Food Additives Proven To Cause Hyperactivity In Children
Well this is some interesting news. The Lancet has recently published an article by British scientists entitled, ” Food additives and hyperactive behaviour in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the community: a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial.” They did this to to test whether intake of artificial food color and additives (AFCA) affected childhood behavior.
Guess what? It does.
Here is their method:
153 3-year-old and 144 8/9-year-old children were included in the study. The challenge drink contained sodium benzoate and one of two AFCA mixes (A or B) or a placebo mix. The main outcome measure was a global hyperactivity aggregate (GHA), based on aggregated z-scores of observed behaviours and ratings by teachers and parents, plus, for 8/9-year-old children, a computerised test of attention.
Here are their results:
16 3-year-old children and 14 8/9-year-old children did not complete the study, for reasons unrelated to childhood behaviour. Mix A had a significantly adverse effect compared with placebo in GHA for all 3-year-old children but not mix B versus placebo. This result persisted when analysis was restricted to 3-year-old children who consumed more than 85% of juice and had no missing data. 8/9-year-old children showed a significantly adverse effect when given mix A or mix B when analysis was restricted to those children consuming at least 85% of drinks with no missing data.
Their interpretation of the study:
Artificial colours or a sodium benzoate preservative (or both) in the diet result in increased hyperactivity in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the general population.
So now when a school tells you your child needs to be on Ritalin to attend school due to their hyperactive behavior, you can print out this study and tell them that instead, you will radically change your child’s diet back to one of whole, organic foods filled with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, grains and beans, good oils, clean protein sources and cut out the processed junk foods and soda which contain these chemicals that directly cause the hyperactive behavior the teacher is railing against. A much easier and cheaper fix and your child won’t become zombie like and super skinny from not eating which are the side effects of drugging your elementary school aged child.
I’m not saying don’t ever give your child treats again. I’m saying READ THE INGREDIENTS on everything you give your kids. Chemicals affects them much more than adults.
The best way is to bake your own treats like muffins or cookies using whole grain ingredients and natural sweeteners, incorporate more fruit and nuts and seeds into the foods or even better, just eat plain fruit as a snack.
If you don’t have the time to cook much, buy from stores that only sell products that don’t contain artificial food additives. Even at regular grocery stores, if you look most now carry some of the brands that don’t use these hyperactivity causing additives. One of my favorite companies that not only uses good organic ingredients but also gives all of it’s profits to charities is Newman’s Own Organics. There are many other good brands such as Barbara’s, Mi-Del, Wholly Wholesome, Robert’s, etc. If you look, you will find and with no food additives, either.
The more we buy from the companies that only use the better, safer (and better tasting) ingredients, the more other manufacturers will see the trend and hopefully switch over. Of course the absolute best thing to do is to make it yourself from the best ingredients. You may be surprised, it doesn’t take that long and tastes so much better. Remember to vote with your dollars – companies are always paying attention.
June 24 2008 12:09 pm | food and Health and news and nutrition and organics and parenting and school and society
June 24th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
[...] original here: Food Additives Proven To Cause Hyperactivity In Children [...]
June 25th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
That is wonderful advice to try to switch to healthy, home-made products or to foods provided by those companies with a conscience. But for your friends and family who might not be so enlightened, there is still a great deal they can do to upgrade their diet…and with very little effort.
The big food companies are seeing that there is a growing number of consumers who don’t want to eat petroleum-based food additives, so they are bringing out healthier versions.
It can be as simple as making a small switch from Chocolate Teddy Grahams to Honey Teddy Grahams, or from Ritz Crackers to Sunshine Hi Ho Crackers, or from Special-K original cereal to Special-K Red Berries cereal. Once they realize that just taking out the worst of the additives can make a big difference in how their kids feel and behave, your friends will be more open to understanding why you prefer the healthier home-made versions, or the products from health-oriented companies. The only down side here is that so many companies making healthy foods are now owned by the big conglomerates!
There’s a wealth of information on making simple changes to get rid of the worst of the additives at http://www.ADHDdiet.org.
June 26th, 2008 at 7:42 am
[...] Nature Deva explores the link between food additives and hyperactivity. [...]
June 27th, 2008 at 6:01 am
tell them that instead, you will radically change your child’s diet back to one of whole, organic foods
Or you can say “You, as a school, must provide school lunches made of wholesome foods, not the chemically ridden crap you feed them now.”
It’s important to remember the schools are complicit in poisoning children also.
June 27th, 2008 at 6:16 am
[...] responses Nature Deva wrote this great post about how food additives have been proven to cause hyperactivity in children. [...]
June 27th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I came over from hollowing Hill what a great post.
I believe our diet has a large effect on our health.
peppyladys last blog post..Falling Off The Wagon
June 28th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Howling Hill,
You are so right about the school lunches being to blame as well. I did a post on this back in April: http://naturedeva.net/?p=92 There is an organization listed on that post that has these kits to give to school districts to educate them and assist them with changing over the food served at their schools. There is also a link to a U.S. Gov’t factsheet about children’s pesticide and chemical exposure via food products: http://organicconsumers.org/organic/wic-faq.pdf
-Nature Deva
June 24th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
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