Food Additives and Hyperactivity–Again!
I thought we were done with food additives as a cause of hyperactivity in kids years ago, but here it comes again. A new and well controlled study in The Lancet, funded by the British Food Standards Agency (which presumably has no axe to grind), reports higher average levels of hyperactivity in young children drinking a mix of sodium benzoate (a preservative) and food colors. For why these results surprise me, take a look at the Wikipedia entry for the Feingold Diet, the additive-free diet developed decades ago to prevent hyperactivity in kids. The first Wikipedia paragraph says it all:
“The Feingold diet is a food elimination program developed by Ben F. Feingold, MD to treat hyperactivity. It eliminates a number of artificial colors and artificial flavors, aspartame, three petroleum-based preservatives, and (at least initially) certain salicylates. There has been much debate about the efficacy of this program. Some mainstream medical practitioners deny that it is of any value, while other medical practitioners, as well as many people living with ADHD and parents of children with ADHD, claim that it is effective in the management of ADHD as well as a number of other behavioral, physical and neurological conditions. The debate has continued for more than 30 years, involving not only consumers and physicians, but scientists, politicians, and the pharmaceutical and food industries.”
After this excellent beginning, the article gets so muddled that the editors warn: “The neutrality of this article is disputed.” Indeed. Until now, my reading of the science was that the more carefully the studies were done, the less benefit they showed. Even the best studies showed wide individual differences–most kids were unaffected by removing additives but a small percentage seemed to get better. This made the studies especially subject to biased interpretation.
This new study seems well done but again shows large individual differences, so expect the debates to continue. In the meantime, it’s good to remember that color additives go into processed foods to cover up flaws and make them look attractive. Kids don’t need to be eating highly processed foods. The study is another good reason to feed kids plenty of fruits, vegetables, and other minimally processed foods.
Here’s what today’s New York Times has to say about the study.
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From that NY Times article:
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Yikes! It burns! Make it stop!
A pediatrician is saying directly that a diet without preservatives and artificial color is bad for kids? Is he high? Is his wife a Big Food Heiress?
Whether or not it’s the additives themselves, I think feeding a kid carefully, especially a kid who has health or behavior problems, will always be positive.
I guess it wouldn’t surprise me much either way that chemical additives could cause hyperactivity or not; it would surprise me even less to find out that it varies from person to person. Why would this be surprising? Milk sensitivities vary from person to person; penicillin allergies vary from person to person; and on and on. Why not food additives?
What I do wonder, and would probably be answered if I read through the study carefully, is how they manage to study the effects of the food additives in the absence of the other “ingredients” in processed foods. How can one say that the problem is Yellow Dye #5 rather than, say, immense quantities of HFCS? Do the children follow a completely whole-foods diet while being administered doses of food additives separately?
And I agree with elfling above. The “social stigma” of not eating processed foods cannot be nearly as damaging as actually eating them is. I’ve got many 10-year-old vegetarian acquaintances that take some flack for their diets at school, but by and large seem to survive unscathed. They are even, perhaps, better for the adversity.
I wonder if that quoted pediatrician ever considered the negative social effects and stigmas that can sometimes accompany ADD & ADHD? Some kids have such problems that their teachers and peers cannot contain their annoyance or dislike.
it’s not really much different than kids with allergies or religious/cultural food customs. How can the minimal difficulty of eating a real food diet while other kids eat junk food compare with painful years of teachers and classmates not liking the unfortunate kids who can’t control impulses, have impaired social skills, and poor academic performance? Seems like avoiding food triggers would be worth a long term trial for anyone, and at minimal cost or danger. If nothing else, the benefit would be a healthier diet. Pediatricians give the oddest advice sometimes.
I was laughing at the bit elfling quoted, too, and I couldn’t help wondering if the doctor’s name was Fred Stare.
My best friend in high school was hypoglycemic (back when doctors actually still gave out that diagnosis AND knew how to treat it) and was on what I now know was a carb-controlled diet. He ate no sugar and only small amounts of other carbohydrates, a few crackers for lunch instead of the two slices of bread and baggie of chips most of us had. He had to be excused from class mid-afternoon so he could have a snack. I don’t remember anyone picking on him, and if they did, I don’t remember it doing him any harm.
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[...] the Southampton study of food colors and hyperactivity that I commented on some months ago? On the basis of that study, the British Food Standards Agency is asking food companies to [...]
[...] much more worried about artificial colors and flavors than we seem to be, these days as a result of the Southampton study, which linked such additives to cognitive and behavioral deficits in children eating a lot of [...]