It has been noticed that the Egyptian children usually eat and drink food containing both food preservative and food colourants at the same time . This has attracted the attention to study the interaction between one of food preservatives (sodium nitrite) and a food coloring agent (sunset yellow). The mixture of the two agents at the limited dose of each was found to be a lethal dose. So, 1/10th of this dose was used daily for 30 days. Animals were devided into three groups. The first group served as a control, while the second group was orally administered a mixture of 10mg sod. nitrite (NaNO3)/kg and 0.5 mg/ kg /day sun set yellow (S.S.Y)/. The third group received selenium (5 mcg/kg) in addition to the above mentioned mixture. After 30 days of treatment, half of the animals from each group were decapitated. The other half of animals was left for another 15 days without treatment for recovery.
Ingestion of the mixture of (NaNO3 and S.S.Y) significantly decreased rat body weight, R B C and WBC counts, Hb %. , Hct %. Serum inorganic phosphorus, serum protein and serum albumin. Significant increases were observed in serum glucose, T3, T4, calcium, GGT, LDH, Cpk, ALK.ph and cholesterol. Also cholesterol of brain, liver and heart were significantly elevated. No changes were recorded for organ/ body weight, respiratory rate, heart beats, rectal temperature, AST and ALT activities of serum and tissues, acid phosphatase activity, total lipids of serum and tissues, cholesterol of muscle and kidney and serum triglycerides
A complete recovery from the abnormalities of most biochemical and haematological parameters was observed after 15 days recovery or when selenium was administered This draws attention to the dangers of interactions of such preservatives and colorants. The present study showed that even the permitted doses of colourants and food preservatives may be harmful.