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New York - Energy Drinks Caffeine Causes Calls To Poison Control |
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(Photo credit EARL S.CRYER/AFP/Getty Images)
A recently released report by University of Massachusetts Medical School toxicologist Richard Church tracked 4,600 caffeine-related calls to poison control nationwide in 2005, the most recent statistics available. Half involved people under age 19.
It’s all too familiar to the poison control center at Children’s Hospital Boston, where directors confirm receiving dozens of similar calls. Alfred Aleguas, the clinical manager of the regional poison control, located at Children's Hospital Boston, said, “The majority of calls come from school nurses and parents.”
Experts point to energy drinks, the aggressively marketed, caffeine-packed beverages that are sold in nearly every convenience and grocery store as part of the cause of the disturbing trend.
With names like Red Bull, Burn, Rock Star, Adrenaline Rush and even Free Cocaine, the drinks are growing in popularity, becoming the fuel of choice for some teens.
The effects of caffeine are potentially very, very serious," said Dr. Richard Church, a toxicologist at UMass Medical School whose eye-opening report calculated caffeine-related calls to poison control. "We were noticing an influx of patients in our ER who were coming in with caffeine-related complaints and symptoms after drinking energy drinks," Church said.
Some drinks are loaded with two to three times the amount of caffeine that's in a regular cup of coffee. Red Bull has 80 milligrams of caffeine per 8.3 ounce can. Monster has 160mg. Rock Star contains 160mg, and Free Cocaine contains 280mg. Some cans contain more than one serving.
Church said when teenagers don’t realize how much caffeine they are ingesting, "that's when we start see kids coming in with intractable vomiting where they can't stop vomiting. They're having severe headaches and they're feeling like their heart is racing."
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Read Comments (3) — Post Yours »
1
Jul 15, 2008 at 12:18 AM anonymous Says:
Ever since a friend of mine told me he needs caffiene suppositories on Yom Kipper and Tisha Bav, I stopped drinking coffee.
2
Jul 15, 2008 at 09:02 AM Anonymous Says:
its an addiction... its like a drug, once you start on these power drinks like (red bull or any other sort of ) your body can`t function without them
please parrents look out for your children we should bann these typs of drinks from our heimishe stores
talking from my own experiance
to all be well....
3
Jul 16, 2008 at 05:43 PM Anonymous Says:
and what are our yeshivas with their insane amounts of homework after late dismmisals and obcenely late and pointless mishmars
doing to educate our children as to the true health dangers of these beverages they cling to just to function???