ADHD is a complicated disorder that necessitates the elimination of certain foods, additives and medications if there is a desire to live with minimal complications and life disturbances. While this is factual and evidentiary, eliminating triggers is not as common as you would think. This is especially true when looking at adults treating and mitigating their children’s ADHD. The greatest demon when it comes to ADHD is food dye, as outlined in The Feingold Diet, as well as thousands of medical studies over the course of decades. Many people are aware of the detriments of food dyes, but we tend to eat them without even considering they are present. However, food dyes are the greatest trigger for ADHD and can cause extreme hyperactivity in a matter of minutes. In fact, if you look up the greatest health risks associated with food dyes, the first two results are behavioral issues in children and hyperactivity. Perhaps a contributing factor to chronic hyperactivity in some children has to do with the massive amounts of dyes that kids tend to consume in their diet. Think about breakfast cereal, fruit snacks, candy and chips that kids tend to eat every single day. It’s not far-fetched to assume that children are consuming more food dyes than adults, which could be amplifying the problem. However, adults will likely run into an assortment of food dyes in items that they would have never even considered. Think about benadryl, tums, pepto bismol and other over the counter medications. Virtually every prescription drug contains food dyes as well. Food dye is likely in the ice cream you eat as a treat at the end of a long day, in the sports drink you have during a workout and even in fruit juices that you may perceive as dye-free and healthy. The point is, food dye is an unfortunate part of the standard American diet and it is absolutely everywhere. The health impact of food dyes is far-reaching, but it is particularly detrimental to anyone who has ADHD. You simply can’t eat food dyes on a regular basis and live a symptom free life. The breakdown of the health impact is something that I will go into on a much deeper level in future posts, where I will prove with case studies and evidence that this is the case. However, the important point to realize here is simply the reality that food dyes are causing a huge problem for ADHD children and adults.
The thing that makes me most frustrated with the volume of food dyes in our diet and medication is the fact that behavioral problems and hyperactivity are well known in the medical world as a result of eating food dyes. This is even true for kids that don’t have ADHD, so you can imagine what happens when a kid eats a bag of skittles, or has a bowl of lucky charms before heading off to school. Many parents are flooding their kids full of food dyes first thing in the morning and will send them off to school with a lunch box of fruit snacks and drinks containing dyes, virtually guaranteeing behavioral issues and impulsivity/hyperactivity. These behavioral issues are almost exclusively blamed on the child, creating further emotional distress in their lives, and is a nightmare for literally everyone involved. The parents are going to be stressed and overwhelmed and the struggling child is going to likely experience an immensely difficult road towards schooling. This isn’t even considering the teachers, counselors, coaches and other adults who will inevitably be impacted by such a small thing as food dyes.
Now, there are other issues with food, as well as consuming aspirin, which both produce similar behavioral effects and hyperactivity, but food dyes are the king. This is the place where everyone should start when it comes to mitigating ADHD through an elimination diet. Anyone who has had ADHD, or a child with ADHD, knows that medication is a baseline intervention to combat hyperactivity. What makes me truly infuriated is the fact that most ADHD medications contain food dye. Take Adderall for example. Not only do all but one dosage contain food dyes in the medication itself, but the capsules also contain food dyes. These medications can have a substantial beneficial impact on hyperactivity and controlling ADHD symptoms, but they are literally fueling the problem and perpetuating the problem by putting food dyes in the medication itself. All the more frustrating is the fact that there is no need for food dyes in these medications at all. I have heard people say that the medications need dyes to distinguish between doses, as well as other various reasons for this, but it’s complete garbage. Luckily, I’ve been able to find certain specific doses that don’t contain food dyes and highly recommend going this route if you do have to take medication. Sometimes doing an elimination diet can fully remove the symptoms of ADHD, but many people have to continue to take medication, which makes the reality of food dyes in such medications such an important thing to consider.
It’s quite hard to look at ADHD medication containing multiple dyes, while also looking at the vaults of medical information that show a connection between food dyes and ADHD and not draw a conspiratorial question as to whether it’s intentional. One could easily draw the conclusion that food dyes are put in the medication to guarantee a behavioral response, which is only controlled by the actual medication itself. This would virtually guarantee a child or adult with ADHD has to perpetually stay on said medication. Food dyes tend to have a several day impact on people with ADHD, so even if you were to take a few days off of medication and had no other food dyes, you would still likely experience a behavioral impact from the dye in the medication a few days prior. Thus, stopping for a few days would demonstrate hyperactivity, especially while no medication is being taken and would increase the perception that constant medicating is necessary. At the same time, the reality of dye in medication for ADHD could simply be a mismanagement and an unwitting mistake by the pharmaceutical companies, but it’s sort of irrelevant. In the end, if you want to control ADHD and hyperactivity, food dyes must be eliminated.