As the parent of two young kids I am always aware of the drugs being pushed on parents to treat ADD and the fact that in the past no kids were using Adderall or Ritalin or even Prozac. Some people think that may of the problems assicated with ADD and ADHD are caused by food additives that have been added over the last 20 years in the foods that kids eat. Well there was just a new research paper released in Britain that is having people take notice.
“Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is an increasingly common problem, and theories abound to account for that,” said Dr. David Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. “Among them is the notion that food additives induce hyperactivity.”
Despite this apparent connection, Katz cautioned that the increasing number of children with ADHD cannot be blamed on food additives alone.
“No one factor is solely responsible for rising rates of ADHD,” Katz said. “Along with the hazards of a highly processed food supply, children are getting less and less physical activity as a means of dissipating their native rambunctiousness.”
In the study, Jim Stevenson, a professor of psychology at the University of Southampton, and his colleagues gave drinks containing additives to 297 children. The children were in two groups: 3-year-olds and 8- and 9-year-olds. The drinks contained artificial food coloring and additives such as sodium benzoate, a preservative.
These concoctions were similar to the drinks that are commercially available. The amount of additives were also similar to what is found in one or two servings of candy a day, according to the report. As a control, some children were given drinks without additives, according to the report in the Sept. 6 issue of The Lancet. Over the six weeks of the trial, Stevenson’s team found that children in both age groups who drank the drinks containing additives displayed significantly more hyperactive behavior. These children also had shorter attention spans. However, which specific additives caused specific behavioral problems is not known, the researchers said.
One of the additives, sodium benzoate, has been linked to cell damage in a previous study, and to an increased for cancer. Sodium benzoate is found in Coca-Cola, Pepsi Max and Diet Pepsi, and in many fruit drinks.
Other additives assessed in the study include a number of colorings — sunset yellow (E110), found in fruity drinks; carmoisine (E122), a red coloring often added to jams; ponceau 4R (E124), a red food coloring; tartrazine (E102), found in lollipops and carbonated drinks; quinoline yellow (E104), a food coloring; and allura red AC (E129), and orange-red food dye.
“Although the use of artificial coloring in food manufacture might seem to be superfluous, the same cannot be said for sodium benzoate, which has an important preservative function. The implications of these results for the regulation of food additive use could be substantial,” the researchers conclude.
Based on these findings, the British government’s Food Standards Agency cautioned parents to be on the lookout for hyperactive behavior linked to food additives.
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