
Why don't you just look it up in the Merk? Or check out the medical dictionary
cite which a doctor mentioned earlier in this thread?



Among others, see Olney's  "Excitotoxic Food Aditives - Relevance of
Animal Studies to Human Safety" (1982) Neurobehav. Toxicol. Teratol.
vol 6: 455-462.

I'm sure PETA would love to hear your arguments.


Whose talking about "food science"? What is this comment supposed to
mean? *Neurotoxicology and Tratology*, *Brain Research*, *Nature*,
*Progress in Brain Research*: all fine food science journals. ;-)


Then you would know that Olney himself has casually  referred to
"Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" in a few articles. Why don't *you* point
us to some studies? Maybe then this exchange could be productive.


They're unable to metabolise it.


Who said anything about 'received wisdom'? There is no question that
orally administered doses of MSG are capable of destroying nearly all
neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus and the median
eminence. These areas are responsible for the production of
hormones critical to normal neuroendocrine function and the normal
development of the vertabrate organism. Humans are vertebrates. Now
what, pray tell, do you think will happen when the area of the brain
necessary for the normal rhythm of gonadotropin release is missing?
Are you trying to say that humans have no need of their pituitary,
ANH, and ME, of that part of the brain that is responsible for
controlling the realease (albeit indirectly) of estradiol and testosterone? 

How do you expect anyone to do the studies on this? It's unethical to
"sacrifice" humans to check out what effects chronic, acute, etc doses
of these compounds are having on the brain tissue in humans.  The food
industry knows this. That's why the animal model is used in medicine
and psych.  If you're talking about straight sensitivity, it would be
useful to define the term.  There are plenty of studies on
psychoneuroimmunology showing the link between attitude and
physiology.

I suspect we may be arguing about separate things; *only* adult sensitivities
(You), and late-occuring sequelae of childhood ingestion and its
implication for adults (me).  Certainly
the doses for excitotoxicity in adults are considerably larger than
for the young, but the additivity of Glu and Asp, and their copious
and increased presence in modern processed foods (jointly), and their
hidden presence in HVP, necessitates extreme caution. Why would anyone
want to eat compounds which have been shown to markedly perturb the
endocrine system in adults?  The main point is *blood levels*
attained, and oral doses would likely have to be greater than SC. 


Olney's work provides a putative causal mechanism for some
sensitivities. Terry, Epelbaum and Martin have shown that orally
administered MSG causes changes in normal gonadotropic hormone
fluctutations in adults. Glu also was found to induce immediate and persistant
supression of rhythmic GH secretion, and to induce rapid and transient
release of prolactin in adults chronically exposed to MSG. GH is
responsible not only for control of growth during development, but
also converts glycogen into glucose. Could this be the cause of
headaches? I don't know.
