Food Additives May Make Kids More Hyper

Published: September 6, 2007, 9:33 am

Adding weight to what many parents long suspected, a study suggests food coloring and a common preservative in soft drinks may make kids hyperactive. The results appear in the medical journal the Lancet. Researchers gave about 150 three-year-olds and a similar number of eight- and nine-year-olds drinks that contained either a mixture with sodium benzoate, a preservative, and several food colorings, or drinks that looked and tasted the same but contained none of the additives. Other sources of the additives were removed from the diets of all of the kids in the study. Over the course of six weeks, the kids whose drinks included additives tended to be more hyperactive and have more problems paying attention than the kids whose drinks didn’t include additives. Some experts and plenty of laymen have worried that certain additives in food can make some kids bounce off the walls. The study in the Lancet was funded by Britain’s Food Standards Agency to test the idea. The

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