For Biophile.co.za
For the last fifty years, the medical community has been baffled by the rise in cases of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and autism. These two diseases, unheard of before 1950, have been striking an increasing number of children. Physicians have been unable to explain to parents why their children are suffering these maladies despite there not being any family history of the disorder.
Finally these parents will know one possible answer. Thanks to John Erb, a developmental disorder researcher and author of the book The Slow Poisoning of America, one possible cause of ADHD and Autism is no longer a mystery."These diseases appear to be caused by a food additive commonly known as MSG or Monosodium Glutamate," John Erb explains. "MSG is added to food because of its addictive qualities, it is nicotine for food. It is highly reactive in the human brain and other organs."
MSG and its related ingredients have been found in increasing amounts in processed and fast foods. Almost every restaurant and most processed foods from snacks and soups to ready-made meals have glutamate in them in some form or another. MSG has no nutritional value. Scientific studies have shown that food laced with the MSG cause people to eat more of it, and faster, than food without it.
"Corporations use this knowledge to sell their products. Their competition uses MSG, so they keep adding it in larger amounts to keep up with them," John Erb comments. The FDA has no limits on how much MSG can be added to foods, even though as little as two tablespoons of it has been shown to cause epileptic convulsions and death in animals such as dogs.
MSG is a highly reactive amino acid. It is used by scientists in studies to purposely cause death to areas of the brain and is fed to rodents to make a strain of obese and pre-diabetic test subjects. MSG is classified as a neurotoxin: too much of it introduced to the brain can cause rapid cell death. It is this kind of destruction that John Erb states is the cause of ADHD and Autism. He came to this conclusion after reviewing hundreds of medical journal articles detailing the ways in which glutamate affects organs such as the brain.
According to John Erb, "When a woman becomes pregnant, the placental barrier is not fully formed in the first month of fetal development. The chemicals the mother eats can go directly to the developing child. The glutamate stimulates rapid growth in the brain, creating ADHD symptoms. Too much glutamate over-stimulates areas of the brain, resulting in neuronal cell death. This destruction to the neurons results in the symptoms categorized as Autism."
MSG is used in almost every mass produced food to increase its palatability. Women are being exposed to a major toxin that can cause irreparable damage to their child even before they discover they are pregnant.
John Erb took his discovery to Dr. Susan Bryson, head of the Autism Research Centre in Halifax, and one of the leading Autism scientists in Canada. She was amazed by his findings, and confirmed that current studies being done by the National Institute of Health (NIH) show that the cause of Autism has been linked to a toxin invading the embryo's brain stem at as early as twenty days after conception. The NIH had not yet identified the toxin, but thanks to John Erb's discovery, they now know the direction in which to focus their research.
"The sooner people know that MSG can cause ADHD and Autism in their unborn children, the sooner they can take steps to avoid being another victim of the steadily increasing numbers of these disorders," John Erb states.
Autism, unheard of before 1950, (MSG was introduced to the American diet in 1948) has now risen to epidemic proportions with one in every 200 children born with the affliction.
"There may be a genetic component deciding who is stricken with ADHD and Autism, otherwise when you consider the rampant use of MSG in today's diet, every child would be born with either ADHD or Autism. But if the growth curve keeps going the way it has, it won't be long before this is the case."
MSG has been hidden in food ingredient lists as hydrolyzed vegetable protein, autolyzed yeast extract, soy protein isolate, and many other names. Every year, the amount of this substance hidden in foods rises astronomically. Just because the name MSG does not appear on the label does not mean that the food does not contain the excitotoxin glutamate.
"We should demand that the food industry, both restaurants and food manufacturers, remove the added glutamate in all its forms from anything we ingest," John Erb states emphatically. "The fact that they add it to make us addicted to their food is appalling enough, but considering it is doing terrible damage to our children, for that there is no excuse. The sooner these corporations are held accountable for poisoning us, the sooner we can eradicate ADHD and Autism from the maternity wards across the nation."
MSG causes obesity
The data is in and it is staggering: scientists have been using the common food additive MSG to create fat rats and mice to experiment on. In hundreds of studies produced worldwide over the last thirty years, MSG has been injected under the skin of day old mice and rats to produce obese rats and mice with a predisposition for diabetes.
According to the Glutamate Association, a government Lobby group sponsored by many of the companies that use or produce MSG in its various forms, the reason that it is added to food is simple:
"Studies have found that adding MSG to certain foods, such as soup and mashed potatoes, has been successful in increasing the food intake in institutionalized elderly populations.
John Erb, author of the book The Slow Poisoning of America believes that MSG is the food industry's equivalent of Nicotine. "Studies have shown that people who eat food laced with MSG eat more of it, and faster than food that does not have this additive. If it makes the elderly eat more, what is it doing to our children?"
Glutamate is an amino acid that can excite almost every major organ in the body, especially the brain. It occurs naturally in milligram amounts in some harvested foods. Now, however, a person can get as much as a teaspoonful a day by eating junk and processed foods.
"When ingested by human test subjects MSG directly affects the pancreas, stimulating it to triple its standard output of insulin output. This unnatural amount of insulin finds the sugar in the blood and converts it to fat. A few hours after you eat MSG the excess insulin the MSG triggers reduces your blood sugar level so much that you become tired and even hungry again. In animal test subjects this excess insulin leads to hyperinsulinemia: the chronic overproduction of insulin. The pancreas becomes so out of control that the body starts producing killer T cells to shut it down."
Is it any wonder why diabetes, obesity and lethargy in our children are at an all time high? Junk foods, processed foods, even school foods are laced with large amounts of glutamates.
"Too much glutamate in the brain over-excites the neurons until they die. Many people who suffer from chronic headaches and migraines can trace their trigger to eating too much MSG. If it can give an adult a migraine what can it do to a developing fetus?" John Erb asks.
Having researched over five hundred studies that use MSG to create obese mice and rats, John Erb took his concern about the food additive's safety to Washington. He was invited to report his findings to Senator Tom Harkin of the Senate Agricultural Committee.
On April 19th, 2004, Mr. Erb met with the Senator's aid, Alicia Morris, at the Agricultural office in the Birksen building. Ms. Morris was shocked by the ten page report that Mr. Erb gave her. The report, titled Published Medical Studies Linking the Food Additive MSG to Obesity, outlined fifty studies from the over five hundred he has catalogued in which rats or mice were given MSG to make them obese and hyperin-sulinemic.
John Erb suggested that the Senator should take action on the information in his MSG Report before the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act is passed by the Senate This act, known as The Cheeseburger Bill, would protect food manufacturers and restaurants from litigation stemming from discoveries such as Mr. Erb's: MSG has been proven to cause obesity and pre-diabetes in test subjects and is used as a food additive to make people eat more. He believes that the EDA should ban the adding of glutamates to the American diet until the food manufacturers can prove that there is no danger to the public health.
Mr. Erb concludes that "Considering that the same chemical used to make fat rats is used in uncontrolled amounts in our nation's food supply to make us eat more, it is doubtful that they could ever prove it safe for human consumption. One wonders how it was ever approved to be added to our food in the first place."
MSG may not be the only cause of obesity, but it is the chemical of choice used by scientists to create obese subjects in lab experiments.
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