Good morning all,

 

If you have followed my recent postings to the list, you may have noticed that my voyage of adventure led around the mulberry bush into very familiar territory.

 

In 1975 when our daughter Amanda was 6, and clearly hyperactive, main syndrome she never slep, two to three hours a night, which meant my wife Frances was not getting any sleep either.

 

We put Amanda on the Feingold diet, and it changed Amanda's, Frances' and my life completely.

 

Ben Feingold, an allergist, accidentally discovered that food additives caused hyperactivity. It tied in with the explosion in the use of chemical additives in foods since the WW2: to give them better shelf life, make them look better, make them taste better.

 

He found that the effects of these additives was qualitative, not quantative. He also discovered that the salycilates in the additives were the culprits.  Salycilates also occur naturally, and are equally damaging. Water melon, inocuous as it may seem is loaded and has an almost immediate effect. Some other 'naturals': tomatoes, cucumber, grapes, apples, apricots.

 

The diet is an all or nothing. As the effect of salycilates is qualatitive, the slightest infringement has an explosive effect, which may take days, at times weeks to wear off. Frances put the entire family on the diet, whioch our son Willem thought pretty gross, but learnt to live with. Frances became an avid label reader - still is. In 1975 far less information was displayed on labels than is now. Even then, there were traps for young players: 'approved' colouring, or preservative did not mean it was free from salycilates.  So anything Frances was not sure of was automatically out.

 

Things to avoid: anything with artificial preservatives and flavouring,(cordial, cake, icecream, even custard: for many years Frances made 'snow white custard') Watch out for asprin, 'dropasprin (coloured and flavoured) toothpaste (mint, very high)

 

Unless the integrety of the diet is maintained, absolutely, it is useless. This means vigilance and much hard work. Even then slip ups occur. We had dinner one night, and I said to Frances: "Amanda is off Feingold'. I noticed it in her behaviour. 'No way' frances said, 'impossible'. Two days later she figured it out: she had used a spoonful of cider vinegar, which was shared by the four of us!

 

The up-side is that many who respond to the diet eventually grow out of it, Amanda is tolerant of most things now.

The down side is that not all hyperactive children respond to the diet: "The best estimate is that 50 percent have a likelyhood of full response, while 75 percent can be removed from drug management, even if full response to other symptoms is not achieved". (p 71)  He also says that where allergies are present they may have to be dealt with, before the diet becomes effective.

 

Leafing through Feingold's book just now, a trip down memory lane, a 'diet sheet' fell out. It was issued in 1986, by the Queensland Allergy and Hyperactivity Association. I phoned the number and, yes, they are still there. I had an interesting chat with the lady. 'phone: 3848 2321

 

Ben F Feingold MD wrote 'Why Your Child is Hyperactive' It is a Random House publication ISBN 0-394-49343-5, copyright 1974/75