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Filling the Gap on MSG

The new thing that we know of right now about MSG is that it does not result to long-term build up of glutamine in our blood, and thus gets easily flushed out of our system after intake. 

SOME three months or so after the Breakthroughs article, Tasty Dish and the Risk You Know, came out in the last day of August last year, Dr. Josefa S. Eusebio, president of the Glutamate Association of the Philippines (GAP), wrote me to share what she knows about monosodium glutamate (MSG).

The GAP objective is “to undertake programs and activities for generating and disseminating scientific, culinary and other related information about glutamates and its umami taste.”

Dr. Eusebio shared to me how “96 percent of all glutamates (from food and MSG) are utilized in the intestines as major source of energy metabolism and for carrying out the vital functions of digestion and absorption.” The remaining four percent, she wrote, enters the blood, and “immediately” transformed into other amino acids (glutamate is an amino acid, a building block of protein) or broken down in the liver and the kidneys, and used in the synthesis of other bodily molecules.

This is encouraging information for safety-conscious food lovers. The gist of it is, once it enters the mouth MSG will not be leaving the body as it will be utilized primarily in the gut.

Still I have to look for more studies that can clarify the issue on disposal from the body, or at least a picture of the long-term use of MSG. A study came up, conducted by Vichai Tanphaichitr, Preeya Leelahagul and Kannika Suwan of the Ramathibodi Hospital (Bangkok, Thailand).

In their report published in The Journal of Nutrition in 2000, the team concluded that... [READ MORE] 


This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 21 March 2012.
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