Foods containing MSG Make You Fat?

The food given or monosodium glutamate flavor enhancer (MSG) has been more associated with the "Chinese restaurant syndrome" in the form of dizziness and nausea. However, new research shows foods with MSG may also cause weight gain.

Although MSG is not a major factor in obesity, a team led by Ka He, a nutritionist from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found people who suffer from obesity or overweight in general were eating too much MSG.

"Although the risk is small, its implications on public health is enormous. Almost every person ate food with extra flavor," said Ka He, told Reuters Health.


MSG is a food additive of the most widely used in the world, especially in Asian cuisine, to give a savory taste. Although declared safe, the people who are sensitive, the food had MSG can cause headaches, nausea, and various other reactions.

Studies on the MSG to obesity has long been done, but have not received a single conclusion. Scientists suspect people who like food had MSG become obese because of eating increases due to taste delicious food. Meanwhile, other studies show that MSG interfere with the signal system in the body that regulate appetite.

In the new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, He and his team followed more than 10,000 people in China for 5.5 years. The researchers measured the intake of MSG is directly on the packaging of food, before and after consumption, to determine accurately how much is consumed. The researchers also asked respondents how much the consumption of MSG in the last 24 hours.

Men and women who consume MSG quite a lot (about 5 grams a day), 30 percent higher risk of weight gain at the end of the study compared with fewer air-MSG mengasup food. Then, people who have been classified as obese are not included in the calculation, the risk is about 33 percent.

Unlike in America, obesity is not a big problem in China so that MSG is not the main cause of obesity in the country. However, Chinese people tend to be more active so it helps them to burn excess calories that might be caused by a flavor enhancer in foods.

He himself has not been able to conclude why the MSG cause obesity. However, he mentioned it might be related to the hormone leptin, which regulates appetite and metabolism. He found that many people had food mengasup MSG have more leptin.

"The consumption of MSG may cause leptin resistance so the body can not process energy derived from food completely. That's why weight people who eat MSG increase with the number of calories diasupnya," he said.

However, Ivan Araujo of the University of Yale, who has examined the effects of MSG on leptin, saying He is not convinced by these studies. He said, leptin is released by fat cells so that fat people have more leptin in their blood. MSG effects on leptin levels, he said, is a reflection of body mass.

He mentioned, exposure to air-MSG diet high in a long time may lead to leptin resistance by way of damage to brain areas in the hypothalamus.

Araujo added that people who eat food had MSG also means eating more salt so that it would cause fluid retention in the body and weight gain.