The University of Southhampton has released a study that showed that:
Tests on more than 300 children showed significant differences in their behavior when they drank fruit drinks spiked with a mixture of food colorings and preservatives, Jim Stevenson and colleagues at the University of Southampton said.
"These findings show that adverse effects are not just seen in children with extreme hyperactivity (such as ADHD) but can also be seen in the general population and across the range of severities of hyperactivity," the researchers wrote in their study, published in the Lancet medical journal.
It seems to me that this is somewhat old news (although the study isn't) and that, for many years, people who have ceased drinking soft drinks or feeding them to their children have found the same kinds of results. However, that fact would seem to validate the study, and vice-versa. But good on them for conducting the study; ignoring issues doesn't change facts, whether they're recognized as facts or not.
Of course, the article goes on to say:
The issue of whether food additives can affect children's behavior has been controversial for decades.
No doubt it's controversial. We've had these products on supermarket shelves for decades; we've been bombarded with commercials showing healthy, active young people drinking soft drinks and flipping through the air on snow boards — these types of drinks have been touted as a natural part of the "good life".
And yet, you know, the fantastic rise in hyperactivity over the past decades would seem to tell us that there's a problem somewhere. Facts are pesky, aren't they?
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2 Comments for "UK Study: Food additives may cause hyperactivity"
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Baby Chloe
Comment posted on 01/17/08 @ 1:05 am
Hello,
Here in the united kingdom we have a terrible problem with food; labelling inconsistencies, battery farms, asparagus flown in from peru instead of that thats grown in the uk.
We also have all the top celebrity chefs on tv telling us what to eat, how we should live our lives..etc.
The thing is, goverment / the media has been telling us what to eat and how living in a certain way is good for us for ages, but then 10years later, it evolves again.
My husband and myself grow a small selection of food ourselves, only easy things; potatos, parsnips, leeks, onions..etc but it really makes you feel good to eat food for free you know is pure :)
Diane Vigil
Comment posted on 01/17/08 @ 2:08 am
Hello again!
Unfortunately, I think we have the same problem, or the same types of problems here in the U.S. — with labels like "natural" which has no legal meaning, and "organic" which is only what you and I might think of as organic if the label says 100% organic.
Growing your own food sounds lovely; I can't wait until we have that opportunity.