Doctors want food colourings banned

By JEREMY LAURANCE

Artificial colourings and preservatives in food and drink boost levels of hyperactivity in preschool children and urgent consideration should be given to removing them, doctors say.

The additives have a significant impact on the behaviour of ordinary children and their elimination would be in the long-term interests of public health, researchers from the University of Southampton claim.

The proportion of children with high levels of hyperactivity was halved when the additives were removed.

Researchers have found it difficult to prove the effect of additives in a normal population of children because the additives are ubiquitous in the foods and drinks that they consume.

Previous studies have focused on their impact on children already identified as hyperactive.

Doctors selected 277 children aged between 3 and 4 and fed them a carefully controlled diet over four weeks.

During the first week they ate a strictly additive-free diet. In the second week, half the children were given a drink of fruit juice containing colourings and preservatives, and the other half were given the same drink minus the additives.

The experiment was repeated in the third and fourth weeks and changes in the behaviour of the children were noted by their parents, who did not know which drink their child had received. The children were also given a series of tests by independent observers.

The results showed that parents rated their child as significantly less hyperactive when the additives were removed and markedly more so when they were put back in. The proportion with the highest level of hyperactivity fell from 15 per cent to 6 per cent, the authors say.

Professor John Warner of Southampton University, who led the study, published in Archives of Child Health, said: "These findings suggest that significant changes in children's hyperactive behaviour could be produced by the removal of artificial colourings and sodium benzoate from their diet."

- INDEPENDENT