Experts at Hopkins in Baltimore Recommend Labels for Energy Drinks for Kids
Caffeine is technically a drug, although it's hard to think of it like that.
But some experts are saying that, because caffeinated energy drinks promise some of the same effects as prescription drugs, they should be labeled so kids know that anything that produces those effects has to be treated with caution:
Because energy drinks are touted as performance enhancers and stimulants, Dr. Roland R. Griffiths explained in an interview with Reuters Health, kids who use them for these reasons will likely be more open to trying prescription drugs that promise the same effects."It seems like it's a pretty easy threshold to step over, but as a society we want to make this a bright line," Griffiths said in an interview.
In their report on the marketing, regulation and health effects of caffeinated energy drinks published this month in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Griffiths and his colleagues at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine call for regulations requiring energy drink makers to list the caffeine content of their products on their labels, and warn of the potential for caffeine intoxication.
The whole article merits reading as it contains a lot of little-known information about energy drinks and how they are manufactured and what they contain.
