From: wcsbeau@alfred.carleton.ca (OPIRG)
Subject: Re: Is MSG sensitivity superstition?
Organization: Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 111

In article <1993Apr16.190447.8242@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>In article <1993Apr16.155123.447@cunews.carleton.ca>
wcsbeau@alfred.carleton.ca (OPIRG) writes:
>
>>Maybe you missed it amidst the flurry of responses?
>
>You mean the responses some of which pointed to double-blind tests
>which show no such "chinese restaurant effect" unique to MSG
>(it's elicited by the placebo as well.)

Many people responded with more anecdotal stories; I think its safe to
say the original poster is already familiar with such stories.
Presumably, he wants hard info to substantiate or refute claims about
MSG making people ill. 

Similarly, debunking such claims without doing research (whether
literature and lab), is equally beside the point. The original poster
no doubt already knows that some people think 'Chinese Restaurant
Syndrome' is bogus.

Placebos are all very interesting, but irrelevant to the question of
what effects MSG has. You could have real effects *and* placebo
effects; people may have allergies in addition. 

>
>>Yet again, the use of this
>>newsgroup is hampered by people not restricting their posts to matters
>>they have substantial knowledge of.
>
>Like youself?  Someone who can read a scientific paper and apparently
>come away from it with bizarrely cracked ideas which have nothing to
>do with the use of this substance in human nutrition?

Have you read Olney's work? I fail to see how citing results from
peer-reviewed studies qualifies as "bizarrely cracked".

>>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,
>
>No, it's undisputed in the literature that glutamate is an amino acid
>which is an excitatory neurotransmitter.  There is also evidence that
>excessive release of glutamate may be involved in the pathology of certain
>conditions like stroke, drowning and Lou Gehrig's disease, just to name a few.
>This is a completely different issue than the use of this ubiquitous amino acid
>in foods.  People are not receiving intra-ventricular injections of glutamate.

Tests have been done on Rhesus monkeys, as well. I have never seen a
study where the mode of administration was intra-ventricular.  The Glu
and Asp were administered orally. Some studies used IV and SC.
Intra-ventricular is not a normal admin. method for food tox. studies,
for obvious reasons. You must not have read the peer-reviewed works
that I referred to or you would never have come up with this brain
injection bunk.

>>Too much in the diet, and the system gets thrown off.
>
>Sez you.  Such an effect in humans has not been demonstrated in any
>controlled studies.  Infant mice and other models are useful as far
>as they go, but they're not relevant to the matter at hand.  Which is
>not to say that I favor its use in things like baby food--a patently
>ridiculous use of the additive.  But we have no reason to believe
>that MSG in the diet effects humans adversely.

Pardon me, but where are you getting this from? Have you read the
journals? Have you done a thorough literature search?

But, you're right, mice aren't the best to study this on. They're four
times less sensitive than humans to MSG.

>>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.
>
>Wrong.  Do you know how much aspartate or phenylalanine is in a soft drink?
>Milligrams worth.  Compare that to a glass of milk.  Do you know how much
>glutamate is present in most protein-containing foods compared to that
>added by the use of MSG?

The point is exceeding the window. Of course, they're amino acids.
Note that people with PKU cannot tolerate any phenylalanine.

Olney's research compared infant human diets. Specifically, the amount
of freely available Glu in mother's milk versus commercial baby foods,
vs. typical lunch items from the Standard American Diet such as packaged
soup mixes. He found that one could exceed the projected safety margin
for infant humans by at least four-fold in a single meal of processed
foods. Mother's milk was well below the effective dose.


>>Read Olney's review paper in Prog. Brain Res, 1988, and check *his*
>>sources. They are impecable. There is no dispute.
>
>Impeccable.  There most certainly is a dispute.

Between who? Over what? I would be most interested in seeing you
provide peer-reviewed non-food-industry-funded citations to articles
disputing that MSG has no effects whatsoever. 

>
>Steve Dyer
>dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer

Hmm. ".com". Why am I not surprised?

- Dianne Murray   wcsbeau@ccs.carleton.ca

