Change Your Brain Every Day - What Is Red Dye and Why It's Harmful to Brain Health

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

Dr Daniel and Tana Amen shine a light on a chemical that has been FDA approved, and yet harmful to the human body since the 1970s.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. So today we're going to talk about red dye. What is it you said they call it dye for a reason? Dye. Yeah. So the reds coming to get you. When I was in college, I was taking a class on the Soviet Union and my professor, he was an old guy and he was hysterical, but we would chant things. And one of the things he'd always chant is better dead. And then the whole class would go red. Oh, wow. Wow. that's pretty intense so let's start with a few things that um that contain red dye craft barbecue sauce lasagna hamburger helper del monte fruit salad nacho cheese doritos welch's frozen fruit bars duncan heinz home style vanilla frost vanilla frosting vanilla ginger ale diet ginger ale lipton iced tea the instant iced tea maraschino cherries but what about things like tylenol and children's vitamins oh no it's

incredible the stuff that red dye is in it's not just red vines although red vines says red dye and i'm like i'm a psychiatrist why do i care about red dye. And I'm like, I'm a psychiatrist. Why do I care about red dye? Because it can cause all sorts of psychiatric issues. And I had this boy I treated once who would just get negative, anxious, violent, aggressive. And the parents brought him to me. And, you know, one of the things I like to do with patients is put them on an elimination diet.

It's like, well, let's eliminate things that potentially could be ruining your life. And off of red dye, his behavior went to normal. Sweet, kind, helpful, which is nuts. And then we scanned him on red dye, and his brain looked like an explosion. There was just like way too much activity going on. And then we scanned him off, and it took on the pattern of a much more normal frame so haven't i'm reading here haven't those studies and that question been that's been being raised since the 70s correct yeah so they've been doing these studies and they have been trying they have

been linking actually um erratic behavior aggressive behavior, possibly hyperactivity to red dye for a long time. Right. And not just red. I mean, yellow also has been problematic, but it's the artificial food dyes, artificial colors, and artificial preservatives that have been known to cause learning problems, behavior problems, mood problems in some people. Now, it's not in everybody, but if you're vulnerable to this, you have to be super careful, which I always say, read the ingredients on labels. And it's not just, so according to some of this research it's not just the dye so the dye has actually been shown to be harmful and in some cases uh because of course the fda has approved it and of course the company's making these products

are saying there's nothing wrong with the dye well after doing studies some of the problems have not been necessarily always linked to the dye, but some of the, the, um, chemicals in the dye. So that, that, you know, that's contained in the dye. So, um, here's, what's really, I thought was really interesting. Uh, the food industry dumps 15 million pounds of artificial dyes into your food every year. Over 40% of that is red dye number 40. So I thought that was really fascinating. And then in 2011, even the FDA acknowledged the growing body of evidence

that red dye is a problem that's linked to erratic behavior. But they didn't get rid of it. But they didn't get rid of it. It's because in the United States, if you have a problem, you pay for it. Where in a country like the United Kingdom, if you have a problem, everybody pays for it. Right. And so the United Kingdom actually took out artificial dyes and preservatives out of their food supply

because they realized that it caused problems in some children and it's not just children right i had a patient once who came to see us from minnesota and we scanned him and his brain was troubled and his marriage was on the rocks. And he said, I want you to do one more scan on me on MSG. And I'm like, on MSG? Because MSG is in everything. And they often don't even label MSG. It's called natural flavoring. And I said, well, why?

And he said, whenever I get MSG, my temper becomes violent. And so we scanned him on MSGg he had a big slut of it we then scanned him his brain turned into similar to the scans i've done of murderers that's crazy um and and so i showed him you know his regular scan and then his msg scan and i said you have two choices you could hold the msg or i could actually put you on medicine to protect your temper now in my head i'm going he's going to choose well i'll just not eat anything with msG in it and he said it's too hard you don't know do you give me the medicine and I'm like why just what you said because I wouldn't want to go to jail because someone put MSG in something he said they don't even have to label it right it's not fair it's often labeled natural flavors if I'm out at a restaurant and even if I ask and they get it and I

explode my wife said she's going to leave me right I can tell you if she leaves me I'm gonna get seriously depressed because I love her and how unfair is that that things that are being put in our food that not everybody reacts to but there's a certain percentage of us that react negatively seriously chemicals and you know and i know some of you are like oh dr amen aren't you being you know dramatic because yeah if you hear the stories that people come to the amen clinics it's dramatic and it's not necessary. Not necessary.

Because there's so many other ways to make foods taste great and foods that are clean for you. So you've made a couple of great points with patients that have pretty dramatic issues when they have red dye or MSG. And yet 43% of child-oriented products contain red dye. 43%. yet 43 of child-oriented products contain red dye 43 percent right they want to make it red because red reminds them of red binds or well i mean later so and then red dye contains uh red dye number 40 contains something called p it's a crescent something like that which is um one of the one of the chemicals i was telling you about that's in red dye. It's not the dye itself, but it's in the red dye that's believed to be cancer causing.

So I thought that was pretty crazy. And yet, you know, even though with all these petitions going around to take it out, the FDA still hasn't taken it out. We have other countries banning it. And we still don't even necessarily label everything that has it i mean the very least no in the food companies i mean i think you should put calories on everything because i think of calories like money but you know there are lobbyist groups that argue against labeling and i mean how crazy is that if you don't know what's in something don't eat it right uh the more you eat natural foods rather than processed foods the better they are for you because whatever

goes in your body i mean it turns into you right um and so if you're eating toxins or wearing toxins, that's a whole podcast we could talk about. Absolutely. And we did in our series on toxins. You just want to be very thoughtful about what you put in your body and what you allow in your children's bodies. So read the labels. Go natural. And why go organic? I get this question all the time.

Oh, I read the studies. Organic doesn't matter. It's the same nutritional value. Yes, one is nutritional value. The other is nutritional value plus poison. Right, pesticides. What do pesticides do? They kill bugs.

What is inside your gut? A hundred trillion bugs making vitamins, neurotransmitters, hormones, helping you with detoxification. It's critical to take care of yourself. So there's one more point before we go, because just like with sugar, so we're telling them all these great tips. There's one problem. It doesn't say red dye number 40 always. Okay, so even if it's on the ingredients,

just like with sugar, that's the thing. You have to know actually what to look for. So just like with sugar, which can have about 14 different names, red dye can have a bunch of different names. How about Allura Red, Red 40, Red number 40, FD&C Red number 40, Allura Red AC. That's a tricky one.

Allura Red AC. Allura, that sort of sounds like a date. Right. It kind of doesn't sound bad, right? It sounds benign. How about CI16035? Yeah. Anything that says that on a label avoid and then ci food red 17

so those are a few names that are really going to throw you for a loop because how would you know right they get tricky just like putting msg as natural flavoring what does our friend mike mark hyman say if it grows on a plant right eat it. If it's made in a plant, don't eat it. Right. If your grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food and she can't pronounce it, there you go. Right. There you go. All right. Love you. Thanks for watching. See you soon. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested

in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.