an amino acid known to cause the same brain damage and adverse reactions as MSG.

Nemo also details a study where researchers who recorded the responses of 130 people who thought they were sensitive to MSG found that some individuals may show more symptoms when eating the additive without other food. But when participants ingested the MSG serving as part of their breakfast, their symptoms disappeared.

In that kind of study, potential subjects (usually graduate students) were told they would be paid several hundred dollars to participate in the study if they said they were “sensitive” to MSG. Sensitivity was never verified.

As told by Leslie Nemo, some of the world’s largest food safety governing bodies have approved MSG, and the FDA considers it to be “generally recognized as safe.” Many other organizations have decided the same, she says, including JECFA, an international scientific committee administered jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Health Organization.

It is true that persons who have identified themselves as representing The Glutamate Association, an organization created and maintained by Ajinomoto, have declared that both the FDA and regulators around the world have found monosodium glutamate to be safe. However, neither independent scientists nor independent regulators have deemed monosodium glutamate safe. FDA studies, which were actually reviews, have always been staffed by persons with ties to the glutamate industry. And those regulators and/or authoritative bodies did no research of their own, but were given copies of FDA opinions on MSG safety or were provided review information by Ajinomoto, its not-for-profit corporations, and/or its agents — the International Food Information Council (IFIC) and the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), for example.

In addition to citing research, Nemo plays the “naturally occurring” card: “monosodium glutamate is just sodium and the amino acid glutamate, which is found in nature.” True, glutamate is found in nature, but the glutamate used in MSG isn’t culled from nature. In the United States it is produced in Ajinomoto’s factory in Eddyville, Iowa. The glutamate used in MSG is L-glutamate, the L enantiomer of glutamic acid (glutamate), an amino acid which when present in protein or released from protein in a regulated fashion (through routine digestion) is vital for normal body function. It is the principal neurotransmitter in humans, carrying nerve impulses from glutamate stimuli to glutamate receptors throughout the body. Yet, when present outside of protein in amounts that exceed what the healthy human body was designed to accommodate — an amount now readily available in a diet of processed foods — glutamate becomes an excitotoxic neurotransmitter, firing repeatedly, damaging targeted glutamate-receptors and/or causing neuronal and non-neuronal death by over exciting those glutamate receptors until their host cells die.

Predictably, Nemo failed to site research demonstrating the toxic potential of MSG – such as brain damage followed by gross obesity and infertility. You can learn more about that at the Truth in Labeling Campaign — https://truthinlabeling.org/evidence_brain_damage.html — tells part of the story.

If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. And if you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, we’ll put them up on Facebook. You can also reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling

It’s not an allergen as defined by the FDA, so it won’t be singled out on ingredient labels of processed foods as something vulnerable consumers have to watch out for. It’s also not identified as an artificial flavor by the FDA. Rather, when referred to as a flavor enhancer it’s called “natural” or “naturally occurring.”

But all that has nothing to do with the product’s safety and everything to do with the wealth, power and political connections of the people who manufacture and market the excitotoxic – brain damaging – amino acid that the glutamate industry declares is just a harmless ingredient used in a multitude of food additives.

You know it best as monosodium glutamate (MSG), but the world is slowly catching on to the fact that autolyzed yeast, calcium and sodium caseinates, maltodextrin, and the hydrolyzed protein products, for example, contain excitotoxic glutamate just as MSG does. And it’s the manufactured free glutamate (MfG) in MSG and in these other ingredients that causes brain damage, gross obesity and infertility, and plays a role in triggering asthma, fibromyalgia, migraine headache, skin rash and seizures as well.

MSG is a man-made product composed of L-glutamic acid (L-glutamate), sodium, moisture, D-glutamic acid (D-glutamate), pyroglutamic acid, and other impurities (unwanted and unavoidable by-products of the manufacture of L-glutamate). MSG is manufactured in plants throughout the world. In the United States, MSG is produced in Ajinomoto’s factory in Eddyville, Iowa. Its principal ingredient is its excitotoxic – brain damaging — glutamate.

L-glutamate is the L enantiomer of glutamic acid (glutamate), an amino acid which when present in protein or released from protein in a regulated fashion (through routine digestion) is vital for normal body function. It is the principal neurotransmitter in humans, carrying nerve impulses from glutamate stimuli to glutamate receptors throughout the body. Yet, when present outside of protein in amounts that exceed what the healthy human body was designed to accommodate — an amount now readily available in a diet of processed foods — glutamate becomes an excitotoxic neurotransmitter, firing repeatedly, damaging targeted glutamate-receptors and/or causing neuronal and non-neuronal death by over exciting those glutamate receptors until their host cells die.

It’s truly a grand scheme for deceiving the public. There’s a toxic substance used in scores of processed foods, and because it’s a constituent of an ingredient (like arsenic in rice would be), poisonous or not, it won’t be disclosed on food labels.

FDA/industry cooperation goes back to 1958, when “monosodium glutamate” was first deemed “safe” by the FDA. Deemed to be safe because prior to the institution of the GRAS classification in 1958, there had been no record of adverse reactions to “monosodium glutamate,” which had not been tested for safety. Looking back, with hindsight as our guide, we now understand what took place. In 1957, the method for producing monosodium glutamate had been changed from the slow and costly method of extracting glutamate from protein (for which there were no reports of adverse reactions) to a method of bacterial fermentation which not only created a different product, but allowed for virtually unlimited production of glutamate and MSG.

The first record of FDA/industry cooperation/collusion that we have in our files is from September of 1969, when then FDA Commissioner Ley testified before the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Health, presenting evidence from four studies that, he alleged, demonstrated that MSG was safe. It was later disclosed that two of the studies Commissioner Ley cited were incomplete and two did not even exist.

Before 1969, there had been no need for FDA/industry cooperation/collusion. It was not until 1968 that the first report of adverse reactions to monosodium glutamate was published in The New England Journal of Medicine, and not until 1969 that the first evidence that monosodium glutamate caused brain lesions and endocrine disorders in experimental animals was published in Science.

The FDA has built and then reinforced its case for the “safety” of MSG on misleading and deceptive studies sponsored by the glutamate industry. FDA regulations require that those who manufacture food additives must provide evidence demonstrating that they are “safe.” The glutamate industry has, indeed, presented evidence, but they have falsified data — not by changing test scores or research results, but by rigging the procedures used in conducting their studies so that only after careful scrutiny would one discern that their studies were flawed to the point of being fraudulent.* Glutamate industry studies are generally methodologically inadequate, statistically unsound, and/or irrelevant to the safety/toxicity of MSG. Researchers have gone so far as to use aspartame and/or MSG in placebos to cause subjects to respond to placebos just as they would respond to monosodium glutamate test material. In addition, industry’s researchers have been known to draw conclusions that did not follow from the results of their studies.

Over the course of the last 46 years, the FDA has summarily dismissed much of the research that clearly demonstrates that MSG places humans at risk. They don’t counter it. They simply ignore it. Reports of adverse reactions to MSG collected by its own Adverse Reactions Monitoring System have been dismissed because “they could have been caused by something else.”

The FDA has suppressed results of studies that might suggest that use of MSG places humans at risk. The FDA suppressed results of its own study that suggested that use of free glutamic acid in supplements is unsafe. In a July 1992, report to the FDA, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) had concluded, in part, that: “…it is prudent to avoid the use of dietary supplements of L-glutamic acid by pregnant women, infants, and children…. and…by women of childbearing age and individuals with affective disorders.” (MSG is called L-glutamic acid when used in supplements.) Mention has not been made of those recommendations – not to the medical community or anywhere else.

Yes, a truly a grand scheme for deceiving the public.

*The term ‘fraud’ is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage. [Fraud may also include an omission or intentional failure to state material facts, knowledge of which would be necessary to make other statements not misleading.] Accessed on 11/4/2010 at the ‘Lectric Law Library’s Lexicon.

Resources
Samuels A. (2020) Dose dependent toxicity of glutamic acid: a review, International Journal of Food Properties, 23:1, 412-419, DOI: 10.1080/10942912.2020.1733016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10942912.2020.1733016

Excitotoxicity and cell damage https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/excitotoxicity.htm

Ischemia-Triggered Glutamate Excitotoxicity From the Perspective of Glial Cells https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncel.2020.00051/full

Month: January 2021

Is it sound science, or does it simply sound like science?

A truly grand scheme for deceiving the public