Major medical group supports additive-free diet for ADHD

Doctors have long been skeptical of claims that diet influences children’s behavior, but the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently re-evaluated its stance and published a report in February supporting the use of preservative-free, food coloring-free diets as an intervention for many children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The report was prompted by a recent study by Jim Stevenson, Donna McCann, and colleagues, published in The Lancet (see related article, Crime Times, 2007, Vol. 13, No. 4, Page 1). That study, involving nearly 300 children, found that additives caused symptoms of hyperactivity in both young and older children. These effects, the researchers reported, occurred not just in children diagnosed with ADHD but also in those with no overt behavior problems.

Writing about the Lancet study in AAP Grand Rounds, Alison Schonwald notes that additional support for the benefits of an additive-free diet comes from a recent meta-analysis of 15 trials which found evidence linking a wide range of chemicals to “neurobehavioral toxicity.” Schonwald says the evidence indicates that for many children “a trial of a preservative-free, food coloring-free diet is a reasonable intervention.”

The editors of AAP Grand Rounds note that the study in The Lancet “was a carefully conducted study in which the investigators went to great lengths to eliminate bias and to rigorously measure outcomes.” They conclude, “[T]he overall findings of the study are clear and require that even we skeptics, who have long doubted parental claims of the effects of various foods on the behavior of their children, admit we might have been wrong.”