Is MSG Bad or Good for You?

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Reducing sodium intake by 30 percent could save the lives of more than 40 million people. And guess what can reduce sodium intake by more than 30 percent in standard recipes? Substituting traditional salt with monosodium glutamate, commonly known as MSG. But what about “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome,” reported in a 1968 letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, characterized by numbness on the back of the neck, general weakness, and palpitation? One of the proposed causes was MSG, a common seasoning often used in Chinese cooking. Since then, MSG has been blamed for causing numerous adverse reactions, including asthma, headache, and neuropsychiatric disorders. But is this so-called monosodium glutamate “allergy” a menace or a myth?

You don’t know until you put it to the test––or in this case, many tests. In a multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multiple-challenge trial of MSG, 130 self-reported MSG-reactive volunteers first consumed beverages containing 5g of MSG or a placebo, and those who reported two or more of 10 different symptoms, such as flushing or headache, were then re-challenged in a dose-response study. Of the 19 people who consistently responded to 5g of MSG mixed in a drink, once MSG was given in a capsule (therefore ensuring people couldn’t actually taste the MSG, which they could when it was mixed in a drink), only two people had reactions. The researchers noted that large doses of MSG without food may result in more symptoms, but no persistent or serious effects were observed. For context, estimated MSG intakes in the UK are about 0.58 g/day and in Asian countries, such as China, Korea, and Vietnam, where it is a more commonly used seasoning, it ranges from 0.33 g/day to 3.8 g/day, which is generally much less than the massive 5g or greater single doses provided in the challenge trials. Yet only two out of 130 people who claimed to be sensitive to MSG had any more symptoms than when they just took a placebo.

Given the controversy, consensus meetings with scientific experts convened in 1997 and again in 2007, and concluded that MSG was harmless and no dietary intake limits needed to be set. But in 2017, the European Food Safety Authority reevaluated the safety of glutamate as a food additive, and decided to set a limit of 30mg per kilogram of body weight per day, which is exceeded by most people every day. This limit was based off a rat study from 1979, with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) citing potential neurodevelopmental toxicity concerns. But even the author of the original study says they failed to convincingly show such an effect.

And given MSG’s salt-reducing benefits, might it be a-okay as a much-needed tool to reduce sodium in foods? Now, MSG still has sodium; it’s monosodium glutamate, after all, with about one-third the sodium of typical table salt. So a better salt substitute would be potassium salt––potassium chloride, which has the potential to save even more lives.

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Motion graphics by Avo Media

• asthma
• headaches
• MSG
• potassium chloride
• sodium