[sdfignaionio]

This is the normal story for someone who claims to suffer from MSG sensitivity. People claim they experience the most extraordinary symptoms, with perfect specificity and reproducibility. Perhaps they experienced symptoms after eating a meal and only learned after the fact that it contained MSG. Perhaps, upon learning that Parmesan cheese and tomatoes contain MSG, they remembered that Italian food had always made them sick. Perhaps they tested their symptoms in a poorly-designed experiment. All of this is expected even if the condition is psychosomatic.

Your wife is part of a large minority that tells stories like these, yet we have proven that at most a tiny minority can have a physical condition. The majority of people with self-reported MSG sensitivity cannot demonstrate it in a laboratory. These symptoms are curiously unheard of in Asia. The huge majority of people who claim MSG sensitivity are wrong.

Maybe your wife is the rare on who is right. Science can't easily prove that MSG sensitivity doesn't exist. But she is making an extraordinary claim with only ordinary evidence.

[musiciangames]

Without seeking to contradict your main point, it's worth noting that "These symptoms are curiously unheard of in Asia" could be genetic. In the same way that most westerners are OK(ish) with alcohol, but many asians aren't- they 'have a genetic variation that means their aldehyde dehydrogenase is either ineffective or less efficient' [1]

[1] https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/myth-...

[DontchaKnowit]

This is such a dumb comment. Bodies are weird and have all kinds of reactions to all kinds of things. People should take peoples experiences with their own bodies at face value.