The Australian: Food chemicals send even mild children hyper [May 29, 2004]: "IT'S not just hyperactive kids who go berserk after consuming artifical colourings and preservatives.

Now research has shown that even mild-mannered children can run wild after drinking additive-laden juice.

British research has found that certain additives made three-year-olds more hyperactive, regardless of whether they had been diagnosed with hyperactivity.

So strong was the effect of the additives that the researchers called for the chemicals to be removed from the diets of pre-school children 'in the long-term interest of public health'.

The latest study, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, is the first to examine the effect of additives on children who are not hyperactive or allergic, as well as those who are.

The study used the preservative sodium benzoate, a preservative commonly found in fruit drinks and carbonated drinks, and the artificial food colourings sunset yellow, tartrazine, carmoisine, and ponceau."