Are Artificial Colors Bad for You?

Are Artificial Colors Bad for You?
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The effects of artificial colors on impulsivity, inattentiveness, and hyperactivity among young children.

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Artificial colors. Harmful, harmless, or helpful? Now, I know, I tell people to eat the rainbow of bright colorful foods—but not that colorful. We now know: artificial colors are harmful.

34 years ago, Chief of Pediatrics Ben Feingold published heresy, suggesting that artificial food colors could so damage a child’s developing nervous system that it could actually affect their behavior. Dow Chemical disagreed, as did Coca Cola, and other players within the $200 billion dollar food industry, who were able to convince the medical establishment that this was ridiculous. But the truth can only be buried for so long. And last year, after the publication of this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenge in the most prestigious medical journal in the world, showing artificial colors increased impulsivity, inattentiveness, and hyperactivity among young children, there have now been repeated calls to better regulate, or ban, artificial colors altogether.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.

Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.

Image thanks to theartofdoingstuff.com

Artificial colors. Harmful, harmless, or helpful? Now, I know, I tell people to eat the rainbow of bright colorful foods—but not that colorful. We now know: artificial colors are harmful.

34 years ago, Chief of Pediatrics Ben Feingold published heresy, suggesting that artificial food colors could so damage a child’s developing nervous system that it could actually affect their behavior. Dow Chemical disagreed, as did Coca Cola, and other players within the $200 billion dollar food industry, who were able to convince the medical establishment that this was ridiculous. But the truth can only be buried for so long. And last year, after the publication of this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenge in the most prestigious medical journal in the world, showing artificial colors increased impulsivity, inattentiveness, and hyperactivity among young children, there have now been repeated calls to better regulate, or ban, artificial colors altogether.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.

Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.

Image thanks to theartofdoingstuff.com

Doctor's Note

Check out these videos for more on the health impacts of artificial coloring :
Artificial Food Colors and ADHD
Is Caramel Color Carcinogenic?
Seeing Red No. 3: Coloring to Dye For

And check out my other “HHH” videos (Harmful, Harmless, or Helpful?) – listed below the post. 

For further context, also see my associated blog posts: Food Dyes and ADHD; Vitamin B12: how much, how often?; and Should We Avoid Titanium Dioxide?

If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my videos for free by clicking here.

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7 responses to “Are Artificial Colors Bad for You?”

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  3. Dr. Feingold’s work is alive and well. Though he passed away in 1982, the Feingold Association continues to help and support people using the Feingold Program. Go to its website http://www.feingold.org for a lot of helpful information.

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  5. so… those adderall/dexies pills and even now vyvanse ( and even some other colorful pills on the market like various xanax generics) could actually be causing the very thing they are supposedly treating? That little blue pill for erectile dysfunction may be fun for the night but could most likely attribute to headaches next morning due to that blue artificial dye.

    This is very disturbing news indeed.

    Long live Michael Greger M.D.

    Reply

  6. What about artificial dyes, like red dye, in cosmetics that we put on our face. Are they harmful to us and should be avoided?

    Reply

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