Teenager Joshua Merrick had his whole life ahead of him. The 19-year-old had just finished college and was set to join the Royal Navy. A...
But in January last year, Joshua was found by his father, having died quite suddenly in his sleep. An inquest this week heard the teenager had been drinking a high-caffeine energy drink called Animal Rage to boost his work-outs.
While the verdict was that Joshua died of natural causes, the doctor who conducted toxicology tests on his body said she could not rule out the possibility the drinks contributed to his death.
Josh’s death is the latest in a number of incidents that have been linked to energy drinks, fuelling concerns over these largely unregulated products. Particularly worrying is their popularity among children and teenagers.
With some cans containing 13 teaspoons of sugar and the equivalent in caffeine of two cups of coffee, there is growing alarm over what these drinks are doing to the young body and brain.
Campaigners say legislation is urgently needed to put age limits on the drinks.
This week Josh’s father, Andrew, told how he had been concerned about his son’s love of energy drinks.
‘These products arrive on the market and are available to everyone without any checks being done.’
Often parents have no idea that their children are drinking energy drinks, nor how much caffeine is in them.
Mother of four Jenni Weaver was baffled by her 15-year-old daughter Gina’s mysterious symptoms last year.
‘She started having really bad stomach cramps,’ says Jenni, 40, from Bridlington, East Yorkshire.
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| Source of her symptoms: Gina Weaver, 15, with her mother Jenni, 40, became ill after drinking too much Monster |
In March, the pain got so bad that Gina, 15, had to be hospitalised and given morphine.
‘The doctor couldn’t establish what was causing it, so he asked Gina about her diet,’ says Jenni.
‘She had a normal diet, but then she mentioned that she drank the energy drink Monster. She admitted she drank about three or four cans a day, which she was buying on her way to school. I had no idea –
I’d thought there was an age-limit on them.
‘The doctor told her that she had to stop there and then because the sugar, caffeine and acid in these drinks was what was causing her pain.’
Gina was consuming up to two litres of Monster a day, which is around 640mg of caffeine – the recommended daily limit for adults is 400mg.
‘I don’t think she had any sense of what was in these things,’ says Jenni. ‘She just liked the taste and said all her friends were drinking them, too’
Gina followed the doctor’s advice and the stomach pains and headaches have ceased. She believes energy drinks should carry an age limit and a proper health warning.
High in sugar, cleverly marketed and sold in supermarkets and shops alongside regular soft drinks, it’s easy to see why children have taken to energy drinks.
Last year, a major study found our children have one of the highest consumption rates in Europe. One in ten British teenagers consumes four to five energy drinks a week.
Worryingly, younger children are following suit: one in four under-tens – 24 per cent – has had at least one energy drink in the past year, compared with the European average of 18 per cent. Now, experts are calling for them to be banned from sale to youngsters.
In a paper last year, Dr Jack James, editor of the Journal of Caffeine Research, says caffeine should be regulated just like cigarettes and alcohol.
‘Although caffeine has been widely considered to be benign, awareness is increasing that its consumption is associated with substantial harm, including fatalities and near-fatalities,’ he wrote.
‘How many caffeine-related fatalities and near-misses must there be before we regulate?’
Last month, a government adviser compared energy drinks with drugs, and urged schools to ban them.
Some schools have done so, with many teachers complaining the drinks affect behaviour and concentration.
‘Some secondary school children come in having not had breakfast and started the day with one of these energy drinks,’ says Brian Lightman, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
‘They are very hyperactive, they can’t sit still and can’t concentrate. At the end of the day, they are very fractious, very tired and unable to concentrate.’
However, the full extent of caffeine’s effects on children is unclear.
‘We know that in adults caffeine raises the heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature and has psychological effects such as anxiety and sleep disturbances,’ says Sioned Quirke, dietitian and spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association.
‘But there have been very few studies on caffeine’s effect on children, so God knows what it’s doing to them.
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