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Food Dyes Produce Minimal Effects on Locomotor Activity and Vitamin B-6 Levels in Postweanling Rats¹

Mark A. Kantor^2,3,*, J. Richard Trout and Paul A. Lachance^4,*

^* Department of Food Science Department of Statistics and Computer Science, Cook College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903

We investigated the effects of food dye consumption on locomotor activity, brain neurotransmitters, tissue vitamin B-6 levels, and hepatic cytochrome P-450 concentrations in postweanling rats. Animals were individually housed in stabilimeter-type activity cages for 4 weeks, and fed ad libitum a semipurified basal diet containing graded levels (4, 2, 1, 0.5 or 0%) of a blend of all seven Food, Drug and Cosmetic (FD & C) food dyes. Rats in the 4% dye group were significantly (P < 0.001) less active during the first 3 weeks of dietary treatment, but no significant differences existed among groups during the final 10 days. Similarly, although dye ingestion depressed food intake (P < 0.0025) and body weight (P < 0.05) when averaged for all animals, the differences among groups disappeared by the last week of the experiment. Postmortem tissue analyses revealed no significant effect of dyes on brain tissue levels of serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid or homovanillic acid. Moreover, no significant differences were detected in either plasma and brain tissue levels of pyridoxal phosphate or in hepatic cytochrome P-450 concentrations. These results demonstrate that animals may adapt to the chronic consumption of food dyes and do so with minimal evidence of toxicity. Our data also suggest that previously reported behavioral abnormalities attributed to food dyes are probably unrelated to altered vitamin B-6 metabolism.

KEY WORDS: • food dyes • locomotor activity • vitamin B-6 • neurotransmitters

¹ Supported by N.J. Agricultural Experiment Station, Project 10206 (NE-73) and a grant-in-aid from the General Foods Corporation.

² Present Address: Division of Nutrition and Metabolism, Miriam Hospital, Brown University Program-in-Medicine, 164 Summit Avenue, Providence, Rhode Island 02906.

³ To whom correspondence should be addressed.

⁴ To whom reprint requests should be addressed.

Manuscript received 20 January 1984.