MSG, Gluten and Nervous System Diseases

Gluten Intolerance Can Cause Neurological Disease

Ataxia (unsteadiness of gait or balance is highly associated with gluten intolerance – more so gluten sensitivity than celiac disease.

Some patients suffering from ataxia call themselves clumsy or accident prone as there are likely to fall into things, trip, etc. Unfortunately ataxia can get so severe that a patient’s life is greatly inhibited as they are no longer able to drive and may feel afraid to be alone.

Gluten is the most common cause of something called cerebellar ataxia. (The cerebellum, a part of the brain, helps modulate voluntary movements so that they become more accurate, smooth, and require less conscious effort to perform. A good example of this is learning to ride a bicycle. Initially you have to consciously balance, and think hard to coordinate the movements of your arms and legs, etc. Yet as you practice more and more you can eventually ride the bike without thinking about it – that is your cerebellum at work.)

50% of Gluten Intolerant Patients Have Nervous System Problems

Neurological complications are found in many patients with gluten intolerance  - 30-50% to be precise. The critical step is to try to diagnose patients, early on, who are having their nervous systems affected by gluten because it has been found that gluten-free diets sometimes cannot stop neurodegeneration (degeneration of the nervous system) that has progressed too far.

Over the years I have noticed that many of my gluten intolerant patients are also MSG intolerant. Let’s look at why that might be and how it can affect the nervous system.

Substance called “Free Glutamate” Can Act Like MSG

Insidiously enough, many companies tout their products as being free of added MSG but that doesn’t mean that they are also devoid of free glutamate. Glutamate, an amino acid, is typically found in high protein foods. When bound it isn’t a problem but prolonged cooking or processing liberates or “frees” the glutamate and that is when problems arise for some individuals. The presence of free glutamate is not found on any labels but suffice to say that most fast food institutions and many highly processed foods (especially those high in protein) have either added MSG or free glutamate present.

If you know that your body responds poorly to MSG or you have any type of neurological complaint, I would recommend that you become familiar with these foods and consider eliminating them from your diet. Remember, free glutamate does not tend to be present in what I consider fresh, healthy food. A little internet search will give you more specifics on these types of foods.

We use ‘gluten’ to refer to the protein structure found in the grains wheat, rye, barley. Factually we should be using the word ‘gliadin’ as only wheat contains true ‘gluten’. Don’t worry about it, but for this post I wanted to make the distinction for a reason. And that is to explain that gliadin is broken down, upon digestion, into the amino acids proline and glutamine. Glutamine in turn breaks down into glutamate (both are amino acids) and the highest rate of this breakdown occurs in the small intestine. So there is a cascade from gliadin to glutamine to glutamate as digestion occurs.

How Gluten and Glutamate are Related

Interestingly, gluten and glutamate share a common thread in the area of creating neurological complaints. Could the ingestion of foods with high glutamate, though gluten-free, explain the onset of neurological symptoms due to a high free glutamate? It does give one something to think about... It certainly has been the case in this some of my patients.

Let’s put this all together to understand just how gluten can create neurological problems and how glutamate might be adding kerosene to the fire.

Excitotoxicity  - the Killer of Cells

First a definition: Excitotoxicity - a process whereby excess glutamate accumulates outside cells, resulting in damage and eventual death of cells in the nervous system.

Excitotoxicity can Cause Stroke, Autism,  Alzheimer’s and Seizures

So as you can see, glutamate can kill cells of the nervous system if not removed efficiently. Excitotoxicity is associated with such disorders as stroke, autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and seizures due to the fact that glutamate can result in severely decreased blood flow to the brain.

Inflammation Creates Excitotoxicity – A Bad Outcome

The bottom line is that a lot of glutamate is produced in the brain when it’s “excited”. It is “excited” when it’s inflamed and gluten is a major source of inflammation in those who are intolerant– see how it all comes full circle?

Gluten Can Inflame the Brain

We know that gluten can cause systemic (throughout the body) effects upon the immune system, even though it enters the body through the gut. It has also been well established that gut irritation can activate immune cells in the brain that initiate immunoexcitotoxicity (a process whereby the brain is subject to excitotoxic damage).

The more Brain Inflammation Occurs, the More Damaging It Is

The brain’s immune cells can secrete a number of inflammatory substances, but even worse, once it’s occurred the first time, the next irritation that occurs causes the immune cells to pour out excitotoxins, creating neurological symptoms.

Heart Disease, Diabetes and Cancer Share a Common Root Cause

There are 3 excitotoxic amino acids that are poured out, one of which is our friend glutamate. These amino acids suppress the transport system that allows glutamate to be removed efficiently from the brain. Buildup thus occurs, increasing excitotoxicity and unstable substances (called free radicals) that will react with most tissues of the body creating destruction in their wake. Free radicals are known to cause many disease conditions including cancer, diabetes and heart disease, to name but a few.

By the way, we also know that the immune cells of the brain are activated by not only gluten and glutamate but by chronic infections and toxins, including pesticides and herbicides.

What is the Take Away? 

Let’s review:

• We know that chronic inflammation is a bad thing and we want to prevent it.
• We know that when sensitive to gluten a body can become inflamed in many areas, especially the gut and the nervous system. 
• We know that we want to prevent neurological diseases such as stroke, autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and seizures and that they may very well be initiated by a negative reaction to gluten, one of its breakdown products glutamate, and foods high in free glutamate.
• And lastly we also know that we want to avoid excitotoxicity as it literally spells a death sentence for the cells of the nervous system and brain.

What Can You Do?
First it must be determined if the individual suffers from gluten sensitivity or celiac disease. This can be difficult in some people who yet have no symptoms, as neurological problems may take years to develop although the damage is slowly and relentlessly occurring.

Blood tests that measure AGA, tTG, EMA and dAGA are all available. Cyrex Labs has a nice test that is more sensitive than those previously used and it’s the one we use here at HealthNOW. Our major goal is early diagnosis – we want to discover the problem before too much damage has occurred.

It must also be determined if glutamate containing foods are problematic. Many people who are sensitive to MSG know it, but unfortunately they are unaware of the free glutamate in food, so they chalk up feeling badly to some other source.

We must encourage protection of the nervous system and reduce stress on the brain’s immune cells.

How? Nutrients found in cranberries and many other brilliantly colored fruits and vegetables have potent antioxidant activity which may help fight heart disease and cancer in addition to protecting the nervous system. DHA is a powerful anti-inflammatory for the brain that not only inhibits immune activation of brain cells, but it improves blood flow to the brain and blocks excitotoxicity – all very good things!

Lastly we must remove any additional sources of inflammation to the body. Possible culprits are other foods causing problems, infectious agents, heavy metals and other toxins.

It sounds difficult but we must strive to “clean up” our body’s internal environment. We can’t swim in a sea of toxins and expect to be healthy. The body can only tolerate so much.

Neurological diseases are terrible but the good news is that they may be largely preventable.

I hope you find this information useful and please share this data with someone who has some of these symptoms or suspects they may be suffering from gluten intolerance.

If you would like to improve your health please call me for a free health analysis. I’m here to help!

HealthNOW is a destination clinic and we see patients from all over the country as well as internationally, so you don’t need to live locally to receive assistance.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”

Permission is granted to repost this article in its entirety with credit to Dr Vikki Petersen & HealthNOW Medical Center and a clickable link back to this page.

Questions re: Gluten, Glutamate and Neurological Disease

I received very good questions from readers of the recent blog post entitled: "Gluten, Glutamate and Neurological Disease", two of which follow. 

“Do you think that patients with neurological issues are sensitive to gluten in amounts well below the proposed standard of 20ppm?” “Also that it takes longer to recover from mistakes when the reaction is neurological.”

“I have also been prescribed a product with glutamate in it by a Naturopathic doctor. I have taken glutamine in the past to heal the gut, but this formula is to induce a sense of calm. Now I am wondering if it is safe...”

Glutamine is often used by health practitioners for its ability to help heal the lining of the gut.  It was found in cancer patients that the use of glutamine could assist in healing and reduce nausea and vomiting associated with the disease.  Those who were in hospital receiving IV therapy due to malnutrition were similarly found to benefit from glutamine as a healing source.

We too have used glutamine for patients who seemed to require some assistance in healing the lining of their gut.  How do I feel about that approach now?  We have discussed it here at the clinic and have made the decision to avoid the use of glutamine in any patient with a personal or family history of any neurological symptoms or diseases. There are other substances that can be used to assist healing and we therefore have decided to move more towards those applications and away from prescribing glutamine in light of this recent data.

Glutamate is a neurotransmitter in the brain – it is excitatory and is the most common one in the human body. Just to comment on the supplement mentioned above, glutamate would not be used for calming, that would be the neurotransmitter GABA. GABA has an inhibitory effect, exactly opposite to that of glutamate.  The formula that the reader refers to states that it contains both GABA for its calming influence and glutamate for its excitatory effects and it strives to balance them towards the outcome of creating a calming effect. But it isn’t the glutamate that would provide that outcome, quite the opposite.

Glutamine and glutamate freely transform into one another as the body goes through various biological processes.  They are very commonly found in the human body and I am not suggesting that we can in any way eliminate either one, nor would we want to.  What I am saying is that recent research finds that the activation or stimulation of the brain’s immune system can lead to highly deleterious effects on the body’s nervous system including stroke, seizures, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. And glutamate as well as gluten (that metabolizes into glutamine) can be a source of irritation.

In a fascinating lack of differentiation, the immune system of the brain and nervous system can be whipped into action by several different sources that yet all create the same destructive effect.  In other words, a gluten sensitive person can have initiated an immune response through gluten ingestion, but later the presence of glutamate in food or infections or pesticides or any toxin can ramp up the initial irritation to the point where broad scale damage occurs.

Such damage is extreme and one wonders if the body can heal from it.  Depending on its severity I believe the answer to be yes.  The human body is rather amazing that way.  However nerves heal slowly.  If you’ve ever cut yourself anywhere perhaps you’ve noticed that it takes some time for full “feeling” to be restored to the damaged area.  That is due to the slow healing of nerves.

We therefore want to ensure that we are avoiding any sources of stress to our nervous system.  As the first reader commented above, being extra cautious in consuming gluten-free foods would be a very good idea.  If your body is undergoing neurological stress and you are walking a tightrope between the progression vs. reversion of a neurological disease, I think erring on the side of extra caution is well worth your while.

In summary, what we are really trying to achieve is an intact healthy gut (not leaky) and an immune system that’s strong and protected.  We reviewed nutritional and dietary strategies to help achieve that in the prior post so I won’t repeat them here. Suffice to say that with any neurological problems a full scale clean-up away from gluten, glutamate, infections and toxins could very well create a huge positive impact.

I hope this helps to clarify things.  Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”

Gluten Sensitivity & Infertility

A reader who is a clinician himself writes: “I believe that gluten sensitivity may be a risk factor in pregnancy contributing to complications such as miscarriage, preterm labor and even stillbirth. Have you seen anything to support this concept?”

I have seen a great deal of information supporting this. Studies going as far back as 1996 speak of the association between gluten and fertility. While most of the studies were done with celiac patients we have seen clinically that this association appears to be true for gluten sensitive patients as well.

In 2001, Gynecologic & Obstetric Investigation presented an article entitled: “Celiac disease: fertility and pregnancy”. The authors noted that celiac disease may manifest clinically with an array of non-digestive symptoms such as dermatitis herpetiformis; dementia; depression; various neurological symptoms, osteoporosis; dental enamel defects, and anemia of various types. They also stated that important data have accumulated regarding the association between celiac disease, fertility and pregnancy.

The critical observation was made that: Many primary care obstetricians, gynecologists and perinatologists are not aware of these important relationships.

The authors made a review of the scientific literature and what was revealed was that patients with untreated celiac disease sustain significant delayed menarche (age when a women begins menstruating), earlier menopause, and increased prevalence of secondary amenorrhea (absence of menstrual bleeding).

They continued to state that patients with untreated celiac disease incur higher miscarriage rates, increased fetal growth restriction and lower birth weights.

Their conclusion was that improvement of celiac, with implementation of a gluten-free diet, may decrease miscarriage rates, improve fetal nutritional support and overall prenatal (period from 20 weeks of pregnancy to 1 month old) outcome.

In the Italian medical journal, Minerva Ginecologica, an article entitled: “Celiac disease and spontaneous abortion” was published in 2002.

The authors very correctly pointed out that celiac disease is only diagnosed in a small percentage of adult cases compared to the real situation because it is manifested with few symptoms, is in an atypical form, or occurrence is completely silent.

The aim of their study was to investigate the association between celiac disease and abortion, and evaluate whether patients suffering from recurrent spontaneous abortion might present an atypical or subclinical form of the disease.

Five women were positive for celiac disease. Four of these women formed part of a group of patients with a positive history of spontaneous abortion and one was from the control group.

Analysis of the cases from this study and those reported in the literature shows that tests to identify celiac should be extended to the population with a risk of developing spontaneous abortion.
These subjects should include those with a family history or clinical symptoms, in particular women with a history of multiple abortions.

In 1996 the European Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology published an article entitled: “Gynaecological and obstetric disorders in celiac disease: frequent clinical onset during pregnancy or puerperium” (period after birth continuing for 6 weeks).

The author’s aims were to determine:
1. The prevalence of gynaecological and obstetric problems in patients with celiac disease and the influence of strict gluten restriction on their occurrence,
2. The effect of pregnancy on the clinical course of celiac disease, and
3. The clinical features of those patients with onset of celiac during pregnancy and puerperium.

As mentioned in earlier research findings, this study also found that untreated celiac patients exhibited significantly later menarche, earlier menopause, increased prevalence of secondary amenorrhea and increased incidence of spontaneous abortions.

Patients who had adhered, in the long term, to a gluten-free diet had gynecological and obstetric history indistinguishable from controls.

They summarized by stating that the early diagnosis and treatment of celiac disease may avoid significant gynecological and obstetric complications.

And finally, an article just released a couple of weeks ago, May 25, 2010 in Fertility & Sterility, “Primary infertility as a rare presentation of celiac disease.”
The authors reported a case of a 30-year-old woman presenting with primary infertility who on investigation was found to have celiac disease. After being on a gluten-free diet for 8 months she had a successful conception.
Their conclusions, much along the lines of the previous studies were as follows: We suggest that celiac disease should be checked in infertile patients of unexplainable etiology with anemia, as just changing their diet can solve their fertility problem.
Well that last sentence does sum it up very nicely. Let’s reiterate: Just changing the diet can solve the ______ problem.
Yes in this case we’re speaking of infertility, hormonal imbalance, spontaneous abortion, etc. But as you well know if you read this blog, there are very many symptoms/diseases we could insert into that sentence.
Infertility is a growing problem. It affects as many as 1 in 6 couples. Imagine if we could decrease those numbers by increasing the awareness of gluten intolerance. Now add delayed menarche, earlier menopause, and increased prevalence of secondary amenorrhea and spontaneous abortion to that list. How many women might that affect?

It’s exciting to think of the good effects that could be created by making the women who suffer as well as the doctors who treat them aware of this association.
It’s frustrating that we haven’t arrived at that awareness level yet…
Not meaning to be redundant as I say this at the end of most posts, but we have to continue our grass roots movement. Awareness IS increasing, we just have to continue to work hard.
Speaking of increasing awareness, check out the July issue of “Better Homes & Gardens”, page 202. The article is called “Gluten’s Laws” and yours truly is featured. “Better Homes & Gardens” has the third largest distribution of all magazines in this country. See, we ARE making headway!

Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”

References:

Gynecol Obstet Invest. 2001;51(1):3-7. “Celiac disease: fertility and pregnancy”
Minerva Ginecologica, 2002 Apr;54(2):151-9. “Celiac disease and spontaneous abortion”
Eur J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 1996 Jan;8(1):63-89. “Gynaecological & obstetric disorders in CD: frequent clinical onset during pregnancy or puerperium”
Fertil Steril. 2010 May 25. [Epub ahead of print] “Primary infertility as a rare presentation of celiac disease.”