FDA Panel Nixes Food Dye-Hyperactivity Link

March 31, 2011— -- SILVER SPRING, Md -- The FDA's Food Advisory Committee has voted 11 to 3 that there is not enough evidence to conclude that artificial dyes used to color foods contribute to hyperactivity in children. That means juices, candies, cereals, yogurts, and hundreds of other everyday foods will maintain their brighter-than-bright hues.

The Food Advisory Committee -- a panel of outside experts in nutrition, toxicology, food science, immunology, and psychology -- met at the request of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which petitioned the FDA in 2008 to ban eight of the nine FDA-approved food dyes, including Yellow No. 5, Red 40, and Blue No. 1. The one coloring that the CSPI is not petitioning to ban is Citrus Red No. 3, which is used only to make the skins of oranges a more vibrant color.

The panel focused much of its attention on a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial conducted in England that enrolled 153 3-year-olds, recruited from nurseries, preschool groups, and playgroups, and 144 8- and 9-year-olds, recruited from the Southampton school system.

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For the study, the children drank two different mixes of fruit juice spiked with food dye and sodium benzoate and later consumed a placebo fruit juice drink without artificial dye or sodium benzoate.

One of the authors of that study, Jim Stevenson, PhD, of the University of Southampton, told the FDA panel that the study concluded that artificial colors (together with the sodium benzoate) increased the average level of hyperactivity in 3-year-olds and in 8- and 9-year-olds.

Another study, which was a meta-analysis of double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, showed that when children who are already hyperactive eat food that is artificially colored, they become even more hyper.

Both studies have a number of shortcomings, however. For one thing, no studies teased out which specific dyes produce a given effect. The studies all administered a combination of dyes.