If fried snack chips had a warning printed right on the bag that said, “Warning: these chips will make you obese,” would you still buy them? Would you still eat them? Well, in a sense, you do see that warning on chips; just read the ingredient list. Research suggests that monosodium glutamate causes obesity, making unhealthy snacks even unhealthier than you may have suspected.

I’m sure you already know that tortilla and potato chips aren’t health foods, right? They’re made with fried fats, they almost always harbor hidden toxic chemicals (acrylamides), and if they’re flavored, they usually contain monosodium glutamate (MSG). This is basically a recipe for obesity.

But how does MSG cause obesity? Like aspartame, MSG is an excitotoxin, a substance that overexcites neurons to the point of cell damage and, eventually, cell death. Humans lack a blood-brain barrier in the hypothalamus, which allows excitotoxins to enter the brain and cause damage, according to Dr. Russell L. Blaylock in his book Excitotoxins.

According to animal studies, MSG creates a lesion in the hypothalamus that correlates with abnormal development, including Obesity, short stature and sexual reproduction problems.

Based on this evidence, Dr. Blaylock makes an interesting point about the American Obesity epidemic, especially among young people: “One can only wonder if the large number of people having difficulty with Obesity in the United States is related to early exposure to food additive excitotoxins, since this Obesity is one of the most consistent features of the syndrome. One characteristic of the Obesity induced by excitotoxins is that it doesn’t appear to depend on food intake. This could explain why some people cannot diet away their Obesity.” As an increasing number of elementary school students bring snack-size bags of chips to school in their lunch boxes, the MSG-obesity link demands parental caution.

Instead of passively watching modern society become obese and then commenting on it, we need to change it at the start. That begins with you, the consumer. By avoiding foods with MSG, you are not only protecting your health and your family’s health, you are also protecting society’s health by not supporting companies that use MSG. Use your buying power to show that you don’t accept manufactured foods that use MSG or any of the other hidden forms of MSG such as yeast extract, hydrolyzed vegetable proteins and autolyzed proteins.

The experts speak on MSG and obesity:
Olney, J.W. “Brain Lesions, Obesity, and Other Disturbances in Mice Treated with Monosodium glutamate.” Sci. 165(1969): 719-271. Humans also lack a blood-brain barrier in the hypothalamus, even as adults. It is for this reason that Dr. Olney and other neuroscientists are so concerned about the widespread and heavy use of excitotoxins, such as MSG, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and cysteine, as food additives. In his experiments Dr. Olney found that high-dose exposure to MSG caused hypoplasia of the adenohypophysis of the pituitary and of the gonads, in conjunction with low hypothalamic, pituitary, and plasma levels of LH, growth hormone, and prolactin. When doses below toxic levels for hypothalamic cells were used, he found a rapid elevation of LH and a depression of the pulsatile output of growth hormone. In essence, these excitotoxins can cause severe pathophysiological changes in the central endocrine control system. Many of these dysfunctional changes can occur with subtoxic doses of MSG. One can speculate that chronic exposure to these neurotoxins could cause significant alterations in the function of the hypothalamus, including its non-endocrine portions.