Who is Looking After Our Children?
CHAPTER 4
Chemical Food Additives and Hyperactivity in Children
The increasing pervasiveness of hyperactivity, attention deficit, and related childhood disorders in the United States has been reviewed in the Introduction. Along with toxic environmental chemicals, chemical food additives may be a major contributor to these states in increasing numbers of our children. Russell L. Blaylock, MD, a neurosurgeon, in his book entitled, Excitotoxins, the Taste that Kills, (1) extensively reviews compelling evidence that certain food additives such as monosodium glutamate (MSG) and the sweetener, aspartame, act as excitotoxins that assault the brain and lead to numerous health problems.
The background of MSG, which might be used as a prototype of chemical excitotoxins, is a fascinating one. It was originally developed in Japan as a flavor enhancer for foods. In 1948 a meeting was held at which most of the major food manufacturing giants in America were in attendance. It was concluded that this Japanese flavor-enhancer did have some remarkable properties. Since that time, the American food industry has drastically increased the amount of MSG added to prepared foods, which has doubled every decade since the 1940s. Today MSG is added to most soups, fast foods, chips, frozen foods, ready made dinners, and canned goods. (2)
The first indications of problems came in 1957 when two ophthalmology residents tested MSG and aspartate on infant and adult mice while studying a particular eye disorder. What they found came as a complete surprise. After sacrificing the animals and examining tissues under a microscope, they found that in animals tested with MSG, nerve cells in the inner layers of the retinas had been destroyed. The worst damage occurred in newborns, but even adults showed significant injury. They also found similar though less severe damage from aspartate, one of the main ingredients in Nutrasweet, the artificial sweetener. In 1968, Dr. John Olney, a neuroscientist at Washington University, St. Louis, repeated the same experiment and found that not only did MSG cause severe damage to retinal neurons of the eye, but that it also caused widespread destruction to the hypothalamus and other areas of the brain. Despite the fact that these findings were confirmed in a number of animal experiments with a wide variety of species, few paid attention to this critical discovery. Without a public or professional outcry, the food industry" continued adding more and more MSG to foods. Even baby foods contained relatively large doses of MSG.
As explained by Dr. Blaylock, both glutamate and aspartate are neurotransmitters found normally in the brain and spinal cord. (Neurotransmitters are chemical substances released from the terminal ends of neme cells (axons), which seep through the tiny clefts (synapses) between nerves, attach themselves to the next nerve in line and cause it to fire). Although glutamate and aspartate are two of the most common transmitters in the brain, when their concentrations rise above a critical level, they may become "deadly toxins" by inducing a chain reaction of uncontrolled repetitive firing of neme cells. This, in turn, depletes energy stores, the end result being death of the nerve cell from exhaustion.
Because abnormally high body levels of MSG and/or aspartame may result in a continual state of hyperexcitability as well as brain injury, Blaylock proposes that exposure to the fetus during pregnancy and the child following birth, may result in learning disabilities, hyperactivity, impaired social judgment, autism, and possibly schizophrenia.
Experiments have demonstrated that early exposure to excitotoxins can result in later behavioral changes and learning impairment. In a carefully controlled study, 22 rats were given low daily doses of MSG for 11 days after birth. The rats exhibited hyperactivity, and they had considerable difficulty in escaping even the simplest mazes, as compared with controls not given MSG. They had difficulty in distinguishing between different types of stimuli and behaved "like animals with lower intelligence."
Additional adverse symptoms and health problems attributed to consumption of foods with MSG include migraine headaches, stomach aches, depression, and asthma. (2)
In the past, MSG was frequently labeled (more properly mislabeled) as hydrolyzed protein, natural flavorings, Chinese seasoning, and a variety of other aliases. Presumably this mislabeling will be corrected by the new law.
Other additives implicated in childhood hyperactivity include artificial food colorings (red and yellow dyes) and artificial flavors. The first and still most widely known person to report that these additives may trigger behavioral and hyperactive reactions was Dr. Ben Feingold, at one time chief of Allergy at the Kaiser-Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco. (3) Although other researchers had difficulty in duplicating Feingold's favorable results, Egger's classic study, which implicated food allergies as a prime factor in the hyperkinetic syndrome, found that food additives and colorants were the most common substances that produced abnormal behavior in the patients. (4) These artificial dyes have also been implicated in allergic reactions.
Several other additives, although not involved in hyperactivity, are of concern: nitrites, sulfites, and the antioxidants butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA).
Nitrites are used to cure bacon and other pork products. They protect the consumer from botulism, but unfortunately, nitrites convert to the potent carcinogen, nitrosamine, in the body. This process may be inhibited by adding such antioxidants as ascorbate (vitamin C).
Sulfites are a class of chemicals that can keep cut fruits and vegetables looking fresh, even when they are not. Reactions occur mostly in patients with asthma. their use was largely, unrestricted until 1985 when the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) placed a ban on their use in most fresh fruits and vegetables. However, the ban does not cover grapes, fresh-cut potatoes, dried fruits, or wine.
BHT and BHA delay rancidity in food products containing fats or oils. They are used in products such as baking mixtures, cereals, instant potatoes, ice cream, candy, chewing gum, gelatin desserts, soup bases, dry mixes for desserts, and other commercially prepared foods. They are suspected of being carcinogenic, and they may cause allergies.
In conclusion, food additives may in some instances serve a useful and necessary purpose, as in the prevention of botulism and other diseases. However, in the early part of this century up until World War II, food additives as we now know them largely did not exist. In those days there was far less sickness among children than today. (5) Is there a connection? We believe that there is!
References
1. Blaylock RL. Excitotoxins, The Taste That Kills. Santa Fe, NM:Health Press; 1994.
2. Schwartz GR. In Bad Taste! The MSG Syndrome, Santa Fe, NM:Health Press;1988.
3. Feingold B; Miller IN, ed. Nutrition and Behavior. Philadelphia: Pa: Franklin Institute Press; 1981. Chap 18.
4. Egger J, et al. Controlled trial of oligoantigenic treatment in the hyperkinetic syndrome. Lancet; 1985;540-545.
5. Beasley JD, Swift 11. The Kellogg Report; The Impact of Nutrition, Environment and Lifestyle on the Health of Americans. Anandale-on-Hudson, NY: Institute of Health and Policy Practice, Bard College Center. 1989
Recommended Reading
Jacobson MF, Lefferts LY, Garland AW. Safe Food: Eating Wisely in a Risky World. Los Angeles,CA: Living Plant Press; 1991.
Millichap JG. Environmental Poisons in Our Food. Chicago,IL PNB Publishing; 1993.
Roberts HJ. Aspartame, (NutraSweet~), Is It Safe? Philadelphia, PA: Charles Press; 1990.
Winter R. Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives. New York, NY: Crown Publishers; 1989.