So many people complain " I can't sleep at night." They stay up all night with what we call "forced thinking" and then we discovered they had MSG in a significant dose. There's a lot of MSG in hot dogs, and mother's who have children who can't sleep need to know this.
MSG has been shown to block the enzyme in the pineal gland that has to do with the production of melatonin, so if you're consuming a lot of MSG you are reducing your melatonin production , which makes your brain more vulnerable to free radicals and harder to sleep..
The government allows companies to put on the labels " contains no MSG", yet when you look at the labels, thare are three or four different glutamate toxins added to the food, but they use a disguised name. It will say hydrolyzed protein, or vegetable protein extract or autolyzed yeast extract, or natural flavor. All of those are disguised names for MSG because the FDA says if it's not 99 percent pure they can label it any way they want. They can even put it contains no MSG on it. Also most of meats are injected with hydrolyzed protein. Doritos has three powerful excitotoxins on them. They have MSG in high doses and sodium caseinate.
Pureed tomatoes causes a release of a fair amount of glutamate. But if you eat a whole tomatoe it is ok because it releases the glutamate very slowly and most of it is used up by your muscles. Soybeans and mushrooms especially portobello have a lot of glutamate. Some cheese has a lot of glutamate, especially Parmesan cheese. Soy sauce is also extremely high in glutamate.
Also, there are studies that have shown that adding aspartame to MSG greatly magnifies the toxicity and raises blood glutamate levels much higher that when either is used alone.
Melatonin is your valuable natural sleep hormone and to have that reduced or blocked will make it hard to spleep, to get to sleep, to stay asleep and to sleep well.
To detoxify first stop exposing yourself to MSG AND TAKE DHA from fish oil, B vitamins, thiamine, B 6, niacinamide B 12 and folic acid to help repair the damage. Selenium is important too.
HERBAL SLEEP SUPPORT
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) is a southern European native long valued by cooks for it's light lemony flavor. Lemon balm is used to encourage sleep and to reduce anxiety and stress. It has also shown antiviral properties, especially against the type of herpes virus that causes cold sores. It is believed to help relieve headaches, ease gout and toothaches, calm an agitated heart and regulate the female reproductive system.
According to scientific research lemon balm contains compounds called hydroxycin-namic acids. one of which is rosmarinic acid, helps fight free radicals and ease inflammation; in two separate animal studies, rosmarinic acid, was able to reduce inflammation similar to what is seen in hypertension and Parkinson's disease.