WHY CHINESE PEOPLE DO NOT DEVELOP "CHINESE RESTAURANT SYNDROME"?

Since, the first ever report of "Chinese restaurant syndrome" published in 1968, it's exact pathology remains a mystery. Another mysterious fact is occurrence of this syndrome among Chinese people at low levels, disregard of their high Mono Sodium Glutamate (MSG) intake. Now a team of researchers from 'Legacy research Center' in USA, had came out with a explanation for this odd phenomenon. During their experiment,the team had exposed neurons to different concentrations of MSG. "Pretreatment of neurons with a low dose of MSG reduces subsequent injury by a large dose of MSG.  It is likely that Chinese people have already established tolerance to MSG due to previous exposures to low doses of MSG when they were young. The finding that pre-exposure of a low dose of MSG can generate tolerance may explain why Chinese populations do not experience headaches after MSG intake." they say.

(Deciphering the MSG controversy

Jennifer S. Xiong, Debbie Branigan, Minghua Li

Int J Clin Exp Med. 2009; 2(4): 329–336. Published online 2009 Nov 15.

PMCID: 

PMC2802046)