Worldwide flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate combined with high lipid diet provokes metabolic alterations and systemic anomalies: An overview

• Main Authors: Arnab Banerjee, Sandip Mukherjee, Bithin Kumar Maji
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-01-01
• Series: Toxicology Reports
• Subjects: Food habits; Monosodium glutamate; High lipid diet; Human health; Harmful effects
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214750021000858

In this fast-food era, people depend on ready-made foods and engage in minimal physical activities that ultimately change their food habits. Majorities of such foods have harmful effects on human health due to higher percentages of saturated fatty acids, trans-fatty acids, and hydrogenated fats in the form of high lipid diet (HLD). Moreover, food manufacturers add monosodium glutamate (MSG) to enhance the taste and palatability of the HLD. Both MSG and HLD induce the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and thereby alter the redox-homeostasis to cause systemic damage. However, MSG mixed HLD (MH) consumption leads to dyslipidemia, silently develops non-alcoholic fatty liver disease followed by metabolic alterations and systemic anomalies, even malignancies, via modulating different signaling pathways. This comprehensive review formulates health care strategies to create global awareness about the harmful impact of MH on the human body and recommends the daily consumption of more natural foods rich in antioxidants instead of toxic ingredients to counterbalance the MH-induced systemic anomalies.