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Food Additives and Intelligence in Children
The Canyon Verde School Study on Additives
and Intelligence After the use of saccharin was
marginally addressed in 1976, many people began
to look at the use of chemical food additives
more closely. After a school nutritionist met
with student resistence on food guidelines, a
study was conducted 1982 at the Canyon Verde School
in California. The study was performed by students,
who used three groups of rats to demonstrate the
effect of additives. The control group of rats
was fed natural food and clean water. The second
group was fed natural food, clean water and hotdogs.
The third group was fed sugar-coated cereal and
fruit punch. The fourth group was fed doughnuts
and cola. It
was immediately apparent that the different diets
had different effects on behavior in the three
groups. The rats receiving natural food and clean
water remained attentive and alert. The rats receving
natural food and hotdogs became violent and fought
aggressively. The third group of rats subsisting
on products containing sugar-coated cereal and
fruit punch were nervous, hyperactive and behaved
aimlessly. The fourth group subsisting on doughnuts
and cola were unable to function as a social unit.
They were fearful and had trouble sleeping.
The
Effect of Paternal Consumption of Additives
on Newborn Behavior
During
the 1982 study with four groups of rats and food
consumption, many of the rats became pregnant
in each group. The students had the opportunity
to see the extended result of diet on newborn
organisms. The newborn rats displayed the same
traits as the mothers in each separate group,
which meant that (1) chemical additives may have
passed to the newborns in the mothers milk, or
(2) chemical additives may be capable of passing
though placental membranes, or (3) chemical additives
may be capable of passing through the blood-brain
barrier, as the fetal organisms shared the same
blood with the mother.
Change
of Diet and Reversal of Physiological Symptoms
When
students in the Canyon Verde Study reverted to
natural food for the groups who had received food
with additives, it took several weeks for the
rats to return to a natural state of behavior.
It is unknown whether this same time period applies
to humans, especially after sustained consumption
of these chemicals by the time a child becomes
an adult, but there are encouraging indications
that symptoms can be reversed by altering human
diet. When the children at Canyon Verde school
began eating foods without chemical additives
(BHT,BHA,TBHQ and artificial flavors and colors),
profound changes began to take place. Students
formerly disruptive and hyperactive became civilized,
calm and attentive.
NOTES
[1] It is these same students who would be candidates
for psychological therapy and intervention with
psychotropic drugs such as Ritalin, Cylert or
Dexidrine, when all the time the problem was in
the diet of the children.
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