MSG linked to weight gain

by Chris Sparling (Subscribe to Chris Sparling's posts)
Aug 28th 2008 7:30PM

Categories: Womens Health, HealthWatch, Obesity, Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Nutrition & Supplements, Men's Health

As we've mentioned many times before here on That's Fit, most Chinese take-out menu items can be a disaster to your diet. Many are high in sugar and sodium, while some also contain a great deal of unhealthy fat. But could there possibly be something else in Chinese food that causes weight gain? There is indeed, say researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and it may be something you were aware of.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG), a flavor enhancer frequently used in Asian cuisine, can cause you to gain weight, new research published in the journal Obesity suggests. Rural Chinese men and women who consumed the most MSG were more than twice as likely to be overweight than their peers who didn't use the additive.

In the past, no definitive connection between MSG and weight gain in humans could be made, primarily because it was considered to difficult to measure the intake of the additive from processed foods. However, the UNC research team devised a method of analyzing certain data, which for the first time provided a clearer picture on the possible MSG/weight gain link. To read more about their findings, click here.

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Comments (1)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jody 9-03-2008 @ 6:05PM

Its pretty funny the only food they mention is "asian cuisine" i live in CT and most of the food places like that donnot have MSG. Why doesn't this article mention MSG being in all the other foods, examples are Campbells products, Doritos, pringles, hot dogs, hillshire farms, oncore, tons of food you find on the shelves are loaded with MSG. Besides weight gain it can cause damage to possibly every organ in your body. i was diagnosed with having migrain headaches and was told to talk a pill for it every 4 hours everyday. After taking 2 and the pain did not subside i started to look at what causes migraines and came up with MSG. I stopped talking the drug MSG also known as monosodium glutamate and went through withdrawls for just over 2 weeks. Needless to say my headaches are GONE I also dont have bouts of depression like before either(and they said that was postpardom depression) I've since had 2 more kids and no depression. The only thing I can say that has changed is I can no longer stand the taste of cooler ranch doritos or anything else that I used to like. Once you addiction to MSG is gone those foods taste pretty nasty.