The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O'Brien

Author:Robyn O'Brien [O'Brien, Robyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7679-3154-0
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2009-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

Colorful Research

If the tiny Australian study were the only precursor to the Southampton Shocker, I might still have remained skeptical. But as I started to look into the matter, I discovered that more research had revealed the beneficial effects of diet—though interestingly, none of these positive findings were being found in the United States. For example, a 1993 British study published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood concerned seventy-eight children referred to a diet clinic because of their hyperactive behavior. These kids were put on a highly restricted diet, given only a few “neutral” foods with no sugar, additives, or preservatives. During this period, almost three fourths of the children—fifty-nine, to be exact—improved in behavior.

Then, after having been observed on a relatively “clean” diet, some nineteen children were given disguised “problem foods” and/or additives (some were given neutral foods, so the scientists would have a basis for comparison). In other words, the researchers did a proper laboratory version of our own milk experiment with Colin: take the questionable food out of his diet, see what happens, and then see what happens when you put it back in.

As with Colin and yogurt, the results were dramatic. Scientists found “a significant effect for the provoking foods to worsen ratings of behaviour and to impair psychological test performance.” Significantly, the study concluded, “Clinicians should give weight to the accounts of parents and consider this treatment in selected children with a suggestive medical history” (emphasis added).

Wow. So the researchers were admitting that parents who lived with their children day in and day out might observe behavioral changes that doctors didn't notice and couldn't always test for. As a mom who had done a “home experiment” of her own, I appreciated the acknowledgment.

I also thought about what I had learned from Dr. Bock about delayed sensitivities to foods. Could this explain the difference between what the scientists observed in the experiments and what parents observed a few days later at home?

But there was more. Tartrazine, a.k.a. E102 or FD&C Yellow 5, which I had learned was found in boxes of mac ‘n’ cheese in the United States, had been studied by Australian researchers in 1994, who discovered that it affected children's sleep, mood, and behavior.

Published in the Australian Paediatric Journal, the study concerned some 200 children in Melbourne, out of a group of about 800 referred to the Royal Children's Hospital there for suspected hyperactivity For six weeks, the 200 children were given a synthetic-color-free diet—and the parents of 150 of them reported “behavioral improvement.” As in the other experiments, parents also noticed “deterioration” of behavior after the kids started eating synthetically colored foods again.

Not entirely satisfied with this general finding, the researchers designed a more precise trial. They selected 34 children aged two to fourteen years, including 23 suspected of reacting to artificial coloring and 11 “uncertain reactors,” along with a control group of 20 kids who were believed not to react to coloring at all. They conducted a twenty-one-day double-blind study—again, no

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