The author of this article attempts to find out if MSG is truly harmful and if there are people who are actually sensitive to it. To find out if people are actually sensitive or not to MSG would be a huge step towards new research being done on allergies to not only foods, but specific ingredients and chemicals within these foods. For example, people used to not like to eat bread because it made them feel “x” symptom, we now know that these people could possibly have a gluten allergy or intolerance. Since MSG is so commonplace, anybody with a possible intolerance would benefit greatly from any research into the matter. MSG was deemed safe in 1958 and since the early 1990’s has required that all food containing MSG have it labeled in the ingredient list as
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Many dieticians also give MSG to their patients who are on salt-restricted diets as a source of sodium. In 1968 a report from Dr.Robert Kwok described a case series of symptoms that came after eating Northern Chinese food in which he listed MSG as one of the potential culprits, these symptoms became known as “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”. Years later in 1995 the FASEB released a statement renaming it to “MSG Symptom Complex” and added more symptoms to the list including chest pain, facial pressure, headaches and bronchospasm. Since the 1970s six small double blind placebo-controlled trials examining the validity of the MSG Symptom Complex have been released and while all studies were small in size 4 out of the 6 showed no correlation between symptoms and MSG consumption and in the two that were positive, effects were mitigated when MSG was consumed with food, furthering the stance that perhap MSG is only intolerable to a few individuals. Perhaps these studies could be improved if we had more comprehensive studies done under more scrutiny and with a larger pool of subjects, we could have more conclusive
Many dieticians also give MSG to their patients who are on salt-restricted diets as a source of sodium. In 1968 a report from Dr.Robert Kwok described a case series of symptoms that came after eating Northern Chinese food in which he listed MSG as one of the potential culprits, these symptoms became known as “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”. Years later in 1995 the FASEB released a statement renaming it to “MSG Symptom Complex” and added more symptoms to the list including chest pain, facial pressure, headaches and bronchospasm. Since the 1970s six small double blind placebo-controlled trials examining the validity of the MSG Symptom Complex have been released and while all studies were small in size 4 out of the 6 showed no correlation between symptoms and MSG consumption and in the two that were positive, effects were mitigated when MSG was consumed with food, furthering the stance that perhap MSG is only intolerable to a few individuals. Perhaps these studies could be improved if we had more comprehensive studies done under more scrutiny and with a larger pool of subjects, we could have more conclusive