Could monosodium glutamate be a contributing factor in our struggle to lose weight? Yet another study links MSG and weight gain.
Although plenty of research has already made the same suggestion, this study seems pretty convincing, in that it involved over 10,000 participants. Led by Ka He, a nutrition expert from the University of North Carolina, researchers followed both men and women, aged 18-65 years, for an average of five and a half years. Not only did they monitor their MSG intake and BMIs, but they also took other factors into account, such as age, physical activity, and total energy intake, in order to ensure that these issues would not skew results.
They found that participants with the highest MSG intake (median of 5g/day) were about 30% more likely to be overweight at the end of the study, compared to those with the least intake (less than 0.5g/day).
When they excluded individuals who were already overweight at the beginning of the study, the risk ended up increasing to a total of 33%.
The reason for the association between MSG and weight gain isn’t understood yet.
One idea is that monosodium glutamate affects the body’s response to leptin, a hormone that helps suppress appetite.
Researchers noticed that participants who consumed the most MSG also had higher leptin levels. This suggests that no matter what their caloric intake was, their bodies weren’t properly responding when leptin was released, thus leading to weight gain. One possible explanation is that chronic exposure to MSG creates leptin resistance by damaging the hypothalmus, the part of the brain which regulates hunger and metabolism.
But this is all still up for debate, and there are some questions about this study.
Since leptin is secreted by fat cells, some argue that it’s simply the weight gain itself, which is responsible for the higher levels of this hormone. Another interesting point is that this study was undertaken in China, a country whose population has long used MSG as a flavor enhancer, yet has no problem with obesity. One final point is that the higher MSG intake was also associated with greater salt intake, which means that some of the weight gain might be attributed to water retention.
Nonetheless…
That’s not to say that chemical food additives like monosodium glutamate aren’t a contributing factor when it comes to modern society’s struggle with weight loss. After all, who really knows what long term risks we unwittingly assume, when we allow the quality of our food to be in the hands of manufacturers, rather than our own kitchens.
Reference:
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Consumption of monosodium glutamate in relation to incidence of overweight in Chinese adults: China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS)
http://www.ajcn.org/content/93/6/1328
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