Doctors' Warning on Performance Enhancing Drinks

The Guardian newspaper carried the following warning yesterday:

Performance enhancing energy drinks should carry prominent health warnings to protect young people from overdosing on caffeine. The warning follows research in the US into 28 energy drinks that found some contained up to 14 times as much caffeine as a can of cola, or the equivalent of 7 cups of strong coffee. The market for caffeine-rich energy drinks has exploded in recent years, causing concern at the lack of regulations to ensure they are consumed safely.

In the UK, drinks containing more than 150mg caffeine per litre must be labelled as "high caffeine content", but there is no upper limit on the amount of caffeine, nor do drinks need to carry warnings of the potential risks of caffeine overdose.

The Food Standards Agency advises pregnant women not to exceed 300mg of caffeine a day.

Roland Griffiths of John Hopkins University surveyed caffeine levels in energy drinks widely available in the US and found that they varied from 50mg for a drink called "Whoop Ass" and 505mg in a drink called "Wired X505". A can of cola contains around 35mg caffeine and a cup of coffee around 75mg.

Some of the drinks are not available yet in the UK save for Cocaine Energy Drink which was launched in August. It contains 280mg or 8 times as much caffeine as a can of cola. One of the best selling energy drink, Red Bull, contains 80mg caffeine.

Prof. Griffiths noticed that these drinks are aggressively marketed to kids in extreme sports and often some of them are making subtle appeals to the illicit drug culture. People drinking 2 cans of these drinks may get caffeine intoxicated. They end up feeling lousy and may end up in the accident and emergency room thinking they have had a heart attack.

Regular drinkers of coffee and tea develop a tolerance to caffeine but Prof Griffiths feels that younger people face a risk of overdosing if they consume high levels of caffeine energy drinks at a younger age.

Prof Griffiths recommends that warning labels be attached to energy drinks. These labels should highlight the risks of having high levels of caffeine which include anxiety attacks, nervousness, rapid heart beat and nausea.

For a person sensitive to caffeine, 200mg is enough to have many symptoms of caffeine intoxication.

Earlier, the anti-drugs advisory group, Drug Education UK warned that schoolchildren are becoming dependent on energy drinks to boost their performance.
Energy drinks are being attacked because of their branding and marketing strategies.

So, my children, please refrain from imbibing the above drinks if you are staying up to study. You don't want to damage your systems and end up in the A&E when you are wanted to be elsewhere especially in the exam hall.