
Dyslexia caused by faulty signal processing in brain - llambda
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120807104938.htm
======
loceng
"... shown that many difficulties associated with dyslexia can potentially be
traced back to a malfunction of the medial geniculate body in the thalamus."

I always wonder if things like Dyslexia are more a symptom from something
else, like how ADD can be caused in people who have food sensitivities or
allergies but don't realize it - or perhaps a terrible childhood where the
person / mind / brain learned distraction behaviours for coping, and therefore
until those distraction behaviours are explored that ADD person will never
learn how to focus.

And why is it considered faulty? How can one determine the pros and cons of
how a mind will develop due to how the brain works? It really bothers me that
much of very narrow scientifically-done research doesn't reach back out into a
holistic view. I understand that if you keep the narrow context than their
statements remain 'true' - however that isn't beneficial on an individual-by-
individual basis when our body and minds are so complex.

A quick fix sounds nice, is 'cheap' in cost (if you ignore side-effects and
that many times medications are bandaids that tend to fall off or let symptoms
[from something underlying] worsen), and is purely driven by profit-motive -
at least that's where funding comes from, even if it's in researcher's hearts
to trying to find answers to help others. We know things like MSG and
artificial red food dies cause ADD in a large percentage of the population,
though in North America we still allow it in our food - whereas in much of
Europe such things are ban.

Anyway, clearly I am for preventative/proactive health and not putting
temporary bandaids on things. Research is showing more and more that bandaids
(not literally) end up costing society more than dealing with the base issues.

~~~
Nicole060
"We know things like MSG and artificial red food dies cause ADD in a large
percentage of the population, though in North America we still allow it in our
food - whereas in much of Europe such things are ban."

First, MSG has not been banned in Europe, and you can buy this food additive
and use it for your own home cooking, I should know because I sometimes use it
instead of salt. Second, you'll have a hard time finding an actual study
proving the harmful effect of MSG, and links to websites with no credibility
like rense.com doesn't count. It's not a coincidence that most links point to
stuff like that on the first page of google when you search for MSG and they
are popular among conspiracy nuts/fear mongers.

If you listen to the conspiracy theorists, MSG causes diabetes, alzheimer,
autism, heavy migraine/headaches, parkinson, seizures, addiction to MSG
itself.. stop propagating the bull*.

~~~
saurik
So, I know nothing about MSG, but when I see people say things like "you'll
have a hard time finding an actual study proving the harmful effect of X" I
tend to go check, as it is do easy to do so: it makes for a good check of
academic honesty.

Regardless, this claim is clearly wrong: PubMed has tons of papers about
random things being associated or impplicated with MSG, including neurological
effects. In particular, here are some papers about excitotoxins (MSG in
particular) and fibromyalgia.

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11408989>

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22766026>

~~~
Nicole060
Unfortunately for you, you haven't proven anything about MSG being the root of
any disease whatsoever, as both links only proves what it can do to someone
who already has some kind of disease (fibromyalgia in this case). This is not
so different from the harmful effect of gluten to someone who has coeliac, or
sugar to a diabetic, but no sane person is going to demonize gluten or sugar
just because a very small subset of the population are harmed by those
substances. Or milk. Or peanuts.

Almost any type of food source could be thought of as harmful based on your
own criteria. I can find the kind of study you link to for so many things that
you'd develop a fear of eating itself.

The truth remains : there is no _STRONG_ correlation between MSG and the kind
of horrors the demonization campaign stirred up by conspiracy theorists
pretends it to do to the human body. You type "monosodium glutamate" in google
and one of the links on the FIRST page is a link to rense.com, a website
maintained by 9/11 deniers and UFO believers, and it's for a good reason if
that link is on the first page, because talk about MSG is most popular amongst
that group of people.

Anything that is not "natural" (for some highly subjective value of) is prone
to be hated and part of a fear mongering campaign from the type of people that
are obsessed with fear, fear of technology, of progress, of science, of
politics [...]

~~~
saurik
The fact that there are nut jobs that believe something extreme that have high
page rank does not mean that a more moderate position is false. Meanwhile, the
argument that science cannot "prove" anything undermines the idea of science
being valuable at all.

<http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=MSG+glutamate>

That search result is littered with articles in legitimate sources testing MSG
in various contexts, showing random negative effects on hormone regulation and
brain function in general. Are these important effects? Maybe not; but you
have to look at the effects in question.

What is quite clear, though, is that tons of actual scientists have studied
MSG and have turned out actual papers showing actually statistically
significant effects, albeit in models that you might disagree with under
dosages you might consider absurd. Others, of course, might find them highly
reasonable.

You can't, however, just wave your hands and dismiss all of this work: to do
so is just ignoring science, and apparently trusting some combination of your
gut feelings on the matter and Google's page rank algorithm to establish
truth. There is science out there, and that science should be discussed.

~~~
Nicole060
People who are NOT researchers but spreading the same shit everywhere on the
internet are nothing but conspirationists. Including you. Because you contest
what is officially recognized as OK, and do so without yourself having the
medical authority/background to back up your claims. A random hodge podge of
various, completely unrelated studies does not a point make. The experts of
the FDA and various health authorities around the world have read the same
studies as you do, and allowed MSG to be used in our food, and you have no
authority to contest that.

I can bring up the same hodge podge about gluten and ask for a ban.

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16436335>

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18787912>

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16423158>

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1727768>

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19664354>

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20170845>

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15497770>

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16436335>

Here you have equivalent material on gluten, hell you'll even find an
association with schizophrenia. Let's fear-monger and stop eating bread and
pasta !

With your really low, actually unscientific standard of using science studies,
I can make it so that you'll never eat any food again, because I can find the
same stuff about most food sources.

Since everything is so unsafe why don't you just kill yourself and be done
with the unsafe misery that is life, cowering in your primal fears. You can't
eat msg, but you can't eat gluten either, nor table salt, or sugar, or various
carbohydrates, or milk.. oh but you can't eat some meat either because there
are correlations to cancer. In fact, studies on meat have shown greater
negative effects on the body than studies on MSG.

"A 2011 study of 17,000 individuals found that people consuming the most
grilled and well-done meat had a 56 and 59% higher rate of cancer"
[http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v106/n3/full/bjc2011549a.h...](http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v106/n3/full/bjc2011549a.html)

Are you going to stop eating meat forever because of the relatively small
increase of risk of getting cancer ?

This is why I call you a conspirationist. There are "natural" food sources,
like red meat, that have been proven as much more dangerous (and it's still a
relatively small danger, statistically speaking) than MSG yet people like you
focus on MSG and Aspartame because FUCK ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTS right ? Red meat
is natural so it's all good right ?

My point wasn't that I trust pagerank more than science. It's that there is a
popular FOCUS on something that ISN'T MORE dangerous than stuff like read
meat, and it's for a reason : fear mongering about anything that's artificial,
man-made, call it whatever you like. The science speaks for itself because
none of the study you will link to will prove MSG as a bigger danger than
something like red meat. And yet, you don't see anyone trying to bring up a
fear-mongering campaign against meat. The only people who campaign against
meat are the psychotic vegetarians from PETA who do so in the name of a
ridiculous "ethics", being against the killing of animals.

Seeing educated people like you spreading this bullshit against MSG doesn't
help to educate most people about the reality of food. Most of your food
sources can be toxic to a % of the population. Big fucking deal.

------
charlieflowers
The grammar in the article is terrible. For a minute i wondered if i were
looking at some kind of spammy fake article.

But now, i think it more likely it is a poorly written summary of legitamite
research.

