What effect do these ingredients have on the body?
Apart from the risk of addiction, The dark side of energy drinks Symptoms reported in the study include anxiety, gastrointestinal problems, dehydration and tachycardia (a medical term for a resting heart rate of more than 100 beats per minute).
Some of this may be due to excessive caffeine intake: consuming more than 500 mg of caffeine can cause restlessness, insomnia, tremors, and sometimes seizures, even in people with no history of epilepsy.
However, the cocktail of chemicals in these drinks is thought to overstimulate a key regulatory network in the body called the adrenergic system, which plays a key role in both cardiac and central nervous system function. This process is thought to be behind several medical emergencies associated with excessive energy drink consumption, including acute mania and stroke.
What are the risks to children?
Much of Fuse’s research began with concerns about the aggressive marketing and promotion of energy drinks to the teen and young adult market through partnerships with the music, gaming, action sports and extreme sports industries.
“The main demographic is young people,” Lake says, “and all this cool stuff is associated with caffeinated drinks, and caffeinated drinks can also contain a lot of sugar.”
Since 2016, Fuse has helped expose how energy drinks are often cheaper than bottled water through multi-pack promotions, targeted sponsorship and sexualised imagery marketed to young people.
In January, the institute published a new study in the journal Neurology. public healthResearch has shown that teenagers who consume more energy drinks are more likely to have disrupted sleep patterns and are at higher risk of serious mental health problems, including anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts. Academic performance has also been found to be affected.
Lake believes that sleep disorders caused by excessive caffeine and stimulant use are likely the cause of mental health issues.
“If it’s happening to children, it’s likely happening to young adults,” she says.
What can we do?
There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence linking large amounts of energy drink consumption to serious medical emergencies, but it remains difficult for researchers to prove a causal relationship.
One reason for this is that the NHS does not currently code energy drink consumption when collecting data on patients admitted to emergency departments.
“I hear about medical issues from time to time. [which have been linked to energy drinks] But academically, it’s very difficult to review this data in this country,” Lake said.
Many countries have attempted to regulate energy drinks, with Lithuania and Latvia successfully banning their sale to under-18s, but the UK government is considering banning the sale of energy drinks to children in England but has yet to take such action.
The authors The dark side of energy drinks Given the amount of caffeine in the average energy drink, the report concluded, consumers should not drink more than one can at a time, or more than two cans per day, to avoid violating safety standards, and argued that manufacturers should be required to state a daily limit for products with high levels of caffeine.
Lake agrees that for now, clearer messaging about the risks of energy drinks is needed and to help children and young people understand that they are different to ordinary soft drinks.
“Maybe they need to be in a different aisle,” she said. “They need more prominent warning labels. They have labels, but they’re very small and on the back, so they’re very hard to see. So manufacturers need to take a bit more responsibility, too.”
