IT WAS A BRIGHT idea, altho born from frustration in trying to find a way to improve the maturity level of his young adult daughter. The father, an active member in ACLD, had read news reports of recent research showing aspirin may help prevent heart attacks by thinning the blood. Reasoning that his daughter might be helped by getting more blood to her brain, and that perhaps more blood could get there if it were thinner, he gave her two aspirin in mid morning. By that afternoon, the daughter's behavior had deteriorated dramatically. She had become negativistic, belligerent, obnoxious. Finding it difficult to believe that a substance so innocuous as aspirin could produce such an effect, the father gave his daughter two more aspirin the next morning. By mid afternoon the same behavior was repeated, only worse, and with severe depression added. A week later, to make absolutely certain that aspirin Divas causing the problem, two more were given. The results were the same. "We just couldn't believe how in a few hours she could change into a real little bitch - the results certainly weren't what we had expected", her father commented.
     Then began the effort to discover what the aspirin was doing. The dictionary said aspirin was acetylsalicylic acid. That rang a bell. There have been many news reports on the work of Ben Feingold, M.D., pediatrician and allergist now with the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco, about salicylate-related food additives. Dr. Feingold's book, "Why Your Child Is Hyperactive", was purchased. It advised that many foods containing natural salicylates, such as oranges, apples, plums, peaches, berries, tomatoes, apricots, cucumbers and almonds should be eliminated from the diet of aspirin-sensitive people as well as synthetic colors and flavoring - even those in artificially colored vitamins. So should prescription drugs that contain aspirin - a surprising number of them do, as do most over-the-counter cold remedies.
     The possible effects of aspirin also came as a surprise to another couple, active in Texas ACLD affairs. Their pediatrician had urged them to eliminate food flavorings and dyes from the diet of their young son, and they had made an attempt to do so. But the boy was so hyperactive that they had been giving him aspirin before bedtime "to make him sleep". The doctor had failed to mention that aspirin was potentially a major offender. When the aspirin was stopped, the hyperactivity was reduced.
     Canada's Abram Hoffer. M.D., Ph.D., widely known for his use of megavitamin therapy for the emotionally disturbed, stated during a dinner meeting in Houston that he is realizing more and more how cerebral allergy can affect behavior. Altho he did not relate the case to the salicylate theory, he told of this case history:

I had one woman allergic to aspirin. She had been discharged from a mental hospital for the third time. She was very paranoid, had the idea her husband was trying to kill her. I asked her if she would go thru a 4-day fast - I had no idea it would work. She said she would try. At the end of the 4 days, she was normal. She went back onto all the foods and nothing made her sick. Two days afterwards, she had a headache, took two aspirin. One hour later she was hallucinating. Going back into her history when she was well. I found she had had a hip pin 2 years before and had residual pain. She began to control her pain with aspirin. After she stopped the aspirin, she was back to normal.

     Mr. and Mrs. Alton Peters of San Jose, California, have a foster home for 9 emotionally disturbed children, ages 5 thru 11. The salicylate theory was also discovered by accident by the Peters. Here is Mrs. Peter's story:

For several years we noticed our foster children learned and behaved better when I did a lot of home cooking. We credited this to their seeing a mother in the kitchen, happily making meals for them, having a soothing effect on their nerves. As time went on and we took more children - we now have 9 - we slowly began turning to ready-prepared convenience foods. We felt the time could be better spent in personal attention given the children. But the more time I gave them, the more they required. We loaded our kitchen with bakery supplies and all kinds of ready-prepared goodies to reward good behavior. One 7-year-old that we had previously thought was very bright, completely quit learning in school and, altho I spent hours daily tutoring him, he not only didn't learn any new concepts, he seemed to forget the things he formerly knew. He became aggressive, alternating from hyperactive to almost sluggish. We also became aware of hostile actions appearing in some of our more amicable children. In the past we had always been able to get the children off the medication they were taking when they came to live with us. One day, for the first time, I found myself asking a doctor to put a 4year-old on a behavior modifying drug. I began searching the book stores for help. I saw a book and the title seemed to jump out at me, "Why Your Child Is Hyperactive". I thumbed thru it and decided it had enough validity for me to buy it - and to try the diet it recommended. We have been on the Feingold diet a year now and I cannot recommend it too highly. One child we were despairing about has responded unbelievably. The 4-year-old is off the Ritalin and coming along real well. All the children every one of them - are showing a marked improvement in their scholastic average. They are all experiencing such serenity within themselves that they want to stay on the diet, even tho they have to take responsibility far beyond their years, as this society is so oriented to reinforcing good behavior with a bright red or green piece of candy. This chemically-abused generation of children has been punished, isolated, expelled from school and some even institutionalize for things they cannot help.

     Barbara Holladay, an officer in the Denton, Texas ACLD, says of her son:

Kris is 12 now. There was trouble from about 14 months on. He was on Ritalin arid Dexedrene for several years. The medicine did work, but not enough. It just kept him from being kicked out of school. A doctor told me to try a diet eliminating artificial colors and flavors. For a year we tried it. No results. Finally, I read the Feingold book the doctor had mentioned. Turns out the doctor had read the cover of it and found out about the colors and flavors but he had not read the book itself to find out about the salicylates. When we went on the complete diet, we started getting results in 2½ weeks. And I mean results. 'Cause Kris was getting C's and D's in school - he was getting "socially passed on"; he really didn't deserve to pass. Now he gets A's and B's. He's still getting better and better and better. We (recently) tried giving him tomatoes for a week - it was like turning him back on. It was terrible! The diet has to be a 100% - because 80 or 90% won't work. We've found, tho, that Kris can have strawberries and cucumbers. It's been a year and a month now that he's been on the diet. His logic is better - he "connects" now much better than he did. You can carry on a decent conversation with him now. We actually went on a real live vacation with him this summer which we had never been able to do before since you couldn't stand being in the car with him.

     Mrs. Arlene Weiser of Oak Park, Michigan, is another ACLD member who is convinced of the validity of the Feingold theory. Her son, Scott, age 10, was diagnosed LD at age 5. On Ritalin, he was still doing poorly. "He'd dive off a diving board even if he didn't know how to swim", his mother remembers. Then, she heard about the salicylate-free diet. Eight days after she started it he was a different person. Her friend, Elsa Silverman, is co-president of Oak Park ACLD. Mrs. Silverman's son, Bryan, since beginning the diet last winter, progressed 2 grade levels in reading and will be able to be in a regular reading group this fall. She has found he must also eliminate sugar.
     Mrs. Vicki Gelarbi of Smithtown, N.Y., is executive vice president of the Feingold Association of the United States. The national association, located at 759 National Press Bldg., Washington, D.C. 20045, was organized in May, 1976, already has between 50 and 60 chapters. Mrs. Gelarbi reports:

In New York alone we have over 800 children on the diet having success. Those are just the ones we can keep track of. We're sure there are many more. There are now several hundred doctors and psychologists recommending the diet to parents. Many learning-disabled children have gone on the Feingold diet with very good success.

     When asked about using aspirin for provocative testing, Mrs. Gelarbi replied:

If the child is hyperactive and you give him aspirin, if he is already "up", you might not see a significant change. Testing with aspirin may give you a clue but you couldn't count on it.

     Mrs. Allan Harbert of Bridgeton, N.J., wife of the president of the new national Feingold Association, is also a director in the organization. Regarding the aspirin check, she comments:

Trying aspirin to see if they are sensitive may work. But aspirin does not affect all of them - it doesn't affect my child. Some are affected only by the additives.

     There is as yet no certain way to determine whether or not a person is sensitive to the aspirin-related products. Dr. Feingold says that the allergy symptoms associated with the additives technically are not allergies because the chemical chain of events in the body leading to the symptoms is not that of an allergic reaction. Thus standard allergy test procedures will not uncover the problem.



     RESEARCH IS desperately needed to prove to the medical profession the validity of the Feingold theory. Dr. Keith Conners of the University of Pittsburgh has completed a federally funded "double-blind" research program in which neither the parents, teachers nor the investigator knew which children were getting the exclusion diet. Dr. Conners reported in the August, 1976, issue of Pediatrics, the prestigious publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics:

The results of this study strongly suggest that a diet free of most natural salicylates, artificial flavors and artificial colors reduces the perceived hyperactivity of some children suffering from hyperkinetic impulse disorder. Teachers who observed the children over a 12-week period without knowledge of when the child started his diet and without knowledge of the fact that there were two diets which were employed rated the children as less hyperactive while they were on the diet recommended by Feingold. The difference obtained between the ratings when the children were on the K-P diet and when they were on the control diet would have occurred by chance only 5 in 1,000 times.

     Gary Rogers recently obtained a master's degree in clinical psychology at North Texas State University, and is presently working on his doctorate. For his thesis he undertook a research project studying the effect of the Feingold diet in 10 hyperactive children ranging in age from 4 to 11 years. An "actometer", a device used to measure the amount of arm and leg movement, was used to determine hyperactivity levels. Five of the children were placed on the Feingold diet and 5 were not. The 5 who were measured 168 actometer units per minute when the treatment began and 97 when it ended. The other "control" group began with an average of 155 actometer units and completed with 147.
     The Rogers' research report concludes: "Although Feingold's approach may not be effective with every hyperactive child, these findings suggest a causative role of artificial food additives and/or salicylates in producing hyperactivity in some children."
     As for all therapy involving behavior, accurate and definitive research is extremely difficult. When the subjects are young children, the task becomes even more difficult. And when it involves a diet eliminating most soft drinks, store-bought sweets, and much of the food served in a school cafeteria, the results of any research may well be "inconclusive". To make the problem even more complex, many of the hyperactive children may have adverse reactions to substances, such as petrohydrocarbons, in addition to the salicylate-related foods. Because absolute proof is not yet available, the American Medical Association has not yet endorsed the Feingold theory. Altho most doctors have now heard of the theory, few know anything about it.
     But the theory may open new possibilities not even dreamed of. Information to date has mostly been about the hyperactive child. What happens when that child becomes a teenager? There is evidence that dyslogic is frequently associated with the young, hyperactive child. But because a young child is not expected to show much logic, and because the hyperactivity is so prominently displayed, the dyslogic is little noticed. As the child grows older, and more logical actions are expected of him, and as he learns to control (if only by imitating his peer group) his hyperactivity, the dyslogic comes to the forefront.
     Because of this dyslogic, severely affected young people may become delinquent. If the Feingold diet can improve judgement and prevent unwarranted depression, aggression and dysperceptions, it may offer an entirely new approach to crime.
     Sound impossible? Dr. Feingold, in discussing how difficult it is for the average person to understand how the elimination diet can sometimes make such a dramatic difference in the behavior of a person says:

You tell the public and even the professions that a drug can cause a reaction and they aren't surprised. You tell them that a food additive causes a reaction and they are surprised - but there's not an iota of difference between the two chemicals. The ramifications are just fantastic. We haven't even scratched the surface yet.

     THERE IS ONE more case we want to report. In 1959 in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered. Truman Capote, after an exhausting personal study which involved in-depth research of the crime, wrote "In Cold Blood", a best-selling non-fiction novel which gives a fascinating characterization of the murderer, Perry Smith. The book has at least 10 references to the murderer's use of aspirin, plus innumerable instances of ingestion of root beer, candy, apples and condensed milk. AItho Capote obviously had no idea of any theory about diet causing behavioral problems, he wrote:

His chunky dwarfish legs, broken in 5 places and pitifully scarred (from a motorcycle wreck) still pained him so severely that he had become an aspirin addict.... Three aspirin, cold root beer, and a chain of Pall Mall cigarettes - that was his notion of a proper "chow-down".... He shook 3 aspirin out of a bottle, chewed them slowly, for he liked the taste.... In evaluating the intentions and feelings of others, his ability to separate the real situation from his own mental projections is very poor.... Akin to this first trait is the second, an ever-present, poorly controlled rage easily triggered by any feeling of being tricked, slighted, or labeled inferior by others.... When turned toward himself his anger has precipitated ideas of suicide.... He seems unable to scan or summarize his thought, becoming involved and sometimes lost in detail, and some of his thinking reflects a "magical" quality, a disregard for reality.... He has had few close emotional relationships with other people and these have not been able to stand small crises.

     Was the aspirin just a coincidence? Maybe. Certainly any relationship between food additives and crime, or violence in our high schools or even teenage runaways and suicides has not been proven. But the alarming increase in such deviant behavior parallels the increase in use of food additives.
     What causes the reaction to the salicylate group and additives? No one knows. The most prominent theory is that some people have a biochemistry, probably genetically acquired, that does not respond properly to a stress. The stress can be emotional or physical or both. For some the greatest stress of all may be the result of food additives. Their brain, just as it does when an hallucinating drug is taken, somehow fails to perceive normally. Lendon, H. Smith, M.D., in his new book, "Improving Your Child's Behavior Chemistry", describes the child's world as "going tilt". If the person's biochemistry cannot combat a certain substance, there may be more stress applied to the body than if it had received a physical blow. Dr. Smith believes that the frequent Association of hyperactivity and food intolerance is related to the reciprocal exhaustion produced in the brain and the adrenal glands.
     Nor is it known what to do about correcting the biochemistry. It may be that megadoses of vitamins, such as ascorbic acid (C) or pyridoxine (B-6) or a trace metal, such as zinc, can correct an individual's biochemistry and thus help his body to combat daily stresses. But since each person's biochemistry is different, finding the right amount of the right ingredient to correct the imbalance has not, at least as yet, become a scientific process.
     In his book, Dr. Feingold relates how his discovery came about and its scientific basis. He provides detailed information about the diet itself; how parents should apply it; what menus, dishes and ingredients can be used; what should and should not be eaten. "Why Your Child is Hyperactive", published by Random House, is available in many book stores and libraries.
     ACLD neither endorses nor rejects any therapy which has been reported as being used for those with learning and behavior problems. There are those who have tried the Feingold diet and have had no observable success. But as Marshall Mandell, M.D., said in a presentation on cerebral allergy at the ACLD International Conference in Houston:

How else ore we going to explain the good days and the bad days? The performance that goes from fair to poor, or maybe from good to excellent then down to fair?.... If a child has one little bit of sparkle every now and then, the capacity must be there or you couldn't see it, and I think you all should become optimists and hang on to that. What you are seeing most of the time obviously must be malfunction on a chronic basis.

     The salicylate-related products would appear to be a prime candidate for causing that malfunction.