Food Additives Increase Hyperactivity in Kids

[CShine]

Artificial food colorings and benzoate preservatives increase hyperactive behavior in preschool children, according to a new report. Despite claims about the detrimental behavioral effects of artificial food colorings and preservatives, the authors explain in the June Archives of Disease in Childhood, there have been no broad studies of the prevalence of hyperactivity related to intolerance to food additives.

Dr. John O. Warner from Southampton General Hospital, UK, and colleagues studied the impact of artificial food colorings and benzoate preservative on the behavior of 277 preschool children. At the start, 36 children had hyperactivity and allergies, 75 were only hyperactive, 79 had only allergies, and 87 did not have either condition.

Parents' ratings of their children's hyperactivity fell after withdrawal of food additives from the children's diets, the team reports, and there was an increase in hyperactivity when food additives were re-introduced. Parental hyperactivity ratings increased significantly when children were exposed to food additives regardless of their hyperactivity status or the presence of allergies at the start of the study.

"Additives do have an effect on overactive behavior independent of baseline allergic and behavioral status," Warner told Reuters Health. "The effect is significant but its magnitude requires further elaboration before making any sweeping recommendations about legislation on permitted food additives."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040603/hl_nm/additives_children_dc_1

[burrowowl]

1. Additives probably cause a lot

of other stuff too.
And why pay for additives? Oops! Iguess many couldn't take the taste of the real thing anymore.
I remember coming bak from France and someone served me some Campel soup, it was so salty it burned my mouth, yet I can stand chili real well. How much are you paying for the salt to disguise the flavor of something that should be in there?

[depakid]

4. Actually, foods with all the additives are cheaper

because of mass production. If you read labels, you'll see that simple, natural foods almost always cost considerably more-

How sick is that?

Bottom line- just don't buy American brand name garbage- especially "snack foods" and what passes for "cereal."

[burrowowl]

17. Even if the food is cheaper

you are still paying for additives as well and it is like a double tax to charge more for natural food.
In France skim milk is cheaper than whole milk, in the U$ skim milk is more expensive. Go figure.

[dArKeR]

2. I’m worried about the chemicals on my fruit!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=117x3521



Many Fail to Recover with Depression Treatment
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=117&topic_id=3629



I've got a gut feeling electro magnetic radiation might have something to do with this.

[gauguin57]

3. new report?

I knew a kid in the late 1970s who had ADD/ADHD -- called "hyperactive" back then -- and his doctors told his parents he wasn't allowed to have artificial colorings and flavorings and other food additives because it would increase his hyperactive behavior. I thought the connection was already made back then.

[TexasBushwhacker]

7. Yup - The Feingold Diet

has been around for 30 years.

[LibLabUK]

12. I've got a gut feeling electro magnetic radiation might have something to

You're being sarcastic right?

[truthseeker1]

5. Watch out for MSG and all the other MSG-related additives too

http://www.rense.com/general52/msg.htm
http://www.spofamerica.com/

[Demonaut]

8. MSG gives me headaches and wicked mood swings, I always avoid it

when possible, I believe this tinfoil conspiracy.

[dArKeR]

9. Don't travel in Asia then!

[cosmicone]

6. New excuse for dubya!

All those preservatives in pretzels made me fuck up the country!

hahahaha

[FlaGranny]

10. Maybe I should

get a potful of food additives and eat them straight. I sure wish I felt like being more active ;-)

Seriously, food additives are definitely NOT part of our "natural" diet and there are alternatives.

[LibLabUK]

11. Huh?

"Seriously, food additives are definitely NOT part of our "natural" diet and there are alternatives"

What is that supposed to mean?

What is our "natural" diet, uncooked meat, insects and fruit?

[FlaGranny]

13. Natural diet:

fruit, vegetables, meat. Not something manufactured in a factory, which may or may not have been thoroughly investigated for safety. I like to get all my chemicals in their natural form - from food. Things made by man can sometimes not be good for you or errors can occur in the manufacturing process. We are only human and humans make mistakes.

Edit: Example - preservatives need not be manufactured. Nature makes some of her own. Vitamins C and E come quickly to mind. And, yes, I'd prefer the natural ones.

One example I like is Breyer's ice cream. Compare their label to another brand. They use milk, cream, sugar, vanilla. Most of the ingrediates in other brands are unpronounceable chemicals.

[LibLabUK]

14. Hmm

"I like to get all my chemicals in their natural form - from food."

Right, because nature doesn't make anything bad...


"Example - preservatives need not be manufactured. Nature makes some of her own. Vitamins C and E come quickly to mind. And, yes, I'd prefer the natural ones."

Both Vitamin C and E are toxic at the right dose.

Salt, another "natural" preservative has some really nasty side effects, as does that other "natural" preservative sugar (sucrose).

"Artificial" preservatives PREVENT more disease than they cause. Food spoilage causing illness through poisoning is far worse than the imagined harm caused by those man-made chemicals.

"Most of the ingrediates in other brands are unpronounceable chemicals."

Riiight.. because you can't pronounce them they're bad. Okay.. stay away from dihydrogen monoxide then.

[DarbyUSMC]

15. Anyone remember the Finegold plan back in the early 70's? Theory

was that taking away artificial additives in all foods. It would have an effect on hyperactivity and was pretty well proved in various studies. I knew one child personally who changed from Broom Hilda to Snow White.

Ira Finegold, MD
St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center

Biography:

Dr. Ira Finegold is Chief of the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in the Department of Medicine at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center. He is also Director of the Robert A. Cooke Institute of Allergy, located at the Roosevelt Division. Dr. Finegold previously served as clinical professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Miami and chief of staff of Hollywood Memorial Hospital in Florida.
After earning a medical degree and a Master of Science degree in pathology from the University of Chicago School of Medicine, he completed a residency in internal medicine at Bronx Municipal Hospital and Montefiore Medical Center and a fellowship in allergy at the Roosevelt Division. He also served as a clinical associate at the Immunology Branch of the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Finegold is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Allergy and Immunology. His clinical and research interests include allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, asthma, urticaria, food allergy, and applications of allergen-specific immunotherapy.

He has written many articles on allergic subjects. He also has been invited to give many lectures to national and international physician meetings. He is a Fellow of a number of societies including the College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (past President), the Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and the American College of Physicians. He is also a member of the New York City Asthma Partnership.

From: http://www.healthology.com/faculty_bio.asp?f=allergy&b=healthology&d=finegold_ira

[demigoddess]

16. i met a lady at a organic meat shop and she said that

she put her kids on organic meat and did not change the rest of the diet and the hyperactivity went away. Now, I have reactions to the various things that they put in food so I was a skeptic and she swore by it. Said she was there with grand kids to put him on the organic meat. Do you all know what is in our food?? besides hormones, formaldehyde,and artificial sweetners that have a bad effect on brain function. Diet drinks containing artificial sweetners are alleged to create formaldehyde in them while stored and shipped at temperatures as low as 60 degrees or so. Nitrites in meats have been connected to cancer and a while back they were shooting a chemical in pork to make it more tender. I refused to buy it.

[undergroundpanther]

18. I was a 70's hyper kid

now I'm a hyper adult,

One thing you are overlooking..Is trauma.PTSD.

It's really tragic when people/kids show up in an emergency room and don't even know what trauma is

And it isn't just beatings,rape/pedophilia.

It's verbal abuse,humiliation bullying,intimidation,neglect...

I think part of my hyperness was/is vigilance.

And once your fight or flight mechanism is stuck permanently in the "ON"position you can habitually be irritable,hyperfocused distractable..alot of the symptoms of trauma.psychiatric injury looks like ADHD.

[peacetalksforall]

19. Meat can be loaded with MSG.

MSG is a flavor enhancer - makes sweet sweeter and salt saltier. It causes the synapses in the brain to disconnect (misfire). The brain is expecting salt - it is not expecting a 'mono sodium' that has been processed.

If a waiter/ress tells you that they do not use MSG, it means they don't add the little white granules to the food, but the contents of bottles, cans, ready made food they buy to use in their menu can be loaded with it.

The FDA under pressure now requires MSG to be on labels when 100% MSG granules are added to a product. However, less than 100% and up to 40 other glutamates can be used without identification - hydrolized vegtable protein is one of the names you'll see that can cause the same ill effects.

Don't let anyone tell you that MSG is made from organic products in their effort to make it sound OK - it's the processing and what it does to your brain that counts whether they use beets or cane.

If your brain is not working right, how do we know that the right messages are being sent to the cells?

The MSG lobbying association is one of the most highly funded lobby groups out there and they own the FDA. You will not get good information from the FDA.