re is msg sensitivity superstition in article apr ohsu edu tong ohsu edu gong tong writes in article apr cunews carleton ca wcsbeau alfred carleton ca opirg writes for cites on msg look up almost anything by john w olney a toxicologist who has studied the effects of msg on the brain and on development it is undisputed in the literature that msg is an excitotoxic food additive and that its major constituent glutamate is essentially the premierie neurotransmitter in the mammalian brain humans included too much in the diet and the system gets thrown off glutamate and aspartate also an excitotoxin are necessary in small amounts and are freely available in many foods but the amounts added by industry are far above the amounts that would normally be encountered in a ny single food by eating lots of junk food packaged soups and diet soft drinks it is possible to jack your blood levels so high that anyone with a sensitivity to these compounds will suffer numerous real physi logical effects read olney s review paper in prog brain res and check his sources they are impecable there is no dispute dianne murray wcsbeau ccs carleton ca in order to excitotoxin effects of msg msg that in blood must go through blood brain barrier that i am not sure msg can go through or not elevated levels of glu and asp in the blood are able to bypass the blood brain barrier through the circumventricular organs or cvo in particular the adeno and neurohypophysis pituitary gland areas the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus and the median eminence regions are particularly effected cvo areas are not subject to the blood brain barrier these areas control the release of gonadotropin which controls the release and flux of steroids governing development especially sexual development changes in adult rats which are less sensitive to glu than humans have been observed after ingesting glu on a chronic basis cycles of several steroids are disrupted blood levels of somatostatin are significantly reduced and cyclic release of steroids becomes flattened hope this helps dianne murray wcsbeau ccs carleton ca
