Food Additive Elimination: Becoming Mainstream?
ByThe link between food additives (i.e. preservatives and food coloring) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD or ADHD) has been speculated for a very long time. There has been research for decades on this. The Feingold Diet has been in existence for many years, and postulates that when you eliminate food additives, ADD or ADHD will improve.
The issue has been that mainstream medical treatment for ADD/ ADHD has generally discounted the role of food additives and diet in the role of treating ADHD.
The interesting fact is that estimates are that up to two thirds of people try some form of alternative treatments for ADD/ADHD – with diet modification as one of the main treatments.
In September 2007, The Lancet published an article about food additives causing hyperactivity. This was a very well designed study, which documented that food additives increased hyperactivity in children who did not have ADD/ADHD. This was irrefutable evidence regarding the connection between food additives and symptoms of ADD and ADHD.
In February 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics published an article which reviewed the issue and recommends that “a trial of preservative free, food coloring free diet is a reasonable intervention”. You can read more details of this here.
This week, an editorial was published in the British Medical Journal by Dr. Kemp, which suggests that removal of food additives from the diet should be a standard first approach when treating children with ADD/ADHD. This is based on his review of the research.
It seems that the pendulum is starting to swing.
Eliminating food additives and food coloring is on the brink of becoming a mainstream recommendation for the initial treatment of ADD and ADHD.
What Do I Suggest?
I suggest that you review all treatment options with your doctor.
In so far as diet modification, I am all for it as part of the treatment plan for ADD and ADHD. As far as treatments go – there is almost no risk or side effects to this treatment (apart from more time and possibly money to find food alternatives which are preservative free).
I suggest learning more about it – and giving it a try.
The one caution that I have is that elimination diets can be part of the treatment plan, but they may not be the whole answer. Research shows us that in general, treatment of ADD/ADHD needs a comprehensive, multimodal approach (i.e. including behavioral strategies, academic/occupational strategies, medication, therapy etc.). So while I encourage trying elimination diets, I don’t suggest that you then disregard all of the other treatment options which may be helpful.
Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.
Dr. Kenny
Technorati Tags: ADD, ADHD, Food Additives, Elimination Diets, Feingold Diet, BMJ
Thank you for sharing this important information with your readers. For the past 32 years parent volunteers have helped families determine if certain foods/additives are playing a part in their child’s behavior or learning problems. We have also worked to alert the public to the link between synthetic food additives and what is now being called ADHD. (See http://www.ADHDdiet.org)
While our primary focus is on petroleum-based food additives, our literature frequently discusses the many other factors that can lead to these symptoms. Other possible causes we have written about include: emotional stress, exposure to heavy metals like lead, vision deficits, sensory integration dysfunction, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, food or envirnomental allergies, environmental pollutants, sleep deprivation, side effects of medicine, prenatal exposure to toxins, fatty acid deficiency.
We have found that one of the simple things a parent can do is to make changes in their grocery shopping, to select those brands of cereal, beverage, snacks, desserts, etc. which do not contain the worst of the additives. We show them how to accomplish this. And, as the Southampton University researchers found, when people remove petrochemicals from their diet, they usually feel better and may behave better.
In addition to the new study, there is a great deal of information on the previous studies that show the link between diet, behavior and learning at http://www.diet-studies.com.
Jane Hersey, Director
Feingold Association of the US
Dr Kenny
As a brother of someone with ADD and an advocate of organic food as a mainstream choice, I helped my brother change his whole food choices to, almost, totally organic produce. He has seen a marked increase in his ability to focus and feels he is more in control when it comes to matters of concentration.
If this is due to the improvement in his diet or the fact that organic foods by their nature will not contain preservatives and additives we don’t know.
Thanks for the great information.
Dave
[...] Food Additive Elimination: Becoming Mainstream? [...]
I think Dr. Kenny is right on the money with this one. The Feingold Diet took off in the 1970′s, but seemed to die out in the early/mid 80′s, but the pendulum definitely does seem to be swinging back towards food additive elimination in diets. I know it has been tried by several kids at the school where I work (which has a high percentage of children diagnosed with ADHD).
I think that one of the toughest parts to getting good quality studies is the fact that there are just so many chemicals and compounds out there, that systematically eliminating them one-by-one is next to impossible. In general, it seems like most people assimilate “Feingold” or “elimination” diets just with the removal of food colorings, when in reality, food colors make up only a tiny percentage of the compounds Dr. Feingold and his supporters warned us about.
Further complicating the issue is the fact that some of these compounds may work in combination, or boost the harmful effects of each other. A relatively recent study by Lau and coworkers (you can get the article by copying and pasting the following link into your browser: http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/90/1/178)studied combinations and found that a specific Blue Dye interacted with glutamic acid (which is the acid form of the compound MSG), and a yellow dye interacted with aspartame (Nutrasweet) to boost the harmful effects of each other.
I think it’s going to take awhile to sort all of this out!
So regarding Nicolas’s comments above, would the best approach to food be to eat foods in their most natural form, do not eat processed anything and go organic? It sounds like a good approach if you ask me because then you are bypassing (or hopefully you are) all the ugly stuff that gets put in your food and that can only be better for you.
My adopted son has ADHD and I’m now noticing a lot of ugly behaviors in my other two bio children as well. I’ve decided that it’s a combination of our environment, our food, and my parenting style. I’m going to eliminate all dyes and buy organic starting tomorrow and then after I get that under control I’ll work on organic household products and see if it makes a difference in my children’s behavior and our quality of life. There is too much sickness and obesity around us and I want to change that for my kids.
Thanks for this great info!
i thought aspartame can cause cancer in laboratory animals -