The Dietary Connection
Can Sugars and Food Additives Contribute to Learning and Behavior Disorders?
By Kelly Burgess
Eileen Bailey, of Pottstown, Penn., and her husband, George, founded the
ADD Helpline to answer questions about ADD/ADHD after their oldest son was diagnosed with the disorder. While Bailey has found that foods with certain additives do make her son more angry and depressed (he also has clinical depression and bipolar disorder), she also recognizes that they are not the "cause" of his problems – in spite of what some people would like her to believe.
"It's just like any other food – you can have a sensitivity," says Bailey. "However, if I cut all red dyes out of his diet, his ADD and other problems certainly wouldn't go away. It would not be in his best interests if I were to use diet as a cure-all and be blind to the reality of his condition."
Bailey's advice to parents: Don't be afraid to try alternatives, as long as they are proven safe, to help your children. However, approach any claim with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Is What You Believe Believable?
Since 1975, when Dr. Benjamin Feingold published his hypothesis that the elimination of certain food additives from the diets of hyperactive children could result in improvement of behavioral symptoms, numerous studies have debunked his conclusions. And yet many people, even very well-educated child behavioral experts, continue to believe that food additives are the cause of ADHD. Why? According to Dr. Stephen Barrett, there are some reasons for this that lie at the root of our core value systems. "Education has very little to do with misconceptions, because education goes on top of people's belief systems," says Dr. Barrett. "As people get older they develop certain abilities to reason logically, and there are some areas of life where they simply don't reason logically." Applying that to a child with ADHD, Dr. Barrett says that guilt has a lot to do with a parent grasping at the idea that something outside their control is to blame. Once they can point to food additives, rather than a problem with their child or their parenting, the pressure is off a bit. This in itself, Dr. Barrett notes, may make the child better simply because the parent becomes more relaxed and eases up on the child. Before just blindly believing anything, be sure to check the meat of the research done to back any claims. Questions to ask are: Was it a double-blind study? How many people/children were involved? How close was the similarity between the control and testing groups? Also, read rebuttals to the claims being made. Often, they will answer many of those questions. | |
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