Tuesday July 29, 2008, 1:37 am
Potential Link to Behaviour Problems
Prompts Advice to Parents over Diet

Food safety experts have advised parents to eliminate a series of additives from their children's diet while they await the publication of a new study that is understood to link these ingredients to behaviour problems in youngsters.

The latest scientific research into the effect of food additives on children's behaviour is thought to raise fresh doubts about the safety of controversial food colourings and a preservative widely used in sweets, drinks and processed foods in the UK. But the Guardian has learned that it will be several months before the results are published, despite the importance of the findings for children's health.

Researchers at Southampton University have tested combinations of synthetic colourings and preservative that an average child might consume in a day to measure what effect they had on behaviour. A source at the university told the food industry's magazine The Grocer last week that their results supported findings first made seven years ago that linked the additives to behavioural problems such as temper tantrums, poor concentration and hyperactivity, and to allergic reactions.

Both studies were conducted for the Food Standards Agency.

The latest results were considered by the FSA's Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food (CoT) in a closed meeting on March 20. The CoT, whose meetings are usually open, noted "the public health importance of the findings", but the results will not be released to the public or acted on until they have been published in a scientific journal, a process that will take several months.

The FSA and Professor Jim Stevenson, who led the project, said they could not discuss the results before then. It took the CoT more than two years to release its views on the earlier research because it was waiting for publication in a scientific journal. Independent experts say that consumers should consider removing these additives from their children's diets now. The colours, tested on both three-year-olds and eight-to-nine year olds in the new study, were tartrazine (E102), ponceau 4R (E124), sunset yellow (E110), carmoisine (E122), quinoline yellow (E104) and allura red AC (E129). The preservative tested was sodium benzoate (E211).

Although these additives are widely used in the UK and are approved as safe and legal by the EU, some of the colours are banned in Scandinavian countries and the US. Campaign groups such as the Hyperactive Children's Support Group have argued for years that children's behaviour is improved by removing artificial colourings and other additives from their diets.