[cestith]

Indeed. It turns out that “MSG headaches” are just high sodium level headaches, either through dehydration, unbalanced electrolytes, elevated blood pressure or whatever else higher than normal sodium levels cause headaches. The same headache could be caused by salt. MSG actually makes recipes require less of other flavor ingredients, including salt. It’s also often found in dishes that still contain relatively massive amounts of salt.

So a little MSG to get your taste buds extra sensitive to other flavors is a net good. Just don’t eat too much sodium altogether, balance your electrolytes, and stay hydrated.

[bennettnate5]

I have a family member who has discovered through gradual process of elimination that she gets migraines from MSG, aspartame and yeast extract. "just sodium headaches" doesn't really apply to her case; simply chewing a piece of gum that has aspartame, or eating a piece of meat cooked with MSG in her salad is enough to trigger them. I agree in the general sense with your comment and the article that there's no widespread danger to public health from these additives, but it doesn't mean there aren't still individuals whose health gets messed up (including legitimate headache or migraine symptoms) by these additives.

[ch4s3]

> discovered through gradual process of elimination that she gets migraines from MSG

This is definitely not true. There is no biological pathway that can do this. MSG is nearly identical to the glutamic acid in other foods. If it were true they'd be unable to tolerate parmesan cheese, soy sauce, aged meats, tomatoes, mushrooms, and seaweed.

[cestith]

Glutamate is considered a migraine trigger, though. Many people do avoid or limit those foods for that reason. Thankfully it doesn’t appear to be a trigger for me, because I love all those things.

There is some controversy about dietary glutamate being directly responsible for migraine. It’s common in the brain already. It’s only allowed selectively through the blood-brain barrier. However it could trigger other types of headache, and those can trigger migraines. Also, apparently more of it is formed in the brain when there are high levels of lysine and ornithine in the body. Many of the foods with high levels of glutamate also have high levels of those aminos.

High levels or low levels of sodium in the body can also be a migraine trigger. MSG is lower in sodium than table salt, but it is additional sodium. Many of the issues blamed on it though are after eating foods that contain MSG and a high amount of salt as well. That’s also true of many of the glutamate-containing foods for that matter (gravies, miso, soy sauce, aged meats).

Doctors recommend eliminating one single ingredient at a time to find your triggers. However, I’m sure many people don’t control for salt when eliminating MSG or natural food glutamate.

[ch4s3]

Elevated brain glutamate levels are associated with migraines, but there’s no solid evidence that dietary glutamate is a trigger for migraines.

The number of people avoiding it is not evidence of anything other than public perception.

Elimination diets are also super impressive.

[cestith]

I agree on all your points. If someone suffers from migraines, though, it’s worth trying figuring out plausible triggers even if the evidence isn’t really solid.

It’s important not to conflate ingredients when doing an elimination diet, though. Separating restaurants or prepackaged foods at home that use MSG from those that use a lot of salt (or preservatives, or artificial dyes, or “natural flavors”, or any number of other things) is pretty difficult. I’ve seen several instances over the years of people assuming a restaurant used MSG based on getting a migraine, even when that restaurant doesn’t use MSG in any of their dishes. I’m not even a doctor, just an interested person with migraines. I’m sure a nutritionist or headache specialist could tell us stories.

[ch4s3]

There's a pretty good finding here[1] about elimination diets being inappropriate for most patients. Basically without any diagnosis of something like celiac, allergy, etc you have a high risk of misidentifying foods as causes because the co-occur with non food triggers. The literature just seems super weak for most alleged dietary triggers.

[1]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12609589/#sec8-nutr...

[bennettnate5]

> This is definitely not true. There is no biological pathway that can do this

Nevertheless, it continues to give her migraines even in small portions where other foods don't. I don't doubt it could be some byproduct from the process of MSG salt's synthesis or cooking with it rather than the actual glutamic acid, or some allergy as others have suggested.

I wouldn't be so strong as to categorically say that MSG can't cause migraines in any of the human race as you so claim though. There's so much we don't know about human biological mechanisms in niche cases; even water can cause allergic reactions in certain individuals (see Aquagenic Urticaria). What is true generally is not always true specifically when it comes to human health.

[bruckie]

I'm curious: have you done a (single or double) blind test where you prepare dishes (selected at random) with or without MSG/aspartame/yeast extract and record the effects?

To be clear: not saying you should, just wondering how you came the conclusion that those ingredients are the trigger.

[neonstatic]

Why are you arguing when the internet expert already stated that is impossible.

[dekhn]

MSG is the salt form, wherre the glutamate is bound to a sodium atom. In food, my understanding is that MSG will split into two things: sodium ion and glutamate ion. The difference between adding MSG to food and food being already high in glutamate would be the salt content.

I don't recommend telling people their subjective experience isn't true- you don't know for sure that they don't actually get migraines from MSG. I think it's fine to tell people that often their subjective experiences can be colored by prior knowledge, and people often ascribe causes to unrelated factors. (My personal belief is that most people who say they got a headache from MSG experienced a headache, but consuming glutamate was not the cause).

[cyberax]

For some people, migraines can be triggered by things like light or certain smells. It's not at all impossible that a certain taste can also trigger them.

[srean]

That's very interesting because cheese, paneer and cured meats do trigger wife's migraines. I had not considered that richness is n glutamic acid is a common factor.

The personal, anecdotal relation seems strong on the cheese and paneer component. Even if she had something not aware that it contains either of those it would trigger a migraine, sometimes not immediately though, seems to take a few to several hours.

Will have to try a blind testing with MSG.

[human_person]

Oh she/you should check out mast cell activation syndrome (mcas). Basically different foods increase histamine levels in the body or prevent its degradation. Old proteins and fermented foods are particularly problematic because microbes break down the protein and release histamine precursors.

[srean]

Thanks for the suggestion.

[eszed]

Well, my dad got migraines from everything° on that list bar tomatoes - though he did from dried tomatoes, so does that count as everything on the list? I don't know the biological pathway, but it was neither self-diagnosed, self-derived, nor made from woo; he visited several real-MD neurologists before someone identified the chemical(s) at fault, and gave him a list of foods not to eat.

°In fact it was all cheeses, not just parmesan; the more aged the worse. And also chocolate, and olives. Basically anything aged or fermented. I don't know how that lines up with MSG's chemistry, but he was careful with MSG, though nothing like as avoidant as he was with soy sauce and cheese.

[BobaFloutist]

Migraines are complicated enough that I'd buy a psychosomatic trigger, maybe?

[cestith]

Migraines can possibly be triggered by cause and effect chains several intermediate causes long. It could help explain for example why certain things are triggers for certain migraine patients and not others.

[cestith]

Aspartame is also a trigger, but the fact that one person has multiple triggers doesn’t mean they are related at all.

Now you’re right that MSG is more than sodium. Sodium can be a headache trigger, including migraines. Glutamate is also a migraine trigger and a fairly common one. It doesn’t happen to be one for me. However, it is a neurotransmitter that is involved in pain signaling. It’s understandable how it could easily trigger a migraine or make the pain worse.

Some triggers for some people actually help other people with migraines, like caffeine. Migraines are such an incredibly complex topic that there are medical specialists for them. Mine can be fairly debilitating, but are rare enough I don’t qualify for most prescriptions. So I definitely understand how trigger management and symptom management are a big deal.

[ranger_danger]

For me aspartame only just recently started giving me headaches, and it happens every time now, but not MSG or salt. No idea why.

[Suppafly]

Everyone I know that's discovered that MSG gives them migraines, somehow never get them when they don't know that the food they are eating contains MSG and never have a problem with foods that are naturally high in MSG.

[JCattheATM]

Sounds like an allergy.

[bennettnate5]

I definitely wouldn't be surprised if that were the case

[bena]

Or psychosomatic.

It's possible she believes that those items all trigger her migraines therefore her body gives her a migraine when she believes she's had one of her triggers.

A big tell would be her getting a migraine and blaming it on "hidden MSG" in a food item that doesn't have it.

Or her not getting migraine from foods that have MSG naturally but is never pointed out. Like tomatoes.

[tonyarkles]

It's funny... reading this thread, I'm reminded of a friend of mine who indeed gets migraines from tomatoes. That was actually what she figured out first; the MSG connection came later.

[kccqzy]

This effect is very obvious on me. I consistently get headaches when my sodium intake is too high. I don’t even use MSG in my own cooking but occasionally I add too much salt.

[tracker1]

Might consider a mix of electrolytes instead of just salt. I usually keep a container mixed with "snake juice" ratios for electrolytes and use that to season with instead of salt alone. I'll also sometimes put a pinch in my water, not nearly snake juice amounts, when I get a bit off and start getting leg cramps.

[ranger_danger]

I drank sodas with aspartame just fine for many decades. Then one day they suddenly started giving me migraines any time I had one, so I had to quit cold turkey. No other amount of caffeine, regular sodas, salty foods, MSG-laden meals etc. seem to trigger it though, and I have no idea why.

[kbelder]

It triggers a headache for me as well. Happens whether I'm previously aware of its presence in the product or not. I'm fine accepting that it's a generally safe chemical that has been thoroughly studied and I just have a quirk, but I also don't want my quirk to be dismissed because studies don't validate it.

The headaches are replicable and severe enough that it's turned me off of all artificial sweeteners, although I doubt they all have the same effect. I don't want to risk it.

[cubefox]

> So a little MSG to get your taste buds extra sensitive to other flavors is a net good.

Salt and MSG are sometimes said to strengthen existing flavors, but I'm pretty sure they mainly just contribute their own unique taste: salty and umami.

(There could of course theoretically be some interactions with other taste receptors, similar to how sweet things make things taste much less bitter, e.g. cocoa, but that is a relatively specific effect and not one that acts as a general flavor enhancer.)

[kdheiwns]

If you lick plain MSG, it tastes bitter. Add it to something very sweet and it just tastes bizarre. Sprinkle it on fried chicken and it tastes like you just dumped chicken gravy on it and pumped up the taste. It really does mainly amplify flavors.

And while MSG tastes very wrong in sweets, sweets generally always taste better with a bit of salt. Salt is its own flavor and a flavor amplifier.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Plain MSG absolutely does not taste bitter. I just tried some (again) to confirm, it's not salty & not bitter. Just a strong flavor of its own.

[BobaFloutist]

Yeah it just tastes like straight up "savory."

Almost tastes like fat more than anything.

[Kirby64]

> Almost tastes like fat more than anything.

Probably because a lot of fat sources have high levels of glutamates in them. You're not tasting the fat, per-say, but the other stuff that isn't fat. It's why beef tallow is so much tastier than neutral oil. Same level of fat.

[cubefox]

Yeah, I also just tried it, it doesn't taste bitter at all. It tastes like clear soup broth, which usually contains a lot of MSG.

[aitchnyu]

Doesnt all sodium chemicals like salt and baking soda increase taste perception?