Controlling Childhood Disorders with Diet

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), asthma, and allergies are leading childhood disorders that are growing in numbers each year. Many of these are controlled with medication, some being controversial such as Ritalin for AD/HD. But what if you could alleviate some, or all of your child's symptoms with diet? Many researchers believe you can by eliminating foods containing substances that are unnecessary, but may cause an allergic reaction in some children.

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

AD/HD is a neurobiological disability that affects three-to-five percent of school-age children. It is characterized by symptoms of inappropriate impulsivity, lack of long-term attention, and in some cases hyperactivity.

When a child is diagnosed with AD/HD, it is usually recommended to place her on psychostimulant medications, such as Ritalin, and possibly an antidepressant and antihypertensive. These medications increase attention and decrease impulsivity, hyperactivity, and aggression. But these medications do not come without risks. Common side-effects are reduction in appetite and difficulty sleeping. Other side-effects include "stimulant rebound" - moodiness or hyperactivity as a result of the medication wearing off; possible slowing of normal height and weight gain; and the development of tics, involuntary motor movements such as eye-blinking, throat clearing, and shrugging. In some extreme cases, these drugs can cause stroke or heart attack.

Mary B. knows all too well the side-effects caused by these medications. Three years ago her then eight-year-old son, Jacob, began taking medication when he was diagnosed with AD/HD. Soon he developed sleeplessness and loss of appetite, which caused swift mood changes in his behavior. Frantic, she began looking for a way to address these problems.

"Not all AD/HD symptoms require psychostimulnt drugs, at least not as a first recourse," states L Eugene Arnold, MD M.Ed of Ohio State University. "If you can find a cause of the symptoms - thyroid, lead, food allergy/sensitivity, parasites, chronic infection - it is better first to treat the cause."

But can diet make a difference in behavior? According to Robert J. Sinaiko, MD of the American Board of Allergy and Immunology it does. Toxins in food can interfere with the normal biochemical work of the body. "The brain is often the first organ to show signs of toxicity," Sinaiko states, "when the load of harmful chemicals taken into the body exceeds the capacity of our detoxification pathways to remove them. These toxic effects may be subtle, such as an attention problem, or severe, as in autistic-like behavior."

Asthma and Allergies

Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood. According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA), asthma has reached epidemic proportions in pre-school children with a 160 percent increase, and has increased by 75 percent in school-age children. Seven percent of all U.S. children have asthma, one in five have a major allergic disorder.

Allergies go hand in hand with asthma since asthma attacks occur as an allergic reaction to either environment or food. While it's been proven that some foods can cause an allergic reaction, the most common being milk, soy, eggs, wheat, peanuts, fish, and shellfish, it's harder to define the cause as being food additives, such as dyes or preservatives. But Michael J. Schumacher, MD, Chief of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at The University of Arizona Collage of Medicine has found that such chemical intolerance can be cause for a negative body reaction. "While actual food allergies are caused by the stimulation of the immune system, reactions to food additives (such as dyes, preservatives) occur as a chemical intolerance," he states. Schumacher goes on to say that it has been documented that sulfites, (a preservative used in salad bar foods), can cause asthma attacks.

The Culprits

The Feingold Association, a national non-profit organization that has helped parents and professionals with diet issues for over thirty years, believes that eliminating certain items from your diet can alleviate many health concerns. The basic products they recommend eliminating are: artificial food dyes and flavors (petroleum-based additives), BHA, BHT, TBHQ (petroleum-based preservatives), and salicylate-containing foods and non-food products.

Studies of children have found that certain artificial food dyes and flavorings can cause adverse reactions. In 1985, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published a list of the effects of these so-called "inactive" ingredients and they still back these findings today. For example: food coloring Tartrazine FD&C Yellow No. 5 has been associated with thyroid tumors, lymphocytic lymphomes, hives, hyperactivity, and a trigger for asthma. Sunset Yellow FD&C Yellow No. 6 has been known to cause abdominal pain, vomiting, and kidney tumors. Brilliant Blue FD&C Blue No. 1 can trigger asthma attacks and cause chromosomal damage. And these are just three colors. Take a look at the list of ingredients on your child's favorite cereal box, fruit snack, or candy. On one box of fruit snacks I found listed Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5 and No. 6, and Blue No.1. Imagine the effect of only one package of this product on a child who is allergic to dyes.

According to the National Academy of Science, it is estimated that the average person consumes 155 mg of dye per day. When you consider the amount of food dyes in foods marketed toward children, cereals, soda, candy, it would not be unusual for that number to double or triple. For instance, one tablespoon of red frosting has 150 mg of FD&C Red No. 40. Place that frosting on cookies, a cupcake, or a cake, and think of how high that number rises. Add a cherry soda, or a glass of punch and now the number has skyrocketed to well over the average of 155 mg at just one sitting.

Food products are not the only source of dyes and additives. Look at the ingredients of your child's favorite character multivitamin or toothpaste. Many children's cold and pain medications contain additives that can cause adverse effects, too. And while these additives are present to make medications taste or look more enticing to a child, they may also be making your child sick.

In their publication, Pediatrics (Vol. 76, Number 4), the AAP lists the following additives in pharmaceutical products as having potential adverse effects: Benzyl Alcohol, a preservative used in many injectable drugs and solutions; Propylene Glycol, a drug solubilizer in topical, oral, and injectable medications such as burn creams or multivitamin injections for infants; Lactose, used as a filler or diluent in tablets and capsules; Coloring Agents, used in many medications to make them appear more appealing; Sulfites, used as antioxidants, surprisingly in many asthma medications; and Saccharin, a sweetening agent used in both solid and liquid medications. These additives have been found to cause such adverse reactions as severe respiratory and metabolic complications in infants, nausea, fatigue, hemorrhaging, contact dermatitis, seizures, diarrhea, wheezing, chest tightness, and anaphylaxis in asthmatics.

BHA, BHT, and TBHQ are petroleum-based food preservatives that can cause chemical reactions to sensitive individuals. The main reactions are chemical changes in the brain, causing abnormal behavior patterns. These are found mainly in frozen meats, shortening, fats and oils, dry cereals, and potato flakes.

Salicylate containing foods and non-food products, such as apples, oranges, tomatoes and aspirin, are suspected to cause problems like behavior changes, hives, asthma attacks and other allergic reactions. One mother found that an allergic reaction to salicylates in apples and oranges was what had been causing her one-and-a-half year old daughter to have chronic ear infections. After five years on a diet eliminating natural salicylates and food dyes, her daughter is thriving, having fewer colds and infections than before the diet changes.

Other problem additives are corn syrup - used instead of sugar for many products, it contains chemical residues that could cause allergic reactions; Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), a flavor enhancer that is associated with headaches, numbness, tingling sensations, and heart palpitations; Sulfites, widely used as antioxidants, have been found to trigger asthma attacks.

The Opponents

Although researchers throughout the United States and in other countries such as Australia and Britain have found evidence that certain food additives can cause allergic reactions in children, there are those who claim that this is not true. The International Food Information Council, a non-profit organization whose mission is to communicate science-based information on food safety and nutrition to health and nutrition professionals, states, "Studies have produced no evidence that food additives cause hyperactivity or learning disabilities in children". Likewise, the organization Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) also outwardly claims, "It has not been shown that dietary intervention offers significant help to children with learning and attention problems". CHADD recommends for AD/HD children a treatment program that includes medical, psychological and educational intervention, and behavior management, including medication when required. They do not condone any change in diet.

Proponents of the elimination diet do not necessarily feel that a change in diet will completely eliminate medication for AD/HD, allergies, or asthma. The point of the diet is not to take away needed medications, but to ward off an allergy attack or negative behavior episode by eliminating a possible irritant, the same as you would eliminate dust or smoke for an asthmatic child.

Many families have found a balance between medication and diet as in the case of the previously mentioned Mary and her son, Jacob, who was experiencing negative side-effects from his medication for AD/HD. After learning about the elimination diet from a friend, she tried it and found that a combination of both the drug Ritalin and the diet worked for her son. By eliminating the irritants in his diet, it alleviated his side-effects from the medication and now he is able to sleep better at night and his appetite has returned. After three years on the diet/medication combination, he is a happy, well-adjusted eleven-year-old doing well in school.

One thing is for certain, while eliminating unnecessary food additives from your child's diet may or may not alleviate their allergies, asthma, or AD/HD symptoms, it certainly can't hurt them to try it.

End

For more information you can contact the following agencies.

The Feingold Association, 127 E. Main Street, #106, Riverhead, NY 11901. Phone: 1-800-321-3287.

CHADD - Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. 8181 Professional Place, Suite 201, Landover, MD 20785. Phone: 1-800-233-4050.

American Academy of Pediatrics, 141 Northwest Point Blvd., Elk Grove Village, IL 60007-1098. Phone: 1-847-434-4000.

Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, 1233 20th Street, NW, Suite 402, Washington, DC, 20036. Phone: 1-800-727-8462.

International Food Information Council, 1100 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 430, Washington, DC 20036.