Monosodium Glutamate Research

Jeffrey Steingarten, a prominent food writer, posed this question, “Why doesn’t everyone in China have a headache?” in relation to monosodium glutamate, more commonly known as MSG (Renton). MSG is a controversial topic due to adverse reactions reported by people who consume it. Despite anecdotal evidence and a number of scientific studies showing the MSG has significant effects on human health, the FDA and numerous other scientific studies concluded that MSG is safe for human consumption. MSG is a flavor-enhancer commonly added to Chinese food, canned vegetables, soups and processed meats (Zeratsky). Kidunae Ikeda, a physics professor at the Tokyo Imperial University, invented monosodium glutamate. Professor Ikeda was eating his wife’s
A single-blind study done by David H. Allen and his colleagues claimed that decreased peak expiratory flow rates were observed in people who consumed 2.5 grams of oral MSG (Allen et al.). Despite these results, others criticized the study for being poorly designed. In 1991 and 1993, the National Institutes of Health’s Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease conducted two studies to examine the if there is a possibility that MSG can trigger or aggravate asthma. In a single blind oral study, they challenged 13 non-asthmatics and 30 asthmatics with a total dose of 7.6 grams of MSG over a period of two hours (“IFIC Review: Glutamate and Monosodium Glutamate: Examining the Myth”). The non-asthmatics reported no pulmonary changes, but one asthmatic did report adverse effects. Another study double-blind study using a placebo was done using the same asthmatic subjects as in the previous study mentioned. The asthmatic subjects did not report any adverse pulmonary reactions (Germano et al.). Therefore, the researchers concluded that MSG does not have any effect on asthma and is safe to use in foods. Government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) have determined that MSG is safe to use in cooking and for our health. “Because MSG is one of the most intensely studied food ingredients in the food supply and has been found safe, the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization placed it in the safest category for food additives” (“IFIC Review: Glutamate and Monosodium Glutamate: Examining the Myth”). In 1995, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) did an evaluation of the safety of MSG as a food ingredient. The report reaffirmed the safety of MSG for consumption to the