Monosodium glutamate , also called E-621, is a natural product that is normally ingested in small amounts in dietary protein or as an additive . Since it is completely innocuous, its use as a flavor enhancer in packaged foods such as French fries, sausages and all kinds of snacks is more and more frequent. So much so that it is estimated that the 200,000 tons of glutamate produced in the world in 1970 rose to 1,500,000 tons in 2005.
This fact would not cease to be a purely anecdotal economic data if it were not for the fact that a team of Spanish scientists led by Professor Jesús Fernández-Tresguerres discovered a few years ago that this additive modifies the behavior pattern of appetite and satiety, producing an increase in voracity of up to 40 percent . Fernández-Tresguerres has gone even further by showing that a drug called memantine , indicated for Alzheimer's, can inhibit the action of glutamate. In experiments with 14 obese patients in Germany, he observed that administration of the drug in drops or pills caused subjects to lose 10 percent of their weight in two months without modifying their diet. In addition, the patients manifested a disappearance of the sensation of “anxious hunger”. Although the results are still preliminary, we could be facing a new and interesting front to combat voracity.
