The Dr. Feingold diet was developed by Dr. Ben F. Feingold during the 1970s. Dr. Feingold was born on June 15th, 1899 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1921, and his Medical Degree from the same institution in 1924. Following this, he did an internship from 1924 to 1925 at Passavant Hospital, also in Pittsburgh, and then a fellowship in pathology at the University of Goettingen in Germany. He then spent 1928 and 1929 working with children in Austria before returning to the United States to be an instructor of pediatrics at the Northwestern University School of Medicine.
Dr. Feingold continued to work with children, specifically in the developing area of allergy studies. During World War II he was a commander in the US Navy, and then returned from the war to be chief of pediatrics at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, California. He worked at various other hospitals and established all of the Departments of Allergy for Northern California for Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Permanente Medical Group in 1951. He died on March 23, 1982.
During his career Dr. Feingold mainly studied allergies in children. He noticed, however, that during his career the increase of children exhibiting symptoms of hyperactivity seemed to correspond with the increased consumption by children of various food additives. He hypothesized that these food additives were what was causing the symptoms he observed. During the 1970s he set out to study this relationship, and believed he had found a link. In 1975 be published the book “Why Your Child is Hyperactive,’ laying out his beliefs. The Dr. Feingold diet is derived from this book. Since then, the children he called “hyperactive’ have been identified as having Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Although Dr. Feingold died in 1982, his followers and adherents continue to update his diet and ideas. Although he intended his diet only for the treatment of hyperactivity, the Feingold Association of the United States has identified many other problems that my be alleviated by the diet. They have also continued to update the foods and additives believed to cause behavior and other problems in children.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:39 am
The information on Dr. Feingold is mostly correct, except for the part at the end claiming that he intended his diet only for the treatment of hyperactivity. During the years my colleagues and I at the Feingold Association worked with him, we often heard him say that “any system of the body” can be affected by foods and food additives. It depends on what sensitivities you may have.
The diet actually was developed to help an adult woman with a terrible case of hives, not for hyperactive children.
As an allergist, Dr. Feingold knew that a food or an additive can have many varied effects, and his wrote about this in books, articles and the scientific papers he published.
Please check out or web site for details: http://www.feingold.org
Thank you,
Jane Hersey, Director