Baby Formula Additive Worries Parents
Posted April 23, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It would seem to be almost counter intuitive – putting something in food designed to curb your appetite.
But when they discover that the ingredient is a hormone being introduced into a new baby formula, many people go from curious to outraged.
The additive is a substance called leptin, which is supposed to make you feel less hungry.
Why in the world would you want to put that in a baby’s food?
The U.K. scientist behind the new formulation of the new formula argues that it’s already present in mother’s milk, and that it can help set a youngster’s eating pattern for life and end the problem of childhood obesity.
Experiments with rats have shown the creatures who get the formula lose weight and don’t gain it when they reach adulthood.
But mothers who hear about it are appalled.
“I’d never consider using my child as a guinea pig for hormones that they’re trying to use to see what’s going to happen in the future,” new mom Daniella Marin avers. “Never. It wouldn’t even cross my mind.”
Doctors have their doubts, too. “There’s no trials out that have shown it has any beneficial effect on human beings,” pediatrician Dr. Mickey Lester adds.
Nadia Dermit is the mother of twins. She can’t conceive of giving her newborns the concoction.
“I wouldn’t actually give hormones to such young children … to prevent them or not prevent them being fat,” she answers. “Baby fat is okay.”
That attitude is prevalent, which means finding new mothers willing to allow scientists to test the substance on their infants may be almost impossible to locate.
It also indicates parents will just to have rely on the old fashioned methods of keeping their kids slim as they get older – a good diet and lots of exercise.
