What are excitotoxins?
Excitotoxins are substances that make nerves rapid fire, in other words they cause abnormal nerve function. They can amplify pain and even cause neurons to die.
Excitoxins are found in processed foods, food additives and synthetic fragrance.
MSG is an excitotoxin. You’ve probably heard how damaging MSG is but do you know that it’s hidden under MANY other names! The harmful substance in MSG (glutamate) can also be created during high heat processing.
L-cysteine commonly found in bread products is a very powerful excitotoxin as is Aspartame found in diet foods.
Beware of all things synthetically scented! Toluene, a neurotoxin in synthetic fragrance can really do a number on me! Perfume, dryer sheets, lotion and air fresheners at a minimum give me body pain for days and at worst, a vomiting migraine.
What do excitotoxins do to me? They give me chills, anxiety, impending sense of doom and then on to the vomiting migraine and then body pain (starting with neck) and insomnia for days. Just a small portion of my symptoms…
When do they affect me? Depending on dosage it can be immediate, but most of the time it is the second or third day.
What are names of excitotoxins? L-cysteine, Aspartame, Neotame, Toluene (fragrance) are a few names but the hardest to avoid is MSG. MSG (monosodium glutamate) is disguised under many other names (See MSG List!). MSG can be added in as a powder or can be formed as a result of processing. Glutamate the G in MSG is the harmful part that excites nerves. A lot of the latest neurological drugs are glutamate blockers!
Excitotoxins
Glutamate and Pain
Glutamate and Pain
“The researchers further speculate that pain control medicine of the future will likely target and inactivate different types of glutamate receptors, which would prevent the brain from getting over-stimulated.”
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/glutamate-pain-8891.html
Vitamin D level and Pain
This is an interesting article. The removal of glutamate from food additives was the key to immediate relief for me. Now for long term health and reversal of my sensitivities I am working on a lot of what is mentioned here. I have the MTHFR gene mutation, it’s pretty common and to my surprise I also had low vitamin D.
“Ketones (ketogenic diet) may work for seizures ( I don’t recomend for anything else) by blocking the high concentrations of glutamate that are found in both migraine and epilepsy sufferers”
“Low levels of vitamin D3 are also associated with chronic inflammation and inflammation raises glutamate levels in the brain. Vitamin D3 prevents glutamate toxicity which is associated with the migraine aura and migraine triggers. Vitamin D3 is also needed to synthesis serotonin. Serotonin is a happy brain chemical used by many medications to reduce stress and migraines.
http://www.migrainekey.com/blog/8-ways-to-eliminate-migraines-forever/
Anxiety, Depression and MORE!
The link between GABA and Glutamate and probiotics that can raise GABA- http://birthfaith.org/nutrition/glutamate-and-anxiety
The role of glutamate in anxiety disorders-https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16400245
“We found that drugs that can target glutamate transmission, either by altering release, uptake or receptor activation can prevent or attenuate the cellular and behavioral changes seen in mood disorders,” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131006142321.htm
Many drugs block glutamate, but now without side effects! How about just NOT EATING it?
Glyphosate and Glutamate!
There is a large amount of data that suggests glyphosate causes people to have problems with glutamate.
“Taken together, these results demonstrated that Roundup(®) might lead to excessive extracellular glutamate levels and consequently to glutamate excitotoxicity and oxidative stress in rat hippocampus.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4392553/
PTSD
They know glutamate plays a role in PTSD but instead of letting people know it’s in 95% of the processed food on the shelves, they produce pills that try to block it and have terrible side effects.
Our military get an extreme amount of glutamate and other excitotoxins through the many vaccines they have to have and the their rations that are processed to the extreme.
“It suggests that anticonvulsants/mood stabilizers that antagonize glutamate activity might be useful for acute posttraumatic pharmacotherapy.”
Insomnia and Restless Leg
I don’t have insomnia anymore, it was caused by excitotoxins like MSG. MSG is under many other food additive names. Glutamate is the G in MSG.
“The results revealed that patients with restless leg syndrome had abnormally high glutamate levels, and that the higher their glutamate levels, the more disturbed sleep they had. Controls without sleep disturbances, however, had consistently stable glutamate levels”
