How Glutamate Is Destroying Your Brain

In this video, biochemist Katie Reid discusses how she reversed autism in her 3-year-old daughter in three stages: she added nutritional supplements to her diet, she removed gluten and casein from her diet, and she reduced foods that contained large amounts of glutamate.

The nutritional supplements, such as magnesium, B complex, vitamin D3, and Omega 3 help correct deficiencies that are common in most people and the other two stages; the removal of gluten, casein and glutamate are really the same because as Katie discovered, high amounts of glutamate is found in foods like bread and pasteurized (commercially available) dairy products.

Free glutamate is an amino acid found naturally in many foods and is even good for the body. The problem with glutamate is that many of us get it in excess, which is when chronic health issues happen.

It isn’t just autism that may be reversed by reducing glutamate. By reducing glutamate intake, you can prevent/reverse issues such as:

  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Bi-polar Disorder
  • Obesity
  • Multiple Scleroris
  • OCD
  • Tourette’s Syndrome
  • Epilepsy

That’s just a short list of the health issues caused by excess glutamate. There are many more.

So what can you do to reduce free glutamate in your diet?

Well, Katie Reid operates a nonprofit called Unblind My Mind, which is an organization created to raise awareness about the link between foods and the health issues they may cause and she has created an excellent resource of recommended foods (even bread!). That’s a pretty good place to start.

You also need to be careful about purchasing products that contain MSG, which is often hidden behind unsuspecting ingredients. You can find a full list of those ingredients names here.

I certainly plan to reduce glutamate in my diet moving forward. Has Katie’s advice convinced you to change your diet?

* Update (1/16/14): I just realized that Dave Asprey sells a supplement designed to fight against glutamate as well. There’s a lot more useful information about glutamates on that page and it’s all backed by research, which you can see at the bottom of the page. It can be hard to trust someone when they are trying to sell you something and I’m sure that’s why he cited the research – he knows that people will be weary of his claims.

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