Prof Mike Gibney, Director of the UCD Institute for Food and Health.
New EU regulations due to come into effect in January 2010 which impose labeling restrictions on six food colours in the fight against hyperactivity among children, is based on unrealistically high levels of additive consumption, according to new research.
The survey findings by UCD scientists, recently published in the journal Food Additives and Contaminants, claims that children in the Republic of Ireland would never reach the consumption levels required for these food additives to induce hyperactivity.
“We strongly recommend that the risk assessment process which led to this legislation be urgently reviewed,” says Prof Mike Gibney, Director of the UCD Institute for Food and Health, who headed up a consortium of Irish Universities including University College Cork and the University of Ulster.
“Quite simply, no child in our survey of Irish children and teenagers came even remotely near the doses used in the Southampton University study which has informed the introduction of this new EU additives labeling,” continues Prof Gibney.
The consumption levels set by the Southampton University study meant that a child between 7-10 years old would have to consume 4 x 56g bags of sweets per day to reach the required exposure levels. According to Prof Gibney that would mean that half the daily calories of these children would have to come from sweets. “The reality is that the figure is less than 10%,” he says.
The new EU regulation, (EC) No. 1333/2008, stipulates that any food on sale in the European Union which contains particular food additives (Sunset Yellow, 30 Carmoisine, Tartrazine, Ponceau 4R, Allura Red, and Quinoline Yellow) – be labeled from January 2010 to indicate that these additives “may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children.”
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