ADHD and hyperactivity are not a new phenomenon. However, the number of reported cases has exploded over the last fifty or so years, increasing dramatically with each passing decade. This exponential increase calls into question the causes and triggers that are leading to such a rise and has caused a great deal of confusion in the medical field. While there have been countless doctors who have dedicated their profession and lives to uncovering the reasons behind such a dramatic increase in hyperactivity, none has been more successful than Dr. Benjamin F. Feingold. Through his work, we have gained a tremendous amount of insight into the root causes of ADHD and more specifically the triggers that spark a reaction in a child or adult living with this condition.
Dr. Feingold was living and working in the Bay Area as a pediatric allergist and essentially stumbled upon the connection between artificial food colors and flavors with hyperactivity and behavioral problems. While working as an allergist, he placed an adult female patient on a diet to address a hives outbreak, believing the artificial colors and flavors were causing her skin reaction. Her hives disappeared within seventy-two hours and her skin went back to normal. He received a phone call from a psychiatrist in the area ten days later who was astonished at the improvement in her client and wanted to know what he had done that had had such an impact on her clients behavior. She was a married woman who had been going to psychotherapy for two years because of her aggressive and hostile behavior. She had been unable to get along with her husband and co-workers and had been unable to resolve her problems through seeing a psychiatrist. However, after two weeks on the diet prescribed by Dr. Feingold for her hives, her aggressive behavior and hostility had vanished.
This is the genesis of Dr. Feingold’s work regarding hyperactivity. The potential connection between artificial colors and hyperactivity was a fascinating hypothetical, but was merely a single instance that could be explained by a variety of other factors. However, this curiosity led Dr. Feingold down an alternate path in medicine, resulting in truly incredible discoveries regarding the connection between ADHD and the foods we eat.