American Journal of Psychiatry. 2010 Sep;167(9): 1108-15
Stevenson analyzed the reactions of children in the McCann (2007) study to see why not all children react to additives in the same way. He found that variation in several genes that control histamine control the variation in response to additives.
QUOTE: “Histamine may mediate the effects of food additives on ADHD symptoms, and variations in genes influencing the action of histamine may explain the inconsistency between previous studies.”
NOTE: When you read “histamine” you may think of an allergy and assume that an antihistamine should fix the problem; in this case, however, the histamine is released from basophils (a type of white blood cell) in a different way, not related to “true” or IgE allergies.
