re is msg sensitivity superstition in article apr cunews carleton ca wcsbeau alfred carleton ca opirg writes in article apr tms micro ti com david tms micro ti com david thomas writes in article apr delphi gsfc nasa gov packer delphi gsfc nasa gov charles packer writes is there such a thing as msg monosodium glutamate sensitivity i saw in the ny times sunday that scientists have testified before an fda advisory panel that complaints about msg sensitivity are superstition anybody here have experience to the contrary i m old enough to remember that the issue has come up at least a couple of times since the s then it was called the chinese restaurant syndrome because chinese cuisine has always used it so far i ve seen about a dozen posts of anecdotal evidence but no facts i suspect there is a strong psychological effect at work here does anyone have results from a scientific study using double blind trials check out just some posts before your own maybe you missed it amidst the flurry of responses yet again the use of this newsgroup is hampered by people not restricting their posts to matters they have substantial knowledge of 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 in normal condition the concentration of glutamate in the cerebrospinal fluid is about um that is high enough to activate one type of glutamate receptor the nmda receptor but the question is neuron and glial cell in the brain have a lots of transport to get glutamate into neuron or glial so no one know exact concentration of glutamate is around neurons glutamate is most important neurotransmitter in the central nervous system it is involved in not only in daily life like the controling of movement it is alsoinvolved in develpoment memory and learn it is involved in logn term potentialtion that be thought is the basis of learning
