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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Study: What We Eat Linked to Learning Disorders

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Thursday, November 12, 2009   

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - A new study suggests what goes into our stomachs is affecting our brain power, and certain foods may be linked to the increase in learning disorders in our children. Researchers documented links between diet-related factors like synthetic food dyes, mercury contamination, and mineral deficiencies and increases in child learning and behavioral disorders. The study, published in this month's issue of "Behavioral and Brain Functions Journal," suggests better policies are needed to keep healthier foods on the table.

Report co-author Dr. David Wallinga, director of the Food and Health Program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, says his research found evidence that several common processed foods and ingredients, including high fructose corn syrup, contain mercury - a known neurotoxin. He says the legal loophole that allows food companies to put mercury-containing food ingredients in children's diets needs to be closed.

"We've got rising numbers of kids with chronic diseases and learning disabilities and we don't know why. So, part of this model is asking, 'Are there things in the food and in the environment that may be contributing?' Yes there are, and we can do something about that."

With increasing health care costs, Wallings says it's critical that the regulatory system for chemicals and food be scrutinized. He points to better technologies that are already available for processed foods as examples of needed federal requirements.

"The government regulations, as they stand now, make it possible to make high fructose corn syrup with food chemicals that are contaminated with mercury and there already are other ways to make those chemicals. So, it's a little silly that we are still using this outdated mercury technology, but we are."

Wallinga says the average American gets about 1 in 10 calories from high fructose corn syrup, which can leave them deficient in zinc.

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy is working to reform how toxic chemicals are regulated in Minnesota and nationally to help ensure a healthy food system. Wallinga recommends a diet with more healthy, whole, unprocessed foods. Food companies take issue with criticism of high fructose corn syrup, saying it is equal in nutrition to natural sugar.

The study, "Mercury Exposure, Nutritional Deficiencies and Metabolic Disruptions May Affect Learning in Children," is at www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com/content/5/1/44.


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