We’ve all been there. Making a late night trip to the gas station to pick up that miracle elixir—Red Bull, Monster, 5-Hour Energy—guaranteed to help you stay awake and reach your deadline. Sure, at the time the reward seems worth the effort. But, have you considered the potential cost?
That’s the question a South Carolina family are facing after recently losing their 16-year old son. The boy, named Davis Cripe, collapsed in class after drinking an energy drink, large Mountain Dew, and a latte. He later passed away due to his heart being unable to cope with the amount of caffeine, said local county coroner Gary Watts. "These drinks, this amount of caffeine, how it's ingested can have dire consequences and that's what happened in this case," Watts told CBS news.
Unfortunately, Cripe is not the first teen to fall victim to the ill-effects of energy drinks. From 2005 to 2011, reported the Washington Post, trips to the emergency room due to energy drink-related issues rose from 1,494 to 20,783. Among these visits, a concerning number included instances of children under 6.
Another statistic, this one from American Heart Association research, shows that between 2010-2013 over 5,000 people reported to U.S. poison control centers due to sickness caused by energy drinks. Over half of this number were children who experienced seizures, irregular heart rhythms, or dangerously high blood pressure because they weren’t aware of the dangers posed by the high caffeine content in energy drinks
That lack of awareness is why this is a serious issue.
By law, nutrition labels are not required to include information related to caffeine content. This is a problem when you consider that many varieties of energy drink contain “a lot more caffeine that an 8-ounce cup of coffee,” said Consumer Report’s deputy health editor Gayle Williams. Energy drinks are also marketed far more to children than coffee, with consumption of these beverages “increasing dramatically in the last two decades,” according to a study conducted by the International Journal of Health Sciences.
Another 2015 study published in the journal Beverages further linked this trend to health complications. “Young consumers are at a particularly high risk of complications due to hazardous consumption patterns, including frequent and heavy use,” concluded the study’s authors.
Multiple efforts have been mounted in recent years to address this situation. Back in 2011 for instance, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a report that explicitly stated, “energy drinks pose potential health risks because of the stimulants they contain, and should never be consumed by children and adolescents.” Two years later, the American Medical Association adopted a policy which supported a ban on marketing energy drinks to children under 18 years of age. The question, though, is — has it made any difference?
The short answer is, no. The Food and Drug Administration did manage to impose a 71-milligram limit on the amount of caffeine in a 12-oz soda, but failed to apply this same condition to energy drinks. The FDA have not justified this regulatory distinction, which is worsened by the fact that energy drinks aren’t required to provide labels carrying their caffeine content.
“Children, young adults and their parents should be aware of the potential hazards of energy drinks,” wrote the authors of the study published in Beverages. The authors made several further suggestions regarding ways consumers, and more ambitiously, federal regulators can address this problem.
“Physicians should routinely inquire about energy drink consumption in relevant cases, and vulnerable consumers such as young persons should be advised against heavy consumption, especially with concomitant alcohol or drug ingestion,” they wrote.
A series of public education campaigns that demystified some of the bold claims made by energy drinks that they can lead to “improved physical, or cognitive performance”, and instead make consumer more aware of the potential health hazards that these drinks present.
An eventual limit to the actual caffeine content of energy drinks and implementation of a legal age limit.
Prevent brands from marketing their energy drink to young people of all ages.
Overall, the problem and solution comes down to transparency. At present, consumers are still unaware of the caffeine content in energy drinks and for many, the risks posed by drinking these beverages in large quantities. With better labelling including warnings about potential health hazards, it may be possible to reduce the number of energy drink-related emergency room visits
