Okay, well mok, if you want to write something up and email it to me, I’d be happy to suggest edits and/or additions. Maybe calliarcale would do the same. Whistle Pig, are you interested in helping out, too? My email is JillGat@hotmail.com
I’ll certainly be interested in reading the result as I’ve been watching this thread with much interest. I was quite a bit outraged when I initially read the column in question, being both ADHD and having a BA in psych during wich time I spent a considerable time studying ADHD, not to mention the fact that I was put on the Feingold diet while a child.
I’d hoped to come in here with the first comment but as the thread was underway I took to lurking, which is where I’m best these days anyway.
Still I have to wonder, Ken, with all due respect, how much research did you really do on this one? and how reliable did you feel your sources were?
Come in here and talk to us and help us right the wrongs. It’s all friendly here. Our only concern is getting it right. What led you to post the misleading info? Any thoughts in light of the various responses here? Tell us Ken, when did the moment first become apparent to you that perhaps mistakes were made?? Hmm? Hmmmmm?
Are the people upstairs cutting certain "necessary"corners from the budget in these difficult times?? Are we becoming reduced to a more McDonaldized method of fast, efficient science at the expense of truth. Am I being even the least bit coherent?? hmmm? hmmmmmmm?
OK, I’ll probably regret this post tomorrow, but I’m posting it anyway, because my voice must be heard. Tomorrow when I can look back on this with a certain clearheadedness, only then will I know for sure, but you know… ::thud:: ::snore snore…:::
Moe, I think your medication’s worn off…! hmmmm? hmmmmmmmm?
Yep.
I think the point is that excessive fussing over the diet potentially traumatises the child and distracts time and attention from effective treatments, whether psychological, behavioural, or medical.
Article deleted. Our apologies.
Whew.
Now who’s up for a tub of caramel corn?
Hmm, while I sense an overwhelming tide of rejection of the original column, I have to wonder if anyone here actually read the linked material? I tried to, at least in a preliminary review, though I’m certainly not very well informed on ADHD research and the like. I realize the site was a Feingold promotional website, but it did seem to have an abundance of links to scientific peer reviewed articles (though I was unwilling to wade through them to verify their relevance, conclusions, etc) as well as a refutation of the claims that scientific studies have refuted the Feingold diet. Particularly, there was a critique of the study cited as being used as the conclusive disproof of Feingold.
Not that I’m an advocate, and the claims certainly do have elements that sets off my quack detector. I just found the material presented (or what I read of it) very supportive and appearing to be science based. Anyone refute the claims of that page? At least the statements rejecting the studies against Feingold?
Irishman, I was in a discussion of diets just a few days ago, and I brought up the Feingold diet.
The Feingold diet, I realized, starts out as a fairly standard test for food allergens. In and of itself, that’s not an issue; in fact, the Feingold diet’s premise is that ADHD is a reaction to certain foodstuffs or additives. So from its point of view, testing for allergens makes sense.
Now here’s the problem: Is it reasonable for a behavioral syndrome to be an allergic reaction? Is there a simpler, easier to test or disprove, explanation? (The emphasis is critical to Occam’s Close-Shave Razor ™: Test theories beginning with the one that’s easiest to eliminate.)
So Irishman, please answer this. Which of the following is easier to test or disprove, is less complex, and is in accordance with the rest of current science:
- ADHD is a behavioral syndrome treatable through behavioral therapy and neurological medication.
- ADHD is a behavioral syndrome treatable through allergen therapy and food control.
Hang on a minute. I went to Stephen Barrett’s page at Quackwatch and checked out his list of references. Of the ones I can check online, the case for the Feingold Diet looks pretty good. The studies by Rowe et al. and by Boris et al. seem well-designed (from the abstracts) and support the Feingold Diet.
But the only available anti-Feingold Diet articles are reviews and summaries. Lipton and Mayo – in 1983, fer cryin out loud – state ``controlled double-blind studies have been conducted by many investigators to test this hypothesis. The results, which are mainly negative, are summarized.’’ Alas, the abstract doesn’t have citations.
Searching PubMed, I find some Dutch articles with promising titles (``[Favourable effect of a standard elimination diet on the behavior of young children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a pilot study]’’) but no abstracts.
Heck, I even found articles saying ADHD children are low in highly unsaturated fatty acids and supplementing these helps.
It seems to me, looking at the literature, that the question of ADHD and diet is at least unsettled. I’ll admit to some bias as an ADHD positive father with two young children who are rapidly becoming unbearably energetic: Cutting out the crappy food could hardly hurt. Although I do recognize Barrett’s points about making my kids look like weirdos.
Chris.Me again: I mean, I just found an article in the Lancet:
Egger J, Carter CM, Graham PJ, Gumley D, Soothill JF. Lancet. 1985 Mar 9;1(8428):540-5. “Controlled trial of oligoantigenic treatment in the hyperkinetic syndrome.”
Out of 72 patients, 62 improved on an oligoantigenic diet.
How did the followup studies turn out?
Scuba Ben says:
I’m not sure what point you’re getting at here, but I don’t think the ease of testing or the degree of complexity is at issue. Why do you put “neurological medication” with “behavioral therapy”? Remember please that in the early days of discovery of psycho-pharmacology, people who drank water that was naturally laced with lithium had fewer psychological hangups. So I wouldn’t dismiss chemical treatment out of hand, and that includes allergen therapy and food control.
Please note, I’m not suggesting it’s effective in the case of ADHD, I’m just saying that it is narrow-minded to dismiss chemical solutions (or partial solutions) out of hand.
The only sort of followups I find (by putting “Controlled trial of oligoantigenic treatment in the hyperkinetic syndrome” into PubMed) are:
Egger J, Stolla A, McEwen LM. Controlled trial of hyposensitisation in children with food-induced hyperkinetic syndrome. Lancet. 1992 May 9;339(8802):1150-3. [It says diet seems to be important but is hard to stick to, so why not try “Enzyme-potentiated desensitisation” which is a method for inducing tolerance to allergens.]
Schmidt MH, Mocks P, Lay B, Eisert HG, Fojkar R, Fritz-Sigmund D, Marcus A, Musaeus B. Does oligoantigenic diet influence hyperactive/conduct-disordered children–a controlled trial. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 1997 Jun;6(2):88-95. [It says that Ritalin worked better than diet, and diet and Ritalin together is the same as Ritalin alone, but just diet does help some children.]
Arnold LE. Alternative treatments for adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Jun;931:310-41. Review. [A review which says a lot of things (including diet, Enzyme-potentiated desensitization, relaxation/EMG biofeedback, and deleading) are promising ADHD treatments but we need more work in this area to confirm all of them.]
Thank you.
My point for Irishman is, which theory passes Occam’s Razor better? If I understand OR correctly, testability, falsifiability, and complexity are the “edges” (if you will) on the Razor.
Sorry, Scuba_Ben, but I don’t think Occam gets you anywhere on this topic. I don’t find the idea that diet could be contributing to behavioral problems outlandish, non-falsifiable, non-testable, or overly complex. I certainly don’t think it sounds as bizarre and contra-science as, say, homeopathy (i.e. non-medicine medicine), therapeutic touch (i.e. non-touch touching), facilitated communication (i.e. waving someone’s hand around and then claiming they’re the one doing the waving), etc, ad nauseum.
Since the column is now gone and with it the link to the Feingold page, I’ll reproduce the link so people can see what is being discussed.
http://www.feingold.org/home.html
In particular, I point out this page:
http://www.feingold.org/myths.html
It critiques the Gross study, which is (or so they claim) the main study used to refute the Feingold diet.
Gross, M. D., Tofanelli, R. A., Butzirus, S. M., Snodgrass, E. W. (1987). The effect of diets rich in and free from additives on the behavior of children with hyperkinetic and learning disorders. Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 26, 53-55.
partial list:
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Since the children continued taking their stimulant medication (with artificial coloring), and their hyperactivity was already theoretically under control, there would be little ability to compare with any other treatment.
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The actual diet lasted only ONE WEEK. It usually takes a week in the best environment for any improvement to begin to appear.
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The justification for a one-week diet was that when children eat items forbidden by the diet, parents report a reaction within minutes to hours. Apparently, the researchers were not aware that while one may get a reaction in minutes to hours, one first has to have an actual response to the diet, which takes several days to several weeks, depending on age, circumstances, errors, etc.
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The children were filmed during meals, whereas any effect from what they ate would have taken place after the meal.
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In spite of the many pitfalls listed above, however, one hyperactive boy did become “more boisterous during the second (“additive-rich”) week, and was sent home on the 12th day.” The authors did not conclude that the additives bothered him, but that his dosage of Cylert was inadequate.
Anyone who wants to can also wade through this page and tell me what’s wrong with their citations.
http://www.feingold.org/research_adhd.html
sample:
- Controlled trial of cumulative behavioural effects of a common bread preservative. Dengate S, Ruben A., J Paediatr Child Health 2002 Aug;38(4):373-6
" …Twenty-seven children, whose behaviour improved significantly on the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital diet, which excludes food additives, natural salicylates, amines and glutamates, were challenged with calcium propionate (preservative code 282) or placebo through daily bread in a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover trial. … CONCLUSIONS: Irritability, restlessness, inattention and sleep disturbance in some children may be caused by a preservative in healthy foods consumed daily. Minimizing the concentrations added to processed foods would reduce adverse reactions. Testing for behavioural toxicity should be included in food additive safety evaluation. "
10. **The effects of a double blind placebo controlled artificial food colourings and benzoate preservatives challenge on hyperactivity in a general population sample of pre-school children. ** Bateman et al, International Society for Research into Child and Adolescent Psychopathology July 2001
“…There were significant effects in reducing hyperactive behaviour during the withdrawal phase. There were significantly greater elevations in hyperactive behaviour during the active than the placebo period based on parental reports… There is a general adverse effect of artificial food colouring and benzoate preservatives on three-year-old children that is detectable in their behaviour outside the clinic…”
13. Foods and Additives are Common Causes of the Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder in Children, M. Boris; F. Mandel, Annals of Allergy, May 1994, Vol. 72, pp. 462-8
73% of the children responded favorably, P < .001 “This study demonstrated a beneficial effect of eliminating reactive foods and artificial colors in children with ADHD. Dietary factors may play a significant role in the etiology of the majority of children with ADHD.”
14. Review: The Role of Diet and Behaviour in Childhood, J. Breakey, Journal of Paediatric Child Health, 1997, Jun;33(3) pp.190-194
“The research has shown that diet definitely affects some children. … and some non-food items are relevant. Symptoms which may change include those seen in attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), sleep problems and physical symptoms, with later research emphasizing particularly changes in mood.”
- Synthetic Food Coloring and Behavior: A Dose Response Effect in a Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Repeated-Measures Study, K.S.Rowe, K.J.Rowe, Journal of Pediatrics, November 1994, Vol. 135, pp.691-8
150 of 200 children [75%] improved on an open trial of a diet free of synthetic food coloring, and 63% of them responded to a single-item challenge of tartrazine. In the double-blind portion, the study identified 24 children as clear reactors, including 19 of the 23 “suspected reactors” [82.5%] . “They were irritable and restless and had sleep disturbance. Significant reactions were observed at all six dose levels. A dose response effect was obtained.”
Still no response? People were so vehement against it, you would think I could find somebody with answers.
I was thinking something similar. I would expect either a violent denunciation or some kind of apology.
It’s in the great huge pile of things to be done… and that means a lot of research and digging and hard work. No one on staff feels like doing that at the moment – so we’re trying to just let it get buried under the sands of time.