I've read the study from the Lancet, a British publication which decidedly linked food additives with hyperactivity in normal children ages 3 and 8/9. This is the study that brought warning labels to foods that include artificial dyes (in Europe). However, I was shocked today to discover this was published in a publication by the American Academy of Pediatrics, also in response to the Lancet study. The editor's note strongly urges doctors to give an additive-free diet a try in hyperactive children. Here is an especially telling excerpt:
For the child without a medical, emotional, or environmental etiology of ADHD behaviors, a trial of a preservative-free, food coloring–free diet is a reasonable intervention... Although quite complicated, this (the 2007 study published in the Lancet) was a carefully conducted study in which the investigators went to great lengths to eliminate bias and to rigorously measure outcomes. For many of the
assessments there were small but statistically significant differences of measured behaviors in children who consumed the food additives compared with those who did not. In each case
increased hyperactive behaviors were associated with consuming the additives. For those comparisons in which no statistically significant differences were found, there was a trend for more hyperactive behaviors associated with the food additive drink in virtually every assessment. Thus, the 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."
On a wonderfully positive note, we met with Josiah's social worker last Friday. She talked us through some helpful things to try with him, and then dismissed him from further therapy because he is doing so well. He saw her for less than 2 months! Interestingly enough, she thinks his behavior concerns are more likely linked to anxiety issues than to ADHD. Apparently anxiety in preschoolers can manifest itself as ADHD-type symptoms. I've yet to read the data on this but am intrigued, based on what we know about his personality.
Anxiety, ADHD...whatever it is, he is like a different child these days and less encumbered by any of it. I think he's chemically sensitive!
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