The Dangerous Chemical That Can Wreak Havoc to Your Health and Your Gout
MSG or monosodium glutamate is a popular flavor enhancer and if you have eaten at a Chinese buffet, you know how much MSG is added and how bloated you feel once you get out of there. But MSG is not only found in Chinese food, nowadays food companies use it in so many of the processed foods you find in your local grocery store in frozen foods, crackers, canned soups, canned vegetables, potato chips, cured meats, processed cheese, breakfast cereals, desserts, condiments and the list goes and on and on! What MSG does is it makes those foods taste fresher and smell better while it silently destroys your health.
Don’t let anybody else tell you otherwise but MSG is a toxin! A good book on MSG is Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills written by Dr. Russell Blaylock. In his book he goes on to explain how MSG is a excitotoxin which means that it overexcites your brain cells causing brain damage and eventually death. MSG has also been linked with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease according to the author.
What is MSG?
MSG was born in 1908 by Japanese inventor Kikunae Ikeda who first identified the natural flavor of seaweed and then went on to create the man-made additive we call MSG. MSG’s chemical composition consists of 78 percent free glutamic acid, 21 percent sodium and up to 1 percent contaminants.
You’ve got guanylates that also includes guanylic acid, dipotatssium guanylate, calcium guanylate and disodium guanylate which are odourless, colorless white crystals used mainly in low salt/sodium foods to enhance the taste so you can eat think you are actually eating healthy when you are not. These guanylates are metabolized into purines in your body and should definitely be avoided by the gout sufferer.
Then you’ve got inosinates like inosinic acid, dipotatssium inosinate, calcium inosinate and disodium inosinate found primarily and naturally in animal products like processed cheese, poultry, meat, pre-cooked noodles, broths etc…Inosinates are used together with MSG and your body will also metabolize it into purines, so you have to watch out!
Why do you think I recommend you read my eBook “Gout and You: The Ultimate Gout Diet & Cookbook” in which I teach you how to eat fresh and avoid all these processed foods? All food companies care about is their bottom line while they destroy your health.
Flavor enhancers like MSG are used in almost all packaged products and may cause a variety of health issues like joint, muscle pain, headaches, fatigue, dizziness since artificial flavorings like MSG and artificial sweeteners may stimulate the pancreas causing your body an imbalance in insulin and blood sugar levels. If you also happen to have heart problems, MSG may cause rapid heartbeat. This is no good to us gout sufferers and we are better off using natural spices to add taste to our foods. Yes it takes more work but do you want to live or do you want to die?
The FDA requires that food companies must list MSG (monosodium glutamate) if it is added on the label but food companies know you and I will look for that and has developed over 40 labeled ingredients to hide MSG and you wouldn’t know it by their names alone. Some of the strange names include autolyzed yeast, monopotassium glutamate, glutamic acid, gelatin, hydrolyzed protein, sodium caseinate just to name a few.
That’s why I have the rule that when I shop at the grocery store and look at the label, if I don’t know what these weird named ingredients are, I put it back on the shelf and don’t buy it. This is a good rule to live by; it won’t get you into trouble, that’s for sure. In addition, many restaurants use MSG in their cooking so make sure to ask the waiter before ordering what meals on the menu don’t have MSG in them or skip restaurants altogether like I do cause you never know what you’re going to get.
18 replies to "Gout and MSG"
Si vous saviez à quel point je suis contente d’apprendre que le MSG peut être responsable de crises de goutte. Je suis limite au niveau des analyses et mon médecin ne veut pas me prescrire quoi que ce soit. De moi-même, je tâtonne depuis des mois côté nourriture et je viens de faire une expérience aujourd’hui qui m’a poussée à voir de plus près côté glutamate : un plat tout préparé du commerce, à la sauce très onctueuse et goûteuse que j’avais pourtant égouttée au maximum par prudence. Alors que j’étais bien depuis quelques jours, résultat immédiat, j’ai les pieds rouges, enflés, douloureux, c’est spectaculaire ! Je vais donc le supprimer de mon alimentation et TOUJOURS cuisiner par moi-même très nature. Merci.
Hello Spiro,
I was first diagnosed by my doctor with asymptomatic gout (and a low
body temperature, e.g. 96.8 F, then, often lower now; 96.2 F, this
morning) in 1981, based on a high serum level of uric acid. My actual
complaints were chronic fatigue, generalized discomforts and muscle
weakness and severe mood swings.
Later in 1981 I learned I was rather suddenly (from late 1980 through
late 1981) allergic to just about everything I ate and drank on a
regular basis, through long since abandoned cytotoxic blood testing
for food allergies (failed skin patch/scratch, 1973, and R.A.S.T. IgE
antibody blood, 2009, allergy testing) through an independent
laboratory advertising in a then local newspaper.
Consequently I have been aware of an allergy/gout relationship for
thirty-nine years and counting and am still seeking to understand the
exact biological mechanism(s), hopefully, to get from being only
relatively healthy and again free of any prescription drugs at age
seventy-six to being really healthy again (at least as well as I was
in late 2014) with a greater expectation of longevity.
Today, again investigating the relationship between MSG and purines, I
clicked on the link to goutandyou.com to find out a little more about
what causes and how to deal better with my gout (e.g. coffee, vitamin
D3 and glucosamine, minimally); thank you for those. In return, I’m
pasting a copy of my latest one-page overview and summary of my entire
adult illness experience below my name, location and email address. I
hope you can find at least some of it useful in your work. Personally,
now, it seems I need to do a better job of determining (e.g. at-home
trial and error testing) how much calcium, magnesium and vitamin D3 to
take for my typically ‘individual’ metabolic needs.
Thank you for your time and attention. More details and/or personal
lay perspectives upon reasonable request.
Best regards and well wishes.
See below:
LESS ILLNESS AND BETTER HEALTH AS EASY AS ONE, TWO, THREE ~ ONE, TWO, THREE
(c) 2020 Charles G. Shaver (former industrial electrician; not
licensed medical professional advice; please share)
Despite a brief experience with mysterious chronic illness in the
military in 1964, at age twenty, I thought I was rather normal until
becoming mysteriously, seriously ill with chronic fatigue, generalized
discomforts, loss of muscle tone and severe mood swings again in late
1980. That 1964 experience is now a ‘baseline’ of natural* chronic
illness for me and that late 1980 experience marks the beginning of
thirty-nine years and counting of externally imposed artificial
chronic illness. At seventy-six years of age in early 2020 I’m still
only relatively healthy but again free of any prescription drugs,
while estimating some 4000 unsuspecting Americans under doctor’s care
are dying prematurely daily from cheaply and easily preventable
conditions.
Three simple reasons for so much individual chronic illness in America
(minimally, now going global):
1) a kind of allergies not yet embraced, explored, treated and/or
taught in medical schools by mainstream medicine, links 1), 2), below,
which can cause an acidosis which can result in nutritional
deficiencies;
2) U.S. FDA approved allergy aggravating food poisoning, namely common
allergen, incomplete protein and phytoestrogen rich soy (mostly
processed more cheaply with toxic hexane since the early 1970s) and
1980 FDA approved for expanded use added cultured ‘free’ monosodium
glutamate, MSG; link 3), below, and
3) ‘medical error;’ announced by Johns Hopkins researchers in May of
2016 to be the third leading cause of all death in the U.S., behind
only heart disease and cancer, both of which can be allergy-acidosis
related.
Most notable symptoms, short-term, compared with an established
at-rest fasting baseline: pulse and oral temperature rise, pH and
blood oxygen fall and weight increases (due to inflammation and excess
water retention), each of which can improve in just hours by avoiding
known allergic offenders and/or fasting.
Most obvious long-term symptoms: obesity, so-called ‘male pattern
baldness,’ eye glasses for myopia.
Worst case scenarios: see listed conditions in Chapter One of THE
PULSE TEST via link 1), below, and in the introduction to DIET WISE
via link 2), below, plus non-terrorist mass-killing and/or suicide,
minimally.
Three cheap** and easy remedies for much (unlikely all) individual
chronic illness in America, minimally:
1) objective at-home identification (failed skin patch/scratch [1973]
and R.A.S.T. IgE antibody blood [2009] testing, myself) of one’s worst
allergens with a few simple non-invasive tests; Dr. Coca’s ‘pulse,’ my
lay pH (saliva and/or urine [better]), blood oxygen, oral temperature
and/or weight testing; subjectively, ‘feeling ill.’
2) vary one’s diet and/or avoid known allergens, soy and added MSG at
least half of the time and/or fast and
3) take good quality OTC supplements (e.g. Ca/Mg, at least, in a
higher ratio of Ca:Mg than recommended to experimentally address
allergy related acidosis, minimally); be sure to avoid any known drug
interactions.
Effectively, based on past personal experience, professional
publications and current trends, most Americans are part of an
‘illness industry’ and a ‘silent American genocide.’ Humanity may be
facing extinction by 2075.
* Natural allergy aggravation dosing: mega-single-offender,
multi-offender and too-soon-repeated-offender.
** Supplies (ordered online): digital thermometer, finger
pulse-oximeter, pH testing strips, bathroom scale.
1) https://soilandhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/02/0201hyglibcat/020108.coca.pdf
2) https://alternative-doctor.com/about-prof-keith-scott-mumby/
3) http://www.holisticmed.com/msg/TheErbreportonMSGtotheWHO.pdf
Hi Charles!
Interesting insights for sure, your case sounds rare, glad you found some useful information on my site that can potentially help you. Being alive at 76 you must be doing something right.
Wish you continued health and success!
Hello again Spiro.
Thank you very much for what was actually a rather rare prompt and
polite reply. And, while I may be a ‘worse’ case scenario,
statistically, my kind of illness is not all that rare.
Try as I might try not to do, I seem to put too much emphasis on the
history of what I’ve found and not enough on what I’ve found. I tend
to ignore that failure while writing others due to me not having any
professional credentials and trying to establish some level of
authority and/or believability but it may leave people like you and
people who rely on you less than fully informed. So, again today, I’ve
visited your blog to learn more about you, your gout findings and some
of the problems you and/or your followers (e.g. Swiper Fox on November
8, 2017 and Angelo on March 29, 2018 about peanuts; myself, mildly
allergic) may have. Consequently, I am encouraged to write again to
fill-in some blanks I previously left empty, starting with how I now
consider Dr. Coca’s (my) kind of allergies to be fundamental to all
things ‘health,’ and that which, in my lay opinion, should be the
first thing investigated in any kind of chronic disease. In recent
years I’ve been writing of my kind of allergies as “SCARS”
(Sub-Clinical Allergy Reaction Syndrome; my label) and “chronic
SCARS.”.
First, getting back to your own history with no disrespect,
discouragement and/or offense intended, as best I can tell/have found,
you had your first gout attack at age twenty-six in 2002, making you
about 44 now. You wrote you are about 5′ 11″ tall and back then
weighed about 240 lbs., about 50 pounds overweight from eating wrong
and drinking. Not sure when the family photo (nice family) or the one
of you in the blue tee shirt were taken but, in comparison with
another picture I found posted online it suggests to me you are
experiencing some early so-called ‘male-pattern-baldness’ which I
wonder might be a family trait, as is mine.
I’m now wondering, too, if you have the time and interest, if you
would inform me of any dramatic change (e.g. from rural to urban; from
country of origin to the U.S., etc.) in diet and/or lifestyle that
almost immediately preceded your first gout attack? For me it was
definitely 1980 and the substance was added MSG, which I didn’t know
could be a serious factor until the summer of 2000. I didn’t learn
more of the trouble with soy until about 2012.
Before I, hopefully, get another reply from you, I’d like to emphasize
that both so-called ‘modern’ skin patch/scratch allergy testing in
1973 and R.A.S.T. IgE blood allergy testing in 2009 failed to
indicate-for any of my now long documented food sensitivities. Worse
yet, my kind of allergies have never been factored-in to any
scientific study that I’m aware of, leaving them all questionable (at
best) and invalid (at worst). So, in my mind, so-called ‘evidence
based science’ is inherently unreliable.
I imagine if you were as aware of my kind of allergies as you are of
the many gout/uric acid factors you could integrate them in to your
work and help many others better understand how diet can adversely
affect them in multiple ways too. I regret that my own chronic illness
continues to interfere with me providing you, or anyone else, with a
comprehensive account of what I’ve found but unfortunately, too, I
have only learned these things gradually and intermittently through
the years; why I included in my one-page summary some on how to
identify a SCARS or chronic SCARS reaction in progress (e.g. pulse,
pH, etc.) with at-home testing..
First writing the FDA (with replies) about connections I personally
made between allergies/added MSG/chronic disease and the then recently
announced ‘obesity epidemic’ in October of 2005; obviously in-vain,
hundreds of professional others since with similar results, I’m again
offering to share what I can about my kind of allergies/gout and what
works for me. To help me emphasize the importance of this let me now
quote from your ‘Gout and Stigma’ blog: “Gout started to become more
common around the 1970s to the 1990s. The likely culprit is obesity.”
I don’t know where you were then but I was here in the U.S. and became
mysteriously, seriously ill right in the center of that time frame,
along with the 1980 FDA approval of added MSG, with the
obesity/diabetes epidemics presenting by 1990 (CDC/NCHS data). To
begin to conclude this for now let me state simply that while others
may say ‘variety is the spice of life’ for someone like me with now
long documented multiple chemical, food and metal sensitivities
(‘allergies’; SCARS) I find ‘variety is essential to life.’
Others I’ve already written to about allergies, added MSG and chronic
illness find too that intermittent fasting is beneficial, as do I.
But, I prefer to supplement as best I can to prevent, mitigate and/or
compensate for the insidious, subtle damage done long-term by
allergy/SCARS related acidosis while trying to get added MSG and
modified soy protein permanently banned from commercially prepared
food products in the U.S.
I recognize and accept that you are doing better than I am to get much
of the word out on gout but I’m here to help if you’d like to
incorporate more about the allergy factors into your work.
Thanks again for your attention and time. More upon request.
Charles Shaver.
I avoid “table salt” and use only canning and pickling salt. I have MORE trouble when eating sea salt. One of the ways I can identify MSG is the fact that it tastes SO GOOD. Anything that tastes that good is probably bad for you !! Sea salt can have more or less MSG in it naturally, as L-Glutamic Acid (the business end of MSG which causes sickness) is present in seaweed, especially Kombu Seaweed. That is the seaweed they use to wrap around sushi, as seaweed “paper”. So I avoid sea salt like the plague, and use only canning and pickling salt, where ingredients on box say only “salt”. Table salt with iodine, has maltodextrin added and that is a chemical that contains MSG. There are about 40 different chemicals that contain 20-35% pure L-Glutamic acid and the food manufacturers can use all of them in a product and claim the product is MSG-free, because the law states that if 100% pure MSG is added with the chemical name monosodium glutamate, them there is MSG in the food. Otherwise, it is a nightmare. Lies and deceit in the food industry. They know that any kind of L-glutamate Acid in their food will make it “taste better” than the competition, so they will find ways to add it while still looking “cool” in the eyes of the non-existent FDA “consumer protection”
Hi Spiro! I’m a gout sufferer for 30 years now.I got an attack 4 days ago. Have been taking prednisone and gout starting to clear up.Then I had steamed vegetables for dinner but added mushroom sauce and soysauce mushroom flavour both with flavour enhancer 621…msg along with cornflour apple cider vinegar maple syrup. Bang it started to flare again back to worst then it did when I first got it 3 days ago.I hope I have cottoned on to something that really true. I have been using these sauces more frequently lately now are tipping down sink. Spiros if you haven’t do a really good survey on msg and you might discover something really good for gout sufferers.There’s nothing about msg in any gout pamphlets at the doctors.
Big thanks to this link and other commenters. Typically skeptical of info/reviews like this. However i think this may have helped me identify MSG as trigger. Taken a long time to identify my trigger, actually convinced me that I didn’t have a trigger.
I recently had a month long volatile flare up that required a steroid shot and regimen 2 weeks into episode. Afterward toe still felt stiff (no pain, minimal swelling) for another week or so. Just a few days ago it was totally cleared up. Chinese food for lunch with a colleague yesterday and my flare up is back in full!
Its gotta be MSG. In hindsight, other Chinese food experiences have likely before flare ups. They’re just getting worse and worse.
Confirming too that MSG is a major gout trigger (along with red wine). This wasn’t the case when I was younger, but now that I’m in my early 40’s, gout attacks are becoming more frequent. Home cooking and other types of restaurants do not cause a flare up. Only Chinese food when we go out to restaurants. Almost without fail, a day or two later, the pain starts. We went to a family dinner on Sunday and now I’m feeling the onset of an attack.
Yes I’ve known msg is a big trigger for my gout but if I take a couple Aleve before I eat something questionable or dine out. A lot of canned soups flavored chips and almost all bacon and sausage have msg in them. In addition when you see natural flavor, other spices, or flavorings you can bet msg is in there. One last mention I have developed gout after eating waffle/ pancake mix and store bought cookies and am thinking baking powder may also be an offender, good luck to all! Stay healthy!
I had a gout attack after eating salmon marinaded in soy and brown sugar. I also used Maggi sauce on salads.
MM
I have good proof for MSG causing gout attacks. I have been controlling my gout purely through a very strict diet and lifestyle choices. For instance, I cook my own meals from fresh vegetables. I have a favourite vegetable soup which I have been cooking for years without any adverse effect. But a couple of months ago in a moment of madness I added a spoonful of spice mix which contains MSG to give it a more “chickeny” flavour. My thinking was “MSG is a natural substance, so it should be fine”. But within 24 hours or so I got a mild attack in one foot. It took me a day or two to analyse what I had been eating, because I had kept my diet strictly otherwise and had been symptom-free for months.
Then I found some reports on the internet saying that American researchers have found that gout sufferers often have problems with glutamate metabolism and glutamates break down to uric acid. So, it was the added MSG in my soup that had done it. I have since made the same soup again without the offending spice mix, which I discarded, and I haven’t had another episode (touch wood). Many gout sufferers are not aware of this, but I found out for myself the hard way. It was like one of those animal experiments, but the animal was me, so, if you have gout, avoid MSG.
Aloha from Hawaii, I just want to say mahalo (thank you) to Spiro for taking the time to make and share this awesome wealth of knowledge for us gout sufferers like myself and my dad to learn from. And thank you to Francis Chin for being honest and sharing about MSG. MSG definitely affects me negatively and I’ve learned to avoid it.
[…] do not eat any white sugar, no white flour and no MSG. I couldn’t agree more! His chef also goes on to say how he uses lots of raw extra virgin olive […]
I live in Singapore, a Chinese-dominated society where MSG-laced cooking is the rule in any food outlet. We even have an MSG-production plant in the 1970s (of which I was the administrative manager). When I began work there, my first assignment from the managing director was to research on the benefits of MSG in food. After 3 months of collecting data and showing them to the boss, he told me to shelve the study because there was zero benefit and many harmful effects of MSG.
I can confirm that MSG causes gout in me. After years of trial and error, it is the MSG that always causes it. It is in everything, and what initially clued me in was eating dried cuttlefish and Hot Fries in the same day that I also had a up of Noodles for lunch. I am from Hawaii and we love all of those things. That started my quest to eventually figure out it is the MSG. Now whenever I have a gout attack, I can ALWAYS trace it back to something I forgot had MSG, like a bag of BBQ Chips, Top Ramen (the flavor packet), sausage links, some bacons, most flavored corn chips, Campbells soups, so many things. Read the labels and it could be affecting you too. Some restaurants you must ask also, because some put it in Kim Chee and their soup bases and sauces. Peace.
Thanks for your comment Kepa!
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