Additives in food causing disease?

Additives in foods cause illness?

In Germany, just over 300 additives are authorized in foods. Some of them are said to affect our health. The Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg (vzhh) has now published a list of questionable additives for certain population groups.

Food additives may appear as colorants, sweeteners, preservatives, flavor enhancers or emulsifiers. These are substances that are not consumed as foods in the beginning and should be present in a characteristic way, but added and become part of a product.

Their purpose is to alter or stabilize chemical (e.g., oxidation) and sensory (e.g., consistency or color) properties or to make the foodstuffs more durable. On the packaging of the food they are with the letter „e“ (intended for „Edible“ stand) and a three-digit number.

The relationship between these substances and health effects is discussed. Studies have suggested that E 951 (aspartame), which is commonly used as a sweetener in soft drinks and chewing gum under the trade names NutraSweet and Canderel, is involved in the development of cancers, headaches and mood disorders. Definite results are not yet available according to our findings.

Aluminum is often associated with the development of the disease Alzheimer's disease, due to its heavy secretion from the human organism and deposition in our neurofibrillary tangles. As a result, there are also references to the aluminum-containing food additives E 541, E 523, E 522, E 521, E 520 and E 173. E 173, for example, is partially in food colors and can be found among others in processed cheese, coffee whitener, baking powder, table salt and spices. But even here we have no scientific evidence known or accessible, which clearly prove the harmfulness.

For some food additives such as Azorubin (E 122) and Yellow Orange S (E 110), which act as dyes, and the preservative sodium benzoate (E 211), references to hyperactivity were made in a 2007 British study. However, later investigations of the study should not have confirmed the observations. However, since 20 January 2010, a new legislation in force in the European Union has entered into force requiring special labeling for foodstuffs containing some of the colorants. The list of consumer center Hamburg also indicates additives that should avoid allergy, overweight or especially children.

From a naturopathic point of view, it is argued that food should be as natural as possible without additives. Critics of food additives, which do not come exclusively from the field of naturopathy, should admit and publicly acknowledge that the scientifically clear evidence of harmfulness of certain substances are more than poor. Because otherwise they run the risk of being exposed to the charge that their criticism is not content-wise, but purely ideologically motivated. (Thorsten Fischer, Naturopath Osteopathy, 14.03.2010)

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