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MSG and glutamate, toxin-free for ALS/MND patients

There has been much information available through many online public message boards, forums and chat groups about “detoxification” and eliminating toxins from the body.

While always a good idea to eat right, the message of the MSG and glutamate misinformation has been designed to mislead ALS and/or MND sufferers to thinking that detoxification will benefit health and can/will reverse the symptoms of ALS and MND.

The companies that push this 'toxin-free' diet and related products are doing so to sell supplements, books, and other materials or therapies for profit.

Despite the lack of evidence to suggest that these supplements and diet will reverse or help alleviate the effects of ALS, these individuals continue to push this information on the Internet - this information is made available to increase sales by misleading individuals such as yourself. Shame on them!

A well known and respected organisation (MDAUSA.ORG) educated the public about glutumate and MSG back in 1997, saying "dietary glutamate isn't toxic to motor neurons. I tell my patients not to worry about it at all.".

However, the “Truth in Labelling” company and others continue to overwhelm the Internet with false claims, and unfortunately, the Internet is a public entity; as such, the information for why you should detoxify greatly outweighs the information that is available saying that there's very little point to it. To understand why the misinformation outweighs the availibility of truthful information please read the next section.

Why Would Information About MSG, Glutamate and Detoxification Exist In Abundance?

Simply put, the people behind the detoxification, MSG, and glutamate detoxification programs have a reward for making this information abundant - sales and more sales, all for profit.

Respected organisations and doctors have downplayed or negated the significance of detoxification. The information was made available to contradict the misinformation; unfortunately, the information was posted to the Internet many years ago, and has since fallen out of search engine listings because it is considered "old information".

Organisations do not often re-print information, there's little point. Unfortunately scam artists and fraudulent people do re-print information, they will continue to re-print this information to websites, as a result, the misleading information will dominate search engine listings - in essense, search engines help promote misleading information (through no fault of their own).

1997 - What About MSG?

Questions about MSG (monosodium glutamate), a frequently used food additive, are common in the ALS and neurologic disorders community.

A group known as the Truth in Labeling Campaign of Darien, Illinois, is particularly concerned about the effects MSG may have on brain cells.

But Dr. Jeffrey Rothstein, who co-directs the MDA/ALS research and clinical center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has been studying glutamate for years, and he isn't worried. "The glutamate you take in your diet, the brain keeps out," Rothstein says. "This is because of the blood-brain barrier."

Glutamate is made by nearly every cell in the body, Rothstein says. Excess glutamate made inside the nervous system has been found damaging to motor neurons, and Rothstein is among those responsible for linking this finding to ALS. The drugs riluzole (Rilutek) and gabapentin (Neurontin) work by partially blocking glutamate inside the nervous system. However, says Rothstein, "dietary glutamate isn't toxic to motor neurons. I tell my patients not to worry about it at all."

Rothstein notes that there was some research in the 1960s that showed that an area of the brain known as the hypothalamus could be damaged by dietary glutamate. However, he says, this damage was found to happen only in infants. The baby food industry took the glutamate out of its products by the early 1970s, he says.