Lycored Highlights Natural Opportunity in Artificial Colours Debate

12/10/07 If your customers are not already pressuring you to remove artificial colors from your products, they might soon start. Results of a new clinical trial published in the British medical journal The Lancet reveals that children who consume food and drinks containing certain artificial colors and preservatives exhibit increased levels of hyperactivity. The study results, which have created quite an uproar against artificial food colorants in the United Kingdom, also has distributors of a natural, red, lycopene coloring in the U.S. preparing to meet an increased demand for their product.

The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, conducted by medical researchers from the University of Southampton, included 153 three-year-old and 144 eight-to-nine-year-old children. Researchers found that at least three red dyes as well as the chemical sodium benzoate had adverse affects on the children’s behaviors.

“This study has huge implications because it echoes and legitimizes 30 years of previous data on the negative effects of artificial colors and additives,” comments Cathleen London, M.D., a board certified family physician. “If parents have children with ADD or ADHD, why should they take a chance with their child’s behavior when there are good alternatives available?”

Adds Paula Nürnberger, marketing manager for natural ingredient distributor P.L. Thomas, “With all of the increased scrutiny on artificial food additives, we anticipate a dramatically increased demand for Tomat-O-Red from LycoRed, a natural red coloring with lycopene made from non-GMO tomatoes. FDA approved Tomat-O-Red, natural tomato lycopene, as a food coloring in 2006.

Tomat-O-Red delivers all the antioxidant health benefits that research is attributing to tomato lycopene. This ingredient is ideal for many uses because it is vegetarian and Kosher-certified, and is heat- and pH-stable.