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Caffeine-Stoked Energy Drinks Worry Docs



 
 
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Old October 29th 06, 11:23 PM posted to alt.coffee,sci.med,misc.kids,misc.health.alternative,sci.med.cardiology
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Default Caffeine-Stoked Energy Drinks Worry Docs

October 29, 2006
Caffeine-Stoked Energy Drinks Worry Docs

CHICAGO (AP) -- More than 500 new energy drinks launched worldwide
this year, and coffee fans are probably too old to understand why.

Energy drinks aren't merely popular with young people. They attract
fan mail on their own MySpace pages. They spawn urban legends. They
get reviewed by bloggers. And they taste like carbonated cough syrup.

Vying for the dollars of teenagers with promises of weight loss,
increased endurance and legal highs, the new products join top-sellers
Red Bull, Monster and Rockstar to make up a $3.4 billion-a-year
industry that grew by 80 percent last year.

Thirty-one percent of U.S. teenagers say they drink energy drinks,
according to Simmons Research. That represents 7.6 million teens, a
jump of almost 3 million in three years.

Nutritionists warn that the drinks, laden with caffeine and sugar, can
hook kids on an unhealthy jolt-and-crash cycle. The caffeine comes
from multiple sources, making it hard to tell how much the drinks
contain. Some have B vitamins, which when taken in megadoses can cause
rapid heartbeat, and numbness and tingling in the hands and feet.

But the biggest worry is how some teens use the drinks. Some report
downing several cans in a row to get a buzz, and a new study found a
surprising number of poison-center calls from young people getting
sick from too much caffeine.

------

''Wow, this drink is some serious stuff. I mean about half the bottle
is the warning label, and it is serious, this drink is INSANE. It says
that you should not drink it unless you are over 18, which I would say
is a good warning.'' -- From a review of an energy drink by Dan Mayer
on his Web site, www.bandddesigns.com/energy.

------

Danger only adds to the appeal, said Bryan Greenberg, a marketing
consultant and an assistant professor of marketing at Elizabethtown
College.

''Young people need to break away from the bonds of adults and what
society thinks is right,'' he said. They've grown up watching their
parents drink Starbucks coffee, and want their own version. Heart
palpitations aren't likely to scare them off.

Most brands target male teens and 20-somethings. Industry leader Red
Bull, the first energy drink on the market, is now the ''big arena
band'' of the bunch ''teetering on the edge of becoming too big and
too corporate,'' Greenberg said.

''Monster is more of a hard rocker, maybe with a little punk thrown
in, much more hardcore,'' he said. ''Rockstar is the more mainstream,
glam rock band that's more about partying then playing.''

(Monster is produced by Corona, Calif.-based Hansen Natural Corp., and
Rockstar, distributed by Coca-Cola Co., is made by Las Vegas-based
Rockstar Inc.)

Greenberg said the fierce competition among hundreds of new drinks,
with Austria-based Red Bull guarding the biggest market share, leads
to a ''ratcheting up'' of taboo names as companies try to break out
from the crowd.

Cocaine Energy Drink, which launched in September and now sells in
convenience stores and nightclubs in six states, is the latest
example, following a twisted logic set by drinks named Pimpjuice and
Bawls.

Hannah Kirby of the Las Vegas company behind Cocaine Energy Drink said
Greenberg has it right. Kirby and her husband, Redux Beverage founder
James Kirby, wanted to call their drink by the ho-hum name Reboot.
That name was taken, so they decided to get provocative.

They're getting the attention they craved, along with some canceled
orders. Following complaints from parents, convenience store operator
7-Eleven Inc. recently told franchises to pull the drink from its
shelves.

''We knew we would get noticed against a thousand other energy
drinks,'' she said. ''We knew kids would find it cool, but we also
wanted to stress the idea that it's an energy drink, you don't need
drugs.'' Their slogan is ''The Legal Alternative.''

The Kirbys are parents of an 18-year-old son, Kirby said. The boy grew
up hearing he shouldn't drink energy drinks on a school night.

------

''Cocaine looks so freaking tight. I NEED THIS STUFF. Next weekend, me
and 3 friends are going to take a 6 hour roadtrip to NYC just to get
our hands on this stuff.'' -- From a comment on the MySpace page of
Cocaine Energy Drink.

------

Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz based his product on tonics sold
in Asia. He started selling Red Bull in 1987 in Austria, his native
country, and today 2.5 billion cans are sold a year in more than 130
nations. The industry leader grabbed more than 37 percent of the U.S.
market last year, according to Beverage Digest.

Rumors have swirled around Red Bull for years. Contrary to hearsay,
the ingredient taurine (an amino acid important in making bile to aid
digestion) is not made from bull urine, and Mateschitz did not learn
about Red Bull from rickshaw drivers in Thailand. The urban
legends-debunking Web site www.snopes.com has a page devoted to
exposing the false claim that Red Bull contains a banned substance
linked to brain tumors.

No evidence was ever found that sudden deaths in Ireland and Sweden
were caused by people drinking Red Bull. But it's true that the
Swedish government studied energy drinks and recommended they not be
used to quench thirst or replenish liquid when exercising. And they
should not be mixed with alcohol.

Too late. Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing now produce several
''energy beers'' -- beer containing caffeine. And Red Bull and vodka
-- mixed up by bartenders who call it a Friday Flattener or a Dirty
Pompadour -- has been popular for a decade. On Red Bull's MySpace
page, the product's 11,000 ''friends'' include alcohol products, which
also have their own MySpace pages.

A Brazilian study found college students didn't feel as drunk as they
actually were after drinking vodka and Red Bull. Their perception of
their coordination and reaction time didn't match objective tests.

The potential for accidents and alcohol poisoning worries Dr. Sandra
Braganza, a pediatrician and nutrition expert at the Children's
Hospital at Montefiore in New York. As she prepared to write an
article about energy drinks for a pediatrics journal, she was
surprised how little published research she could find on them.

''The truth is, we don't know what kind of effects these ingredients
can have,'' Braganza said of taurine, glucuronolactone and guarana.
''We have to start doing more studies on this.''

------

''How much of your favorite energy drink or soda would it take to kill
you? Take this quick test and find out.'' -- From a ''Death by
Caffeine'' calculator on the Web site, www.energyfiend.com. Fill in
your weight and click the button marked ''Kill Me.''

------

Earlier this month, a new study found a surprising number of caffeine
overdose reports to a Chicago poison control center. These involved
young people taking alertness pills such as NoDoz or energy drinks,
sometimes mixed with alcohol or other drugs. During three years of
reports to the center, the researchers found 265 cases of caffeine
abuse. Twelve percent of those required a trip to the hospital. The
average age of the caffeine user was 21.

''Young people are taking caffeine to stay awake, or perhaps to get
high, and many of them are ending up in the emergency department,''
said Dr. Danielle McCarthy of Northwestern University, who conducted
the study. ''Caffeine is a drug and should be treated with caution, as
any drug is.''

How much caffeine do energy drinks contain? A University of Florida
study found that some products, although served in cans two-thirds the
size of a standard can of Coke, contain two to four times the amount
of caffeine as that Coke. Energy drinks are unregulated in the United
States, but the authors of the University of Florida paper suggest
warning labels for them.

And now energy drinks are moving toward bigger cans with some products
raising the caffeine content to gain a competitive edge, said John
Sicher of Beverage Digest. The biggest, so far, is 24 ounces.

Parents should think twice before sending their children out the door
with an energy drink, said Molly Morgan, a dietitian in upstate New
York who consults with schools and talks to students, parents and
coaches about energy drinks.

''My message to parents is moderation,'' Morgan said. ''That means one
can a day or less, and view it as a treat, not part of a daily
routine.''

Full of sugar and caffeine, energy drinks share the same health
problems as soft drinks, she said. But some parents and coaches have
bought the message that the drinks can enhance kids' performance in
sports and increase concentration in school.

The evidence is weak, involving tiny studies. British research by a
scientist who has since received funding from Red Bull found that
among 36 volunteers, those who drank the product improved aerobic
endurance and recalled numbers better. A British study of 42 people
found Red Bull had no effect on memory, but did improve attention and
verbal reasoning.

A University of Wisconsin study of 14 students found that two energy
drink ingredients, caffeine and taurine, didn't improve short-term
memory but led to slower heart rates and higher blood pressure. Since
some energy drink ingredients generally speed up heart rates, the
researchers could only speculate on the cause.

Carol Ann Rinzler, author of ''Nutrition for Dummies,'' examined the
labels of the top three energy drinks.

''The labels simply don't deliver all the facts,'' she said. ''For
example, while all list caffeine as an ingredient, and most tell you
exactly how much caffeine is in the drink, they also list guarana, a
caffeine source, as a separate ingredient but don't tell how much
caffeine one gets from the guarana.''

Rinzler said energy drinks also deliver a huge hit of sugar.

''Drink more than one and you get lots of sugar -- 14 teaspoons in two
cans, 21 teaspoons in three,'' she said. Add in megadoses of some
vitamins; unnecessary nutrients (taurine) and more caffeine than plain
sodas and you get ''a fast up-and-down sugar high and a really rough
caffeine buzz,'' she said. ''And drinking two or three cans a day for
a period of weeks or months might trigger some side effects from the
vitamin megadoses.''

New brands are appearing at the rate of almost one per day, making it
difficult for Denver blogger Dan Mayer to keep up. As a hobby, Mayer
reviews each new energy drink he can find. His is not the only energy
drink review site, but it's one of the most popular.

''I've reviewed a little over 200 now. For most of these, the
companies contact me. I'll find something new at 7-Eleven once in a
while, but that's kind of rare,'' he said.

When Mayer meets an energy drink he doesn't like, his words can sting:
''This is the kind of drink that was created by a bunch of rich fat
people that have never had an energy drink in their life and really
don't understand why this fad is around, they just know they want to
be a part of the profit from it.''

A Los Angeles company has asked him to design a new drink, but Mayer
hasn't quit his day job yet. Pressed to explain the appeal of energy
drinks, the 24-year-old spokesman for the buzzed generation said:
''It's Starbucks for kids. With the tons of caffeine they put into
these things, it gives you a little legal form of speed essentially.''
 




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