You may have already seen this coming. Doctors have provided evidence to back up many people’s suspicions: energy drinks are bad for you.
Oh yes according to Reuters, thanks to a new report a large group of American doctors are telling kids and teens to stay away from energy drinks and that they should only consume sports drinks in limited amount.
You can probably hear the beverage moguls of the world getting pissed off and crying foul from where you live.
The recommendations come after a national debate over energy drinks has been raging for over a year. Experts fear that the crystal meth like drinks may have side effects.
“Children never need energy drinks,” said Dr. Holly Benjamin, of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who worked on the new report. “They contain caffeine and other stimulant substances that aren’t nutritional, so you don’t need them.”
Do you hear that idiot parents of the world? Kids do not need to be sucking down energy drinks. They are more vulnerable to the chemicals in energy drinks than us grownups. Slap yourselves please.
“If you drink them on a regular basis, it stresses the body,” Benjamin told Reuters Health. “You don’t really want to stress the body of a person that’s growing.”
For the new recommendations, published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers looked at earlier studies and reports on energy drinks and sports drinks, which don’t contain any stimulants.
They say that energy drinks contain a mixture of ingredients, like vitamins and herbal extracts, and the potential side effects are not well understood by the medical community.
There aren’t many direct examples of harm linked to the drinks, but stimulants can disturb the heart’s rhythm and may lead to seizures in very rare cases, Benjamin said.
Recently, she had a 15-year-old boy in her facility with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He came into the hospital with a seizure after having downed two 24-ounce bottles of Mountain Dew, a soft drink that contains caffeine.
The boy was already on stimulant ADHD medication, and the extra caffeine might have pushed him over the edge, according to Benjamin.
“You just never know,” she said. “It’s definitely a concern.”
Earlier this year, Pediatrics printed another review of the literature on energy drinks.
It details how Florida pediatricians described cases of seizures, delusions, heart problems and kidney or liver damage in people who had slammed one or more non-alcoholic energy drinks — like Red Bull, Spike Shooter and Redline.
Although they admitted that such cases are very rare, and can’t be irrefutably linked to the drinks, they advised caution, especially in kids with medical conditions. So if your kid has a medical condition, please don’t let them drink an energy drink.
U.S. sales of non-alcoholic energy drinks are likely to hit $9 billion this year, with children and young adults making up half the market.
The makers say that their products will make your human skills enhanced by increasing mental and physical performance. They were quick to talk down the February report.
“The effects of caffeine are well-known and as an 8.4 oz. can of Red Bull contains about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee (80 mg), it should be treated accordingly,” Red Bull said in an emailed statement to Reuters Health. Typical.
Benjamin said that most kids should be drinking water. If they are young athletes training hard, a sports drink might be helpful, too, because it contains sugar.
But for kids who aren’t active, sports and energy drinks might just make them gain weight, fueling the national obesity epidemic even more.
Bottom line: Energy drinks are like a low grade crystal meth, but we don’t need doctors to tell us that. You can read the can and use the Internet can’t you? You parents will do anything to shut your kids up and make them look cool huh?
Also if you’re a youngish dude who thinks they need an energy drink every time they get their “swole on” at the gym, you’re pretty dumb. Try getting sleep and eating some oatmeal.
