Tag: FDA

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Do they really think they can keep the FDA from removing the GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status from MSG and the other products that contain excitotoxic free glutamic acid?

As I mentioned in last week’s blog, on March 18 of this year, I submitted a Citizen Petition to the FDA requesting that the FDA Commissioner remove misleading and incorrect information presently displayed on the FDA website in a post titled “Questions and Answers on Monosodium Glutamate” (Q&A), and replace it with accurate information about monosodium glutamate (MSG) toxicity, which I supplied. 

On August 16, 2021, The Glutamate Association (TGA) and the International Hydrolyzed Protein Council (IHPC) submitted comments to Citizen Petition Docket No FDA-2021-P-0301, challenging my Petition.  They maintain that the Q&A accurately reflects the data and information on MSG, and that my proposed changes should be rejected.

Completely unrelated to the filing of my Citizen Petition, Kumar et al. published results of a study that looked at the relationship of dietary glutamic acid to obesity and depressive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia, and on October 24, 2021, Kahn, Sievenpiper, and Fernstrom (a long-time resource proficient in creating and spreading glutamate-industry disinformation) published a response – a criticism — of  the Kumar study. 

In analyzing that response, I found it to be generally characteristic of glutamate-industry propaganda, even inventing and using words and phrases that were not used in the Kumar et al. article, and then criticizing their own untruthful creative writing for containing statements that were untrue.

For those of you interested in things like fake news and scientific fraud, I have reproduced my response below, sent to the journal that published the Kahn, Sievenpiper, and Fernstrom piece, and included a question about how the journal allowed a critique, with no presentation of evidence/data, written by persons with conflicts of interest, to be published.

Adrienne Samuels

Samuels analysis of: Commentary: Dietary Glutamic Acid, Obesity, and Depressive Symptoms in Patients With Schizophrenia

Introduction

Kahn et al. (1) have criticized the article written by Kumar et al.(2), (The Article), attributing to it content that it did not have, stating as fact information that is not true, and criticizing information that is not relevant to the message of The Article.

Fabrications of content that The Article did not contain

Fabrication: “Their interpretation of the findings in non-obese individuals seems to be that ingesting dietary protein, which contains glutamate, raises blood glutamate concentrations sufficiently to cause an increase in glutamate penetration into brain, where it acts on neuronal glutamate receptors to cause depression.” [Emphasis added]

Fact: The phrase “raises blood glutamate,” the word “blood,” and the word “penetration” appear nowhere in The Article.

Fabrication: “The authors infer in their introduction that ingesting glutamate can lead directly to increases in brain glutamate levels and adversely modify brain functions via its neurotransmitter role.” 

Fact: Kumar et al. state that “Data shows that over activation of the NDMA receptors by glutamate can be neurotoxic and result in cell death (5).”

Falsehoods

Falsehoods are woven into the text of the Khan et al. criticism as misleading statements, untenable suppositions, and distortions of fact.

Misleading statements

Statement: “The authors conclusions are based on a linear regression analysis…”

Fact: The authors conclusions are based only in part on a linear regression analysis.

Untenable suppositions

“In Table 1 of their paper, the BDI data appear to be non-normally distributed…”

“Furthermore, it is possible that…”

“A non-linear or threshold analysis may show interesting…”

“We believe that the conclusions based upon a linearity assumption in this paper are spurious. If the authors were to run the analysis with appropriate transformation or explore non-linear or threshold analysis using appropriate methods (6), then we surmise that…”

“A more likely path through which dietary glutamate could influence the brain is via its interaction in the alimentary canal with glutamate receptors that occur in the mouth, stomach and intestines.

Distortions of fact / misleading statements 

Distortion: “Such increases in plasma glutamate are insufficient to push glutamate into brain, owing to…”  

Fact: plasma glutamate has never been shown to be relevant to glutamate induced brain damage.

Distortion: ‘These cells are joined by tight junctions, and form the “blood-brain barrier” (BBB)… that prevent glutamate passage from blood into brain (16).”

Fact: I know of only one author (reference 16) who alleges to demonstrate that the blood brain barrier (BBB) prevents glutamate passage from blood into brain, while there are studies that report BBB permeability. The five studies identified here are examples. (3-7).

Distortion: “humans do not willingly consume such large amounts of pure MSG, because it tastes unpleasant (26),” 

Fact: It is the free glutamate in MSG that is excitotoxic, and while the amount of free glutamate in any one ingredient may not be sufficient to cause adverse reactions or brain damage, since the 1957 change in method of MSG production, there are so many products that contain excitotoxins that it is easy for a consumer to ingest an excess of excitotoxic material during the course of a day (8-12).

When glutamic acid accumulates in quantities greater than needed for normal body function, glutamic acid becomes excitotoxic with glutamate neurotransmitter firing repeatedly at glutamate receptors until the cells associated with those glutamate receptors die. 

Brain damage done by excitotoxic glutamate to the fetus and neonate, passed to the fetus across the placenta and to newborns though mothers’ milk, causes obesity and behavior disorders, and reproductive dysfunction during maturity.  MSG (which contains free glutamate) can cross the placenta during pregnancy (13-15), cross the blood brain barrier (BBB) in an unregulated manner during development(16), and pass through the five circumventricular organs which are leaky at best at any stage of life (17-18). At one time it would have been meaningful to note that the excitotoxic material in a particular ingredient would not be sufficient to cause brain damage or adverse reactions.  But since the 1957 change in method of MSG production, there are so many products that contain excitotoxins that it is easy to ingest an excess of excitotoxic material during the course of a day (8-12). 

Information irrelevant to the subject of The Article

1) “Each antipsychotic (and antidepressant) should have been identified.… smoking should have been included as a factor in this study.”

2) The topics cited by Kahn et al. in their criticism of The Article (glutamate metabolism, the contribution of free glutamate to metabolism of glutamate, and plasma glutamate levels) as being misunderstood by Kumar et al. are topics without evidence/data relating them to glutamate-induced brain damage. None are relevant to the subject of The Article.

(Studies alleging these subjects are relevant to glutamate safety have always been sponsored by the glutamate industry.)

3) Information about taste, glutamate binding, and a distinction between protein ingestion and MSG ingestion are irrelevant to The Article.

Conflicts of interest of the critics

Sievenpiper admits working for a large segment of the processed food industry as well as the International Life Science Institute (ILSI), the International Food Information Council (IFIC), and the International Glutamate Technical Committee (IGTC), three representatives of the U.S. manufacturer of MSG.

In the face of a 1991 60 Minutes program on monosodium glutamate, the IFIC ran damage control for MSG manufacturer Ajinomoto.  Prior to being exposed for inappropriate conduct, the IGTC‘s chairman designed and implemented double-blind studies claiming there was no evidence that MSG is toxic.  Their “fail-safe” tactic was to use excitotoxic aspartic acid in placebos.  Aspartic acid is an amino acid known to cause adverse reactions identical to those caused by the glutamate in MSG.

Fernstrom has represented the interests of the glutamate industry for more than four decades. And given the extremes to which he has gone to reinvent the article being criticized, this work gives every appearance of suffering from conflicts of interest.

Summary and conclusions

The article, Commentary: Dietary Glutamic Acid, Obesity, and Depressive Symptoms in Patients With Schizophrenia by Khan, Sievenpiper and Fernstrom is nothing but an exercise in disinformation.

References

1. Kahn TA, Sievenpiper JL, Fernstrom JD.  Commentary: Dietary Glutamic Acid, Obesity, and Depressive Symptoms in Patients With Schizophrenia. Front Psychiatry. (2021) 14 October 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.725786

2. Kumar P, Kraal AZ, Prawdzik AM, Ringold AE, Ellingrod V. Dietary Glutamic Acid, Obesity, and Depressive Symptoms in Patients With Schizophrenia. Front Psychiatry. (2021) Jan 21;11:620097. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.620097. PMID: 33551881; PMCID: PMC7859478.

3. Pollak TA, Drndarski S, Stone JM, David AS, McGuire P, Abbott NJ. The blood-brain barrier in psychosis. Lancet Psychiatry. (2018) Jan;5(1):79-92. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30293-6. Epub 2017 Aug 3. PMID: 28781208.

4. 8. Vazana U, Veksler R, Pell GS, Prager O, Fassler M, Chassidim Y, Roth Y, Shahar H, Zangen A, Raccah R, Onesti E, Ceccanti M, Colonnese C, Santoro A, Salvati M, D’Elia A, Nucciarelli V, Inghilleri M, Friedman A. Glutamate-Mediated Blood-Brain Barrier Opening: Implications for Neuroprotection and Drug Delivery. J Neurosci. (2016) Jul 20;36(29):7727-39. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0587-16.2016. PMID: 27445149; PMCID: PMC4951577.

5. Michinaga S, Koyama Y. Dual Roles of Astrocyte-Derived Factors in Regulation of Blood-Brain Barrier Function after Brain Damage. Int J Mol Sci. (2019) Jan 29;20(3):571. doi: 10.3390/ijms20030571. PMID: 30699952; PMCID: PMC6387062.

6. Gynther M, Petsalo A, Hansen SH, Bunch L, Pickering DS. Blood-brain barrier permeability and brain uptake mechanism of kainic acid and dihydrokainic acid. Neurochem Res. (2015) Mar;40(3):542-9. doi: 10.1007/s11064-014-1499-4. Epub 2014 Dec 9. PMID: 25488153.

7. Zhang C, Jiang M, Wang WQ, Zhao SJ, Yin YX, Mi QJ, Yang MF, Song YQ, Sun BL, Zhang ZY. Selective mGluR1 Negative Allosteric Modulator Reduces Blood-Brain Barrier Permeability and Cerebral Edema After Experimental Subarachnoid Hemorrhage. Transl Stroke Res. (2020) Aug;11(4):799-811. doi: 10.1007/s12975-019-00758-z. Epub 2019 Dec 12. PMID: 31833035.

8. Hashimoto S. Discovery and History of Amino Acid Fermentation.  Adv Biochem Eng Biotechnol. (2017)159:15-34. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27909736/

9. Sano C. History of glutamate production. Am J Clin Nutr. (2009) 90(3):728S-732S.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19640955/

10. Market Research Store. Global Monosodium Glutamate Market Poised to Surge from USD 4,500.0 Million in 2014 to USD 5,850.0 Million by 2020.https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/03/17/820804/0/en/Global-Monosodium-Glutamate-Market-Poised-to-Surge-from-USD-4-500-0-Million-in-2014-to-USD-5-850-0-Million-by-2020-MarketResearchStore-Com.html  (Accessed 5/29/2020.)

11. Open PR Worldwide Public Relations for Verified Market. Global Flavor Enhancers Market. https://www.bccresearch.com/partners/verified-market-research/global-flavor-enhancers-market.html (Accessed 5/29/2020.)

12. Dataintelo. Global Food Flavor Enhancer Market Report, History and Forecast 2014-2025, Breakdown Data by Manufacturers, Key Regions, Types and Application.  https://dataintelo.com/report/food-flavor-enhancer-market   (Accessed 5/29/2020)

13. Frieder B, Grimm VE. Prenatal Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) Treatment Given through the Mother’s Diet Causes Behavioral Deficits in Rat Offspring. Int. J. Neurosci. (1984) 23(2), 117–126. DOI: 10.3109/00207458408985353. 

14. 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. 

15. 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. DOI: 10.1016/S0006-8993(96)01181-X. 

16. 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. DOI: 10.1016/S0361-9230(97)00335-3. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]

17. Price, M. T.; Olney, J. W.; Lowry, O. H.; Buchsbaum, S. Uptake of Exogenous Glutamate and Aspartate by Circumventricular Organs but Not Other Regions of Brain. J. Neurochem. (1981) 36(5), 1774–1780. DOI: 10.1111/jnc.1981.36.issue-5. 

18. Broadwell, R. D.; Sofroniew, M. V. Serum Proteins Bypass the Blood-brain Fluid Barriers for Extracellular Entry to the Central Nervous System. Exp. Neurol. (1993) 120(2), 245–263. DOI: 10.1006/exnr.1993.1059. 


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.

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The ruse of the whistleblowers

Somewhere in the millions of mystery stories that have been written, you’ll come across the words “If you want to catch a criminal you have to learn to think like a criminal,” which would be good advice for dealing with certain people in the glutamate industry.

I thought of those words when I read a post about the dangers of MSG that didn’t sit quite right with me, and I thought of them again when a new webpage surfaced.  It would be a perfect ploy for the “Glutes” to set up people as anti-MSG activists, get them quite a bit of publicity, and, when needed, have those people “blow the whistle” and declare that that they had been mistaken when they wrote or spoke of the dangers of MSG.

That would be similar to quoting words taken out of context and using that to smear the writer.  Directors of the Truth in Labeling Campaign have, in the past, been set-up for that purpose.

A bit different but clearly designed for the same purpose would have been the scheme to discredit the work of Dr. David Allen.  In setting up the fail-safe agenda of the glutamate industry for the glutamate industry, the FDA had referred to the research of Dr. David Allen which identified 3.0 grams MSG as an asthma trigger.

Once the 3-gram figure had been established as the amount that would cause an MSG reaction, the research reported by David Allen would be discredited – just in case someone should later refer to the fact that Allen had also found that .5 grams of MSG could also cause a reaction. The work of discrediting Dr. Allen was left to Drs. Simon and Stevenson or Scripps Clinic, LaJolla, California.

Setting up someone as an anti-MSG activist ready to “blow the whistle” could certainly be in the works, and it would not surprise me. The campaigns, propaganda, clear-cut lies and media exploits I’ve already seen lead me to believe that at this point, anything is possible.


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

It Wasn’t Alzheimer’s, It Was MSG. (2013) A. Samuels. Pp 47-50; Pp103-106; Chapters 6 and 9. https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/it_wasnt_az.pdf

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Your turn to tell the FDA what you think of their promoting poisons for use in food

In March of this year, I submitted a Citizen Petition to the FDA requesting that the FDA Commissioner remove misleading and incorrect information presently displayed on the FDA website in a post titled “Questions and Answers on Monosodium Glutamate” (Q&A) and replace it with accurate information about monosodium glutamate (MSG) toxicity.  

Both the Glutamate Association and the International Hydrolyzed Protein Council responded with characteristic glutamate industry propaganda, stating that the Q&A accurately reflects the data and information on MSG, and that Petitioner’s proposed changes should be rejected.

And I, with characteristic vigor, tore their response apart, pointing out the deceptive and misleading statements and outright lies – in six parts, no less (links below).

Part 1: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FDA-2021-P-0301-0028

Part 2: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FDA-2021-P-0301-0027

Part 3: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FDA-2021-P-0301-0026

Part 4: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FDA-2021-P-0301-0025

Part 5: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FDA-2021-P-0301-0024

Part 6: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FDA-2021-P-0301-0023

Now it’s your turn to tell the FDA what you think of their promoting poisons for use in food.  Even one sentence will help get the word out. 

Below is the link you need to use to post your comment. Just click on the blue “comment” button on the upper left side of that page and cut and paste your story or start writing in the box provided.

https://www.regulations.gov/document/FDA-2021-P-0301-0001/comment

It’s the easiest thing in the world to do – and could even be therapeutic. 

Adrienne Samuels

PS Our new website, 7 Lines of Evidence, has just posted a special page about the connection between free glutamic acid and obesity. Check it out here: https://7lines.org/obesity-and-mfg/


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.

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Toxic glutamate in your food?

When I filed three citizen petitions with the FDA at the beginning of this year, I wasn’t expecting the Glutamate Association to respond. It typically never acknowledges anything negative about its flagship product MSG, that is loaded with toxic free glutamate. But this time it did.

Now, inspired by those comments from the “Glutes” I have produced a website dedicated to laying out the evidence behind the requests made in those petitions — one being that manufactured free glutamate (MfG) and those ingredients that contain MfG should be removed from the FDA’s list of GRAS (generally recognized as safe) substances.

It’s no secret that disease and disability may be caused, at least in part, by toxic chemicals released into the air and added to food. But while chemicals such as lead and asbestos and hazardous air pollutants are recognized as noxious by government agencies, poisonous chemicals used in foods and beverages are rarely acknowledged as such.

The website “Seven Lines of Evidence leading to the conclusion that manufacture free glutamate is toxic,” was created to draw attention to the class of chemicals known as excitotoxins – brain damaging amino acids – recognized by neuroscientists as being toxic, but not acknowledged by the FDA as such. 

Glutamic acid (as in pea protein isolate) and aspartic acid (as in aspartame), two of the three excitotoxic amino acids used in food, are being used as flavor enhancers, protein supplements, and low calorie (diet) sweeteners, added in quantity to infant formula, enteral care products, protein powders, dietary supplements, processed foods, so-called “plant-based” products, snacks, anything that is hydrolyzed, some pesticides/fertilizers and pharmaceuticals.

The FDA, EPA, and USDA will claim that the excitotoxins used in food are perfectly safe.  The evidence says otherwise.

You’ll find Seven Lines of Evidence at https://7lines.org/.  Please use the contact form at the webpage for questions and comments.

In Health,

Adrienne Samuels, Ph.D.
Director, Truth in Labeling Campaign

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Do your ‘eggs’ come from a chicken or a laboratory? The FDA could care less.

Just Egg is the creation of food technologists who make their livings by replacing nutritious whole foods with laboratory-created compounds topped off with chemical flavor enhancers like monosodium glutamate (MSG).

This plant-based yellow liquid contains no real food, and positively not a trace of real eggs.

What it does contain, it’s second ingredient, is mung bean protein isolate, which, along with the natural flavors can pack enough excitotoxic amino acids to give migraine headaches to many, and possibly send some MSG-sensitive people to the ER.

But brain-damaging ingredients aside, you may wonder how this product can get away with being called not just “egg” but JUST EGG?

The FDA maintains what’s called a “standard of identity,” a legally binding description of what a particular food name represents and what it may consist of or even look like. Want to manufacture peanut butter? It better be made by the grinding of shelled and roasted peanuts. If you make noodles, they need to be “ribbon-shaped” with vermicelli mandated to be “cord-shaped.”

But as far as eggs go, not only have regulators refused to define them, but have prohibited such a definition from being made. It’s bizarre even by FDA standards.

What this means to the egg-expecting public is that if you don’t see it cracked from a shell, an “egg” can be made from just about anything, even the chemical concoction listed below.

Just Egg ingredients:

Ingredients: Water, Mung Bean Protein Isolate, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Contains less than 2% of Dehydrated Onion, Gellan Gum, Natural Carrot Extractives (color), Natural Flavors, Natural Turmeric Extractives (color), Potassium Citrate, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Sugar, Tapioca Syrup, Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate, Transglutaminase, Nisin (preservative). (Contains soy.)

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.

Reference:
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=160.100

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Medical advice from Dr. FDA

When a non-doctor gives medical advice it’s called the “unauthorized practice of medicine.”  Yet the FDA does it all the time.  On the Internet, via Tweets, no less.

FDA Drug Information
@FDA_Drug_Info

Sep25
If you’re one of the 2.7 million Americans who have atrial fibrillation, you have an increased risk of a stroke.

Learn how you can reduce your risk of a stroke by taking a blood thinner.

Jack Samuels, co-founder of the Truth in Labeling Campaign, was able to reduce the times he had atrial fibrillation by eliminating the Manufactured free Glutamate (MfG) in hydrolyzed proteins, autolyzed yeast extract, MSG, etc. from his diet.


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.

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More powerful than evidence

In preceding weeks we presented seven lines of evidence pointing to the toxicity of manufactured free glutamate (MfG), the toxic component of monosodium glutamate (MSG). But despite this evidence, those charged with protecting the health of Americans continue to maintain that MfG and MSG in amounts readily available to consumers are “safe.”   So, today we introduce you to the world of power and greed where the myths of MSG and MfG safety are kept alive – a world in which industry generated lies are parroted by media of every description, and truth has no value.

Not lines of evidence per se, but significant contributions to keeping the myth of MSG and MfG safety flowing in the media are the roles played by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and their related agencies, the legislators who fail to administer appropriate oversight of those agencies, and the misrepresentations, lies, and dirty tricks that make up the agenda of the glutamate industry as they promote sales of their toxic ingredient.

Roles played by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and related agencies:

https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/industrys_fda_final.pdf


Misrepresentations, lies, and dirty tricks that make up the agenda of the glutamate-industry as they strive to promote sales of their toxic ingredient:

“Arranged” testimony of “authoritative bodies” to the safety of MSG.

The reviews done by what the glutamate industry refers to as “major regulatory agencies worldwide, all of which have concluded MSG is a safe ingredient,” were all based on reports of studies brought to those agencies by The Glutamate Association, the International Glutamate Technical Committee, their agents, or the FDA which since 1968 has ignored all evidence to the contrary and supported the false claim that MSG is a “safe” ingredient.


The FDA’s 50-year incestuous relationship with Ajinomoto, manufacturer of MSG — with the FDA parroting Ajinomoto’s misleading statements and down-right lies. 
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/industrys_fda_final.pdf


The falsehood spun that the glutamate added to food and the glutamate found in plants and animals are identical. 

Not all glutamate is created equal. Some was created when man was created. Some is manufactured.

Glutamate has 2 enantiomers.  In chemistry, an enantiomer is one of two stereoisomers that are mirror images of each other that are non-superposable (not identical), much as one’s left and right hands are mirror images. 

Glutamate exists in two forms: 1) as a stand-alone amino acid (free) and 2) as an amino acid bound with other amino acids in protein (bound).

Free glutamate, when present in “excess” (more than the body needs for normal function) causes adverse reactions and brain damage. Glutamate bound in protein does not.  When present outside of protein in amounts that exceed what the healthy human body was designed to accommodate, glutamate becomes an excitotoxic neurotransmitter, firing repeatedly, damaging targeted glutamate-receptors and/or causing neuronal and non-neuronal death by over exciting those glutamate receptors until their host cells die.

Free glutamate is rarely found in nature. Protein, which is composed of bound glutamate and a variety of other bound amino acids, is found in nature. Protein that is eaten is digested into individual (free) amino acids at which time glutamate becomes vital for normal body function being both a building block of future protein and the principal neurotransmitter in humans, carrying nerve impulses from glutamate stimuli to glutamate receptors throughout the body. 

Manufactured glutamate (which is always free glutamate) is not identical to glutamate found unadulterated in nature.  Contrary to what the manufacturer of free glutamate would have you believe, manufactured free glutamate is not identical to glutamate found unadulterated in nature. Try as they might, no one has been able to manufacture L-glutamate (the enantiomer that has flavor-enhancing capability) without producing unwanted by-products of manufacture at the same time. So, while the L-glutamate molecule is the L-glutamate molecule regardless of how it came to be, when the body ingests manufactured glutamate it becomes burdened with the by-products of L-glutamate manufacture (referred to as impurities) which include D-glutamate, pyroglutamate, and other molecules depending on the materials used to produce the L-glutamate and the extent of its processing.

In the healthy body, the amount of glutamate available for use is highly regulated, but when something goes wrong and there is more glutamate available than is needed (when there is “excess” glutamate), glutamate neurotransmitters fire, damaging targeted glutamate-receptors and/or causing neuronal and non-neuronal death by over exciting those glutamate receptors until their host cells die.

Prior to Ajinomoto’s 1957 change in method for producing glutamate, it would have been rare for there to be sufficient glutamate in a normal diet to cause that glutamate to become excitotoxic.  Today there is sufficient glutamate in processed and ultra-processed foods for glutamate to become excitotoxic if multiple servings of glutamate-containing foods are consumed during the course of a day.

It is not necessary for humans to ingest glutamate in food because the body can make the glutamate it needs from other amino acids.


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.

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Controversy FDA style

How does the FDA rationalize its ongoing defense of monosodium glutamate (MSG)? Easy, create a “controversy,” or more specifically, a controversy FDA style.

A controversy FDA style over the safety of MSG was fabricated (produced / manufactured / concocted) when:

1) Lots of people got sick after eating MSG (1), neuroscientists working outside of industry showed there was brain damage after feeding large doses of MSG to laboratory animals (2a,2b), and researchers studying glutamic acid (glutamate) in various corners of the globe warned that ingestion of free glutamate (such as that found in MSG) should be limited because it had been shown to be hazardous to human health (3); and   

2) The manufacturer of MSG produced research that guaranteed negative results (no harm done by the product) using placebos that would cause reactions identical to those caused by MSG, for example (4), suppressed information about the hazards of MSG (5), and, with the active support of the FDA (6) claimed that MSG is a harmless food additive.

Resources

1. Consumers tell us that ….
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/letters.html

2a. Review of animal studies done in the 1970s that have demonstrated the toxicity of MSG and MfG (including review of animal data offered inappropriately as evidence that MSG is harmless).
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/review_studies.pdf

2b. Evidence of excitotoxicity of ingested MfG demonstrated in animal studies done in the 1970s
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/Data_from_the_1960s_and_1970s_demonstrate.pdf

3.  Warnings
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/review_of_alerts_2.pdf

4. The fail-safe way to ensure that their studies would conclude MSG is harmless 
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/designed_for_deception_short.pdf

5. The Toxicity/Safety of Processed Free Glutamic Acid (MSG): A Study in Suppression of Information
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/manuscript2.pdf

6. Industry’s FDA
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/industrys_fda_final.pdf


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.

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About The Truth in Labeling Campaign

The Truth in Labeling Campaign was incorporated in 1994 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to securing full and clear labeling of all processed food.

We are an all-volunteer group funded entirely through donations. Neither our staff nor our directors are paid. We rent no offices, and we use no professional fund raisers. Even the cost of disseminating information is primarily borne by volunteers. Our activities, many described in our website at: www.truthinlabeling.org, have included visits to congresspersons and scientists, attendance at food industry meetings, testimony before representatives of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and filing a lawsuit against the FDA.

But more importantly, we have been making information on the toxic potential of MSG and where it is hidden in food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, dietary supplements, pesticides and fertilizers and vaccines, available to consumers.

This organization was founded by Jack Samuels, a health care professional who had an acute, life-threatening sensitivity to MSG, and Adrienne Samuels, an experimental psychologist by training with expertise in research design, methodology, and statistics. Both had the skills needed to understand the science underlying Jack’s life-threatening sensitivity, along with the ability to distinguish between the fact of his sensitivity and the fiction generated by those who profit from the manufacture and sale of MSG. Adrienne possessed the knowhow to recognize design flaws in research reports – including those research reports that claimed to have found that MSG is “safe.” The first (and ongoing) project of The Truth in Labeling Campaign (TLC) was to secure identification of processed free glutamic acid (MSG) whenever and wherever it occurs.

For over 30 years, concerned consumers have tried to work with the FDA to resolve this identification issue, but have found no evidence that the FDA is ever going to act on their behalf. It appears that only through a true grassroots effort might the FDA’s refusal to require labeling of MSG be resolved. It was with this in mind that the TLC joined with 29 petitioners, whose ranks included physicians, researchers, and parents acting on behalf of their MSG-sensitive children, to file a Citizen Petition asking the FDA to require labeling of all MSG found in processed foods.

The Citizen Petition was followed by a lawsuit that the FDA easily had set aside. The FDA had only to invoke the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), which allows agencies of the U.S. government to tell the court what material it may or may not look at. Through use of the APA, the FDA was able to withhold evidence contained in its own files that testifies to the fact that MSG has toxic potential.


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.

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FDA claim that MSG is GRAS puts it in violation of its own rules


BY FDA REGULATIONS found in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and in the FDA Code of Federal Regulations, the use of a food substance may be GRAS (generally recognized as safe) either through scientific procedures or, for a substance used in food before 1958, through experience based on common use

In short, to be designated FDA GRAS, an ingredient must be:

1) Tested for safety using scientific procedures, or

2) Known to be safe through experience based on common use in food prior to January 1958.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) does not meet that standard and therefore does not meet the FDA requirements for GRAS status.

The MSG in use today has never been tested for safety. Although the glutamate industry has turned out badly flawed studies on the “safety” of MSG (using toxic material in placebos, for example), no one outside of the glutamate industry would ever claim that any of those studies qualified as “scientific” procedures.

The MSG in use today, made with glutamate created by genetically modified bacteria that excrete glutamate through their cell walls, was only invented in 1957, allowing no time to demonstrate safe use through experience (based on common use in food) prior to 1958. The MSG in use today could not have been grandfathered GRAS in 1958 because it didn’t exist prior to 1957.

In 1969, it was first observed that manufactured free glutamic acid, the essential ingredient in MSG, is an excitotoxic amino acid. When glutamate is ingested in controlled quantities, it is essential to normal function. But when ingested in excess, it causes brain damage, leading to a variety of abnormalities.

Prior to 1957, when glutamate was produced by extracting it from protein, there was not enough manufactured free glutamate added in food to cause glutamate to become excitotoxic. That changed in 1957 after glutamate came to be produced in virtually unlimited quantities.

Resources

Sections 201(s) and 409 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
FDA’s implementing regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations, 21 CFR 170.3, 21 CFR 170.30, and 21 CFR 170.30(b


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.