Infertility? You could blame it on your mother – but there really was no way for her to have known.

According to the American Pregnancy Association, there are three main causes of infertility in males: a hypothalamic or pituitary disorder (1-2%), gonad disorder (30-40%), and sperm transport disorder (10-20%). That leaves 40-50% of cases with unknown causes.

None of these, however, is a root cause of infertility. They are names of categories of disorders that define infertility. Infertility may be traced back to a hypothalamic or pituitary disorder, for example, but the question remains –what caused those disorders to begin with?

Science combined with simple logic focused on problem solving says that hypothalamic, pituitary, gonad and sperm transport disorders are caused by damage done to the vulnerable, developing brains of fetuses and infants by brain-damaging chemicals, delivered by pregnant and lactating women.

1) Brain damage, followed by reproductive disorders, can be produced in human fetuses and newborns whose brains are not fully developed.

2) Excitotoxic amino acids (glutamic acid and aspartic acid) will cause brain damage when delivered in quantity to developing, vulnerable brains.

3) Brain-damaging amino acids consumed by pregnant and lactating women will be passed to their fetus through the placenta and to infants through mother’s milk.

4) Excitotoxic amino acids are readily available in processed and ultra-processed foods, protein powders and protein drinks, protein substitutes, flavor enhancers, pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements, cosmetics, and vaccine excipients.

Here’s how it works

A study demonstrating glutamate-induced brain damage was published in Science by John Olney, M.D. way back in 1969, titled “Brain lesions, obesity, and other disturbances in mice treated with monosodium glutamate.” Olney established that:

1) Brain damage, followed by reproductive disorders, can be produced in newborn mice, whose brains are not fully developed. A student in Olney’s lab had observed that mice being used in studies of glutamate-induced retinal dysfunction had become grotesquely obese. A series of studies by Olney and others followed. Many of them were studies of MSG fed to animals.

2) Excitotoxic amino acids (glutamic acid and aspartic acid) will cause brain damage when delivered in quantity to the vulnerable brains of neonatal mice.

When present in amounts needed for normal body function, glutamic acid is essential. But when accumulated in amounts greater than that needed for normal body function, the neurotransmitter glutamic acid becomes an excitotoxic neurotransmitter, firing repeatedly, damaging the cells that host targeted glutamate-receptors and/or causing death by over-exciting those glutamate receptors until their host cells die.

3) Excitotoxic amino acids can be delivered to neonatal mice through feeding.

In the laboratory, researchers manipulated dosage of glutamic acid and aspartic acid until they found those that were lethal to brain cells.

Additional confirmation of the brain-damaging effects of excitotoxic free glutamic acid comes from research focused on identifying and understanding human diseases and abnormalities associated with glutamate, often for the purpose of finding drugs that would mitigate glutamate’s adverse effects. By 1980, glutamate-associated disorders such as headaches, asthma, diabetes, muscle pain, atrial fibrillation, ischemia, trauma, seizures, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, depression, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), epilepsy, addiction, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), frontotemporal dementia and autism were on the rise, and evidence of the brain-damaging effects of glutamate were generally accepted by the scientific community.

Having provided evidence that brain lesions can be induced in fetuses and neonates thru the introduction of excitotoxins, and having pointed out that glutamic acid is an excitotoxin, the only question that remains is how excitotoxic glutamic acid could get to the vulnerable brain of the infant or the fetus causing brain damage, destroying those areas of the arcuate nucleus that would regulate reproductive function had they not been obliterated.

To be excitotoxic, glutamic acid has to be accumulated in considerable quantity. There have always been excitotoxins, although not in food in excessive amounts. But that changed in 1957 when there was a transformation in the method of producing the glutamate used in MSG from extraction of glutamate from a protein source, which had been a slow and costly method, to using carefully selected genetically modified bacteria to excrete glutamate through their cell walls. That allowed virtually unlimited production of manufactured free glutamate and MSG.

It wasn’t long before food manufacturers found that profits could be increased by using manufactured free glutamate to produce their own flavor-enhancing additives, and dozens of excitotoxic ingredients were added to the food supply. Over the next two decades, the marketplace became flooded with manufactured/processed free glutamate in ingredients such as hydrolyzed proteins, yeast extracts, maltodextrin, soy protein isolate and MSG — and the large amounts of manufactured free glutamate needed to cause excitotoxicity became readily available to anyone consuming a number of processed food products during the course of a day.

Today, there is more than sufficient excitotoxic glutamic acid in food, “fake” food and dietary supplements to cause excitotoxicity.

Once it is understood that excitotoxins are readily available, transport to fetus and newborn becomes easy to understand. Nourishment (and not so nourishing material) is delivered to the fetus in the form of material ingested by a pregnant woman and passed to the fetus through the placenta.

Data confirm that free glutamate can be passed in excessive quantities to neonates and fetuses by expectant mothers who ingest excessive amounts. Glutamate can cross the placenta during pregnancy, can cross the blood brain barrier (BBB) in an unregulated manner during development and can pass through the five circumventricular organs (unique areas of the brain that lie outside the BBB) which are leaky at best at any stage of life. Moreover, the BBB is easily damaged by fever, stroke, trauma to the head, seizures, ingestion of MSG, and the normal process of aging. Similar to drugs and alcohol, free glutamate can also be passed to infants through mothers’ milk.

But a crisis? All of a sudden?

There has always been infertility, but not in such numbers that it could be called a crisis. There have always been amino acids that could become excitotoxic, but not to the extent that they could accumulate and become excitotoxic. The infertility crisis began after amino acids with excitotoxic potential became available in the quantity necessary to cause them to become excitotoxic – made possible by the 1957 introduction of monosodium glutamate produced by bacterial fermentation.

Science combined with a good dose of logic tell us that glutamic acid passed to fetus and neonate by pregnant and lactating women is the root cause of the infertility crisis.


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

Resources

American Pregnancy Association https://americanpregnancy.org/getting-pregnant/male-infertility/

Olney JW. Brain lesions, obesity, and other disturbances in mice treated with monosodium glutamate. Science. 1969;164(880):719-721.

Olney JW. Glutamate-induced neuronal necrosis in the infant mouse hypothalamus. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 1971;30(1):75-90.

Burde RM, Schainker B, Kayes J. Acute effect of oral and subcutaneous administration of monosodium glutamate on the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus in mice and rats. Nature. 1971;233(5314):58-60.

Olney JW, Sharpe LG, Feigin RD. Glutamate-induced brain damage in infant primates. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 1972;31(3):464-488.

Burde RM, Schainker B, Kayes J. Monosodium glutamate: necrosis of hypothalamic neurons in infant rats and mice following either oral or subcutaneous administration. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 1972;31(1):181.

Olney JW, Rhee V, DeGubareff T. Neurotoxic effects of glutamate on mouse area postrema. Brain Res. 1977;120(1):151-157.

Olney JW, Ho OL. Brain damage in infant mice following oral intake of glutamate, aspartate or cystine. Nature. 1970;227:609-611.

Lemkey-Johnston N, Reynolds WA. Nature and extent of brain lesions in mice related to ingestion of monosodium glutamate: a light and electron microscope study. J Neuropath Exp Neurol. 1974;33(1):74-97.

Takasaki, Y. Protective effect of mono- and disaccharides on glutamate-induced brain damage in mice. Toxicol Lett. 1979;4(3): 205-210.

Takasaki, Y. Protective effect of arginine, leucine, and preinjection of insulin on glutamate neurotoxicity in mice. Toxicol Lett. 1980;5(1):39-44.

Lemkey-Johnston, N, Reynolds WA. Nature and extent of brain lesions in mice related to ingestion of monosodium glutamate: a light and electron microscope study. J Neuropath Exp Neurol. 1974;33(1):74-97.

Bahadoran Z, Mirmiran P, Ghasemi A. Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)-Induced Animal Model of Type 2 Diabetes. Methods Mol Biol. 2019;1916:49-65.

Sharma A. Monosodium glutamate-induced oxidative kidney damage and possible mechanisms: a mini-review. J Biomed Sci. 2015;22:22:93.

Kurose T, Sugano E, Sugai A, Shiraiwa R, Kato M, Mitsuguchi Y, Takai Y, Tabata K, Honma Y, Tomita H. Neuroprotective effect of a dietary supplement against glutamate-induced excitotoxicity in retina. Int J Ophthalmol. 2019;12(8):1231-1237.

Moneret-Vautrin DA. Monosodium glutamate-induced asthma: study of the potential risk of 30 asthmatics and review of the literature. Allerg Immunol (Paris). 987;19(1):29-35.
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Binvignat O, Olloquequi J. Excitotoxicity as a Target against Neurodegenerative Processes. Curr Pharm Des. 2020 Jan 13. doi:10.2174/1381612826666200113162641.

Hashimoto S. Discovery and History of Amino Acid Fermentation.
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Sano C. History of glutamate production. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009;90(3):728S-732S.

Frieder B, Grimm VE. Prenatal monosodium glutamate (MSG) treatment given through the mother’s diet causes behavioral deficits in rat offspring. Intern J Neurosci. 1984;23(2):117-126.

Gao J, Wu J, Zhao XN, Zhang WN, Zhang YY, Zhang ZX. [Transplacental neurotoxic effects of monosodium glutamate on structures and functions of specific brain areas of filial mice.] Sheng Li Hsueh Pao Acta Physiologica Sinica. 1994;46(1):44-51.

Yu T, Zhao Y, Shi W, Ma R, Yu L. Effects of maternal oral administration of monosodium glutamate at a late stage of pregnancy on developing mouse fetal brain. Brain Res. 1997;747(2):195-206.

Arya V, Demarco VG, Issar M, Hochhaus G. Contrary to adult, neonatal rats show pronounced brain uptake of corticosteroids.
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Moretti R, Pansiot J, Bettati D, Strazielle N, Ghersi-Egea JF, Damante G, Fleiss B, Titomanlio L, Gressens P. Blood-brain barrier dysfunction in disorders of the developing brain. Front Neurosci. 2015 Feb 17;9:40.

Price MT, Olney JW, Lowry OH, Buchsbaum S. Uptake of exogenous glutamate and aspartate by circumventricular organs but not other regions of brain. J Neurochem. 1981;36(5):1774-1780.

Skultetyova I, Tokarev D, Jezova D. Stress-induced increase in blood-brain barrier permeability in control and monosodium glutamate-treated rats. Brain Res Bull. 1998;45(2):175-178.

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Blaylock RL. Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Health Press; 1994.

Nemeroff CB, Crisley FD. Monosodium L-glutamate induced convulsions: temporary alteration in blood-brain barrier permeability to plasma proteins. Environ Physiol Biochem. 1975;5(6):389-395.

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What do some vaccines have in common with plant-based protein substitutes?

Hint: When you get just a little it can cause a-fib, tachycardia, asthma, migraines, seizures and more.

Hint: When you get more than a little, it causes brain damage. (And you won’t notice losing just a few brain cells at a time.)

Send you answers to truthlabeling@gmail.com

All those who answer correctly will receive a link to a free download of the book “It Wasn’t Alzheimer’s, It was MSG.”

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

Plant-based meat replacers promote obesity, infertility and migraine headache

Until fairly recently, the thing called “food” used to be food, not manufactured amino acids and other chemicals.

Then, someone discovered that a huge, virtually untapped goldmine was out there for things that could be advertised as protein-containing meat-like “foods” that weren’t made from animals. That market is now reported to be hitting $4.5 billion in yearly sales and expected to grow substantially every year.

These protein substitutes have now become so popular that the Impossible Burger from Impossible Foods and the Beyond Burger from Beyond Meat have made the jump not just into supermarket meat aisles, but to fast-food places like Burger King and Dunkin’ Donuts.

But there’s a problem. This mock meat contains excitotoxic (brain damaging) manufactured free glutamic acid (MfG) — the same toxic ingredient found in monosodium glutamate.

Don’t expect to find that information on the label. And especially don’t expect the fake-food industry to tell you that glutamic acid is associated with Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke, ALS, autism, schizophrenia, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), epilepsy, ischemic stroke, seizures, Huntington’s disease, addiction, frontotemporal dementia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism.

There’s protein in meat, fish and poultry. But what’s made in food-processing plants and marketed as a replacement for meat isn’t protein. Although those products contain amino acids with names like the ones that are found in meat, fish, and poultry, don’t be fooled. The amino acids in these imposters have been manufactured in food- processing and/or chemical plants, and all come loaded with unwanted by-products of production (a.k.a. impurities) such as D-glutamic acid and pyroglutamic acid, three of those amino acids being excitotoxins – meaning they kill brain cells.

The names of some of the ingredients that contain excitotoxic amino acids may be familiar to you. They include monosodium glutamate (MSG), maltodextrin, hydrolyzed mung beans and other hydrolyzed protein products, pea protein isolate and other protein isolates and concentrates, all of which contain excitotoxic MfG. (More are listed here.)

You can find additional information on the webpage and blogs of The Truth in Labeling Campaign.

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

It’s the MfG in MSG that’s the culprit

Strictly speaking, MSG has gotten a bad rap.

No, not because it’s safe to eat. When ingested in quantity (and there’s plenty of it around to create that quantity), it causes brain damage, obesity, infertility, a-fib, fibromyalgia, migraine headaches, seizures, asthma and more.

MSG has a bad rap because it’s actually the manufactured free glutamate (MfG) in MSG that causes all those terrible reactions — and there are 40+ food ingredients besides MSG that contain MfG, which are just as toxic as MSG. But no one except the Truth in Labeling Campaign is talking about those excitotoxic ingredients being brain damaging, endocrine disrupting, reaction-causing food additives. It’s just MSG that’s being publicly exposed for being toxic.

Guilty as MSG is for causing disease and disability, there are numerous other ingredients that should be sharing MSG’s negative notoriety. Those are the MfG-containing ingredients you’ll find in most processed foods claiming “No MSG Added” or “No added MSG.”

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

14 myths about MSG

The myth that MSG is a harmless food additive that can trigger a limited number of insignificant reactions was launched in 1968 when the New England Journal of Medicine carried a letter from Dr. Ho Man Kwok that the journal titled Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. Glutamate industry agents hyped the fact that Kwok reported minor reactions to food eaten in a Northern-Chinese restaurant. And the myth was propelled forward along an unmuddied path as the myriad of scientific studies done in the 1970s showing MSG-induced brain damage, obesity, and infertility were suppressed, and all reactions other than those mentioned in Kwok’s letter were denied.

Myth: Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a harmless food additive. Scientific research has shown that MSG is a harmless food additive because study after study have failed to show that MSG causes adverse reactions.

Fact 1: The studies cited by the Glutes as evidence of MSG safety are studies in which MSG was fed to volunteers who were given test material containing MSG at one time, and at another time given a placebo that contained (without disclosure) an excitotoxic amino acid — one that would trigger the exact same reactions as those caused by MSG. When subjects reacted to both test material and placebo, which they did, researchers claimed to have again failed to demonstrate MSG toxicity. More on this subject can be found at https://www.truthinlabeling.org/flawed.html.

Fact 2: Studies showing MSG-induced brain damage were challenged by the Glutes in the 1970s, but the challenges were refuted. Now, MSG-induced brain damage is never mentioned by industry.

Myth: The FDA has investigated some of the claims of reactions to MSG and has never been able to confirm that the additive caused the reported effects.

Fact: By law, the FDA is required to investigate claims of serious reactions to the products they regulate, but they rarely do so. The reports of at least two FDA investigators who examined reports of serious reactions following ingestion of MSG did not reflect the data that had been given them by the persons reacting to MSG or by their physicians. More on this subject can be found at https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/it_wasnt_az.pdf.

Myth: The FDA commissioned a group of independent scientists from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) to examine the safety of MSG in the 1990s, and FASEB determined that MSG is safe.

Fact: At least 3 of the alleged “independent” scientists had clear-cut conflicts of interest.

Myth: The extensive body of research which exists about glutamate has been reviewed by independent scientists and regulatory authorities around the world — all have found MSG to be safe.

Fact: The scientific authorities from around the world often cited by the Glutes, (which included the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), the United Nations World Health Organization/Food and Agriculture Organization’s Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), the European Communities’ (EC) Scientific Committee for Food, and the Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association) considered only those documents submitted to them by Ajinomoto’s International Glutamate Technical Committee (IGTC) or their agents, or their glutamate-industry friends at the FDA.

Myth: MSG is made from corn starch, sugar cane, sugar beets or molasses by a natural method that has been used for centuries. This is known as the fermentation process. It is similar to how wine, beer, vinegar and yogurt are made.

Fact: In 1956, the Japanese succeeded in producing glutamic acid by means of bacterial fermentation, and after considerable research to identify suitable strains of microorganisms for starting the requisite cultures, large-scale production of glutamic acid and monosodium glutamate through fermentation began. In this fermentation process, genetically modified bacteria are grown aerobically in a liquid nutrient medium. These bacteria have the ability to synthesize glutamic acid outside of their cell membranes and excrete it into the medium to accumulate there.

This is a new process, not one used over centuries. And certainly not how wine, beer, vinegar and yogurt are made.

Myth: The glutamate in unprocessed/ unadulterated/ unfermented protein is the same as the glutamate in MSG. The glutamate that naturally occurs in many foods and the glutamate added in monosodium glutamate (MSG) are exactly the same.

Fact 1: The glutamate found in unprocessed/unadulterated/unfermented protein is L-glutamate only. Whereas MSG used in cosmetics, drugs, vaccines, dietary supplements, and processed food is manufactured, and always contains L-glutamate plus D-glutamate (an unwanted byproduct of L-glutamate production) plus other unwanted by-products of production that industry calls impurities. And since industry has not found a way to remove the unwanted impurities from processed free L-glutamate, the glutamate in MSG always comes with impurities.

Fact 2: It is glutamic acid that has been manufactured that causes brain damage and adverse reactions. Glutamic acid found in unadulterated protein causes neither brain damage nor adverse reactions.

Myth: There is no difference between the toxicity of food that is high in glutamate, and processed food that contains MSG.

Fact: Food that is unprocessed, unadulterated and unfermented, no matter how much glutamate it contains will not cause adverse reactions in MSG-sensitive people. Food that contains MSG will cause MSG-reactions in MSG-sensitive people if the amounts ingested exceed individual tolerances for MSG.

Myth: Monosodium glutamate has been in use for over 2,000 years.

Fact: Monosodium glutamate was invented in 1908 and reformulated in 1957.

Myth: The reactions to monosodium glutamate are mild and transitory.

Fact: Asthma, migraine headache, depression, atrial fibrillation, tachycardia, and seizures are just a few of the abnormalities known to be triggered by MSG.

Myth: The glutamic acid in monosodium glutamate is identical to the glutamic acid in unadulterated protein.

Fact: Glutamic acid found naturally in protein is L-glutamic acid, only. Glutamic acid in MSG, i.e., processed/manufactured glutamic acid, is always made up of both L-glutamic acid and D-glutamic acid, and is always accompanied by impurities in addition to the D-glutamic acid that is invariably produced when attempts are made to produce L-glutamic acid.

Myth: No one reacts to less than 3 grams of MSG.

Fact: Published studies by Scopp and Allen and hundreds of comments by MSG-sensitive people affirm that less than 3 grams of MSG may cause reactions.

Myth: Reactions to MSG occur within 10 minutes of ingesting MSG and last for less than 2 hours.

Fact: Reactions to MSG have been known to occur as long as 48 hours after ingestion and last for days.

Myth: MSG is naturally occurring.

Fact 1: By FDA definition, arsenic and hydrochloric acid would be “naturally occurring” along with MSG. Industry gets mileage from talking about MSG being “naturally occurring.” And the FDA cooperates by refusing to define the term.

Fact 2: In the United States, MSG is manufactured in Ajinomoto’s plant in Eddyville Iowa. MSG is a product of manufacture. It doesn’t occur naturally anywhere or in anything.

Myth: The blood brain barrier protects the brain from excesses of monosodium glutamate.

Fact: The blood brain barrier, once thought to prevent glutamate from sources outside of the body from entering the brain, is not fully developed until puberty, is easily damaged by such conditions as high fever, a blow to the head, and the normal course of aging. In the area of the circumventricular organs (which includes the area of brain damaged by MSG), it is leaky at best during any stage of life.

The brains of the young are most at risk from ingestion of MSG. More on this subject can be found at https://www.truthinlabeling.org/young.html.

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

Brain damage, gross obesity, infertility, and migraine headache. MSG causes them all.

Don’t let your concern about such things as skin rash, migraine headaches, and heart irregularities caused by monosodium glutamate (MSG) distract you from the fact that MSG kills brain cells (that don’t repair themselves) and in turn disrupts the endocrine system.

You might say that just about everyone has heard of MSG-migraines. Every headache clinic that we know of lists MSG as a headache trigger. And the Glutes either ignore the relationship entirely or simply say it isn’t so.

If pushed to the wall, industry always falls back on its old standby called Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, which erroneously implies that MSG-reactions are limited to those reported by Dr. Ho Man Kwok in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1968.

You’ll never hear the Glutes talking about MSG-induced brain damage, MSG-induced obesity, or MSG-induced infertility. If you read the medical literature, you’ll find studies of MSG-induced brain damage, MSG-induced retinal degeneration, MSG-induced obesity, and MSG-induced infertility going back over 60 years to research from Lucas and Newhouse in 1957. And you won’t hear about that from the major media outlets (and even the not-so-major ones). Ever since 60 Minutes aired a segment on MSG in 1991, no media outlet has even suggested that MSG might be toxic.

Data suppression could be considered an art form – one the Glutes have been mastering for decades. Want to know how that works? You’ll find the details in the published, peer-reviewed article The Toxicity/Safety of Processed Free Glutamic Acid (MSG): A Study in Suppression of Information.

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