What's eating kids? Maybe it's their diet ( MSG, Aspartame)

[Guest guest]

What's eating kids? Maybe it's their diet ( MSG, Aspartame) JoAnn Guest Oct

10, 2005 16:19 PDT

The Orlando Sentinel 3/12/95

By Linda Bonvie and Bill Bonvie SPECIAL TO THE SENTINEL

http://kefir.net/spray/whatseatingkids.htm

 

Social critics of crime-driven, gun crazy television shows complain that

some teen-agers are incited to real-life rage by the daily diet of TV

violence.

 

But maybe it's just their daily diets - as in breakfast, lunch and

dinner.

That's a factor of increasing concern to some scientists and activists

who see a link between. the growing epidemic of senseless violence among

adolescents and the mushrooming use of certain food additives -

additives they claim are actually harmful drugs in disguise.

 

When people ask what's eating kids, these experts say, maybe they should

look at what kids are eating.

 

The two main ingredients at issue are the flavor enhancer monosodium

glutamate, or MSG, and the artificial sweetener aspartame, more commonly

known by the trade name NutraSweet. Both contain amino acids - glutamate

and aspartate - which occur naturally in the brain as neurotransmitters

- the chemicals that carry messages between nerve cells.

 

But the unrestricted ingestion of these substances, in the view of some

authorities, can cause brain cells to become overcharged and

consequently, to shut down.

 

" The poisoning of young minds, " in their view, is all too real when you

consider the amount of these additives consumed by children.

 

That's not to mention a variety of other adverse reactions reportedly

experienced by children and adults alike, as reflected in thousands of

health complaints taken by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the

Dallas-based Aspartame Consumer Safety Network, and an organization

called No MSG, based in Santa Fe, N.M.

 

From an industry perspective, all of this is utter nonsense, In a series

of pamphlets, the NutraSweet Co. reassures consumers that study after

study has found no ill effects resulting from the use of aspartame,

other than in a tiny percentage of people who suffer from a condition

known as PKU.

 

The sweetener is perfectly safe, manufacturers say, and has the backing

of major health organizations. Similar claims are made by the Glutamate

Association, representing MSG producers and companies that use the

product.

They take issue even with the term critics use to describe the

additives, saying " excitotoxins " is an artificial coinage and loaded

word.

 

The critics, however, charge that the research cited is flawed and

industry generated and that the FDA has been too permissive in its

acceptance of these additives.

 

Meanwhile, the pervasiveness of processed food containing either MSG or

aspartame - now numbering thousands of products - can result in

considerable intake, especially among kids, who consume a lot of snack

foods and diet soda.

 

" Hundreds of millions of infants and young children are at great risk

and their parents are not even aware of it, " warns Dr. Russell Blaylock,

author of a recent book Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills. Blaylock is

a neurosurgeon and associate professor of neurosurgery at the Medical

University of Mississippi.

 

According to Blaylock, a single meal may contain several sources of

these additives, compounding their toxic effects - effects that, given a

high enough dose, can include brain lesions.

 

Resulting symptoms, he contends, may take the form of emotional control

disorders and displays of episodic anger, which can show up in young

children or emerge later.

 

The hypothalamus, which affects mood and emotion, is an area of the

brain that's particularly sensitive to excitotoxins, he said in a recent

interview, because it contains " a very high concentration of excitatory

receptors. "

 

Sudden rage has been produced in animals, he claims in his book, by

injecting tiny amounts of glutamate into the hypothalamus. Giving a

child enough exposure to the substance, he said, might precipitate a

similar outburst, precipitating an explosion of violent rage " over

something that normally wouldn't result in any more than a shoving

incident or name calling. "

 

Blaylock is by no means the only one to raise such a red flag. For

years, maverick members of the medical, scientific and legal communities

have been casting serious doubts on the FDA's allowing of ever greater

quantities of excitotoxins to be introduced into the typical American

family diet.

 

Particularly galling to critics was the FDA's approval of aspartame in

1981 - despite the alleged unreliability of test results submitted by

G.D. Searle, NutraSweet's parent company, and despite the opinion of a

panel of consulting scientists that uncertainties existed about the

sweetener's role in brain-tumor development.

 

" It was approved in a completely nefarious, completely unacceptable

manner, " maintains James Turner, a Washington, D.C-based attorney,

food-safety crusader and author of the

1970 landmark book, " The Chemical Feast " , who led the original campaign

against the sanctioning of aspartame.

 

Turner's efforts have included a legal challenge to the FDA's NutraSweet

approval process in which potential harm to children was one of the

issues raised. His action, however, was defeated in federal court.

 

FDA spokesman Thomas Wilcox doesn't deny that there have been claims of

adverse reactions and that he wishes there were none. He is chief of the

epidemiology branch of the FDA's Office of Scientific Analysis and

Support - the office to which the Nutrasweet Co. refers all complaints.

 

" There are some people who don't tolerate aspartame, " he said, but the

reports to the FDA aren't sufficient to warrant a change in the

product's classification. FDA policy, he added, is that " unless there is

shown to be some very common serious effect ... you don't want to

deprive the entire population of the product " simply because a " smaller

group " reacts badly.

 

That, in fact, is precisely the kind of thinking that Turner thinks

keeps the FDA from doing an adequate job of protecting the public.

 

" The way they see it is every time they take an action, the take

something away from consumers, " he said.

 

Another early aspartame activist, Dr. Woodrow C. Monte, director of

Arizona State University' Food Science and Nutrition Laboratory, remains

especially concerned about the methyl alcohol it contains.

 

This particular component, he says, is one that can enter directly into

brain cells, where it breaks down into formaldehyde.

 

 

" It's a terrible thing to do to kids, " said Monte, who a decade ago

tried to have NutraSweet taken off the shelf in Arizona by in invoking a

state law prohibiting unsafe food ingredients.

 

" Methyl alcohol poisoning works slow and is sinister, " he said. " You can

never find it. "

 

MSG is often identified with condition known as " Chinese Restaurant

Syndrome, " first described in a 1968 letter to the New England Journal

of Medicine. But authorities such as Dr. George Schwartz, an

internationally known physician, toxicologist and author, claim that its

effects extend far beyond that syndrome's minor and transitory symptoms,

posing a distinct hazard to the physical and mental health of millions

of Americans.

 

Such alleged effects, which range from digestive ailments and migraines

to seizures and asthma attacks, can include what Schwartz terms " rage

reactions " and " marked personality disturbances with violent behavior " -

changes that he claims to have observed in normally placid youngsters

within 20 minutes of ingesting MSG.

 

" It can cause enormous destruction of a childhood, " he said.

" A person has to eat a tremendous amount of food to get the level of MSG

they're suggesting, " said Sue Taylor, a dietitian who serves as the

Glutamate Association's manager of nutrition communications.

 

She acknowledged that " a few people " may be MSG-sensitive but only about

2 percent of the population, and they experience only mild reactions.

" Nothing, " Taylor said, " that would substantiate the claims they're

making. " In any event, she says, MSG can't get past the barrier that

keeps substances in the blood from entering the brain.

 

But Schwartz and others maintain millions of people suffer adverse

reactions to MSG, some to only minuscule amounts that may be hidden in

other ingredients.

 

Further, they say, it becomes toxic to everyone at some point, and the

blood-brain barrier doesn't adequately protect the hypothalamus.

 

 

According to Blaylock, in fact, " the ' immature brain is four times more

sensitive to the damaging effects of excitotoxins as is the adult

brain. "

 

There are, he said, many variables that determine sensitivity to

excitotoxins including age, heredity, body temperature, total exposure

and the frequency and timing of that exposure.

 

" The problem is, " he said, " we have no way of knowing who possesses

abundant natural protective mechanisms and who does not. "

 

Government pronouncements about MSG and aspartame have created a " false

sense of security, " he said.

 

" Educators around this country are having all sorts of meetings

concerning declining test scores and violence in the classroom, "

Schwartz said. " Yet we are providing drugs for breakfast, lunch and

dinner that are known causes of personality alterations, inability to

concentrate and violent behavior. "

______________

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets

 

 

 

 

AIM Barleygreen

" Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future "

 

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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