Caffeinated Sports Drinks Should Require Age Verification

Homicide and suicide are the second and third largest causes of death for teens age 15-19. Maybe it's the caffeine, but on the other hand, it makes more sense to be riled up over those statistics and not quite so worried about what's in their beverages, IMO.

Is it really necessary though to be adding drugs to kids drinks when they are so often not mature enough to handle even mild depression?

What ever happened to good old fruit juice and plain H2O?

I drink ice water and sometimes decaf coffee, I prefer water over most soft drinks.

I can't locate the article online that is in the Portland (Maine) Press Herald paper today. It talked about the emergency room spike of kids drinking too much caffeine. It also stated that 500 new energy drinks have come out this year alone.

These energy drink makers targeting kids with marketing are common criminals and child abusers.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/

Here is the link to the paper, I have looked for an hour for today's article on energy sports drinks to no avail. It was on the front page. Maybe someone else will have better luck locating it.

Thanks in advance

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/may05/05-17Every10MinutesPR.mspx

Drink enough "mountain dew" kids and get a free XBOX! (cynical)

I personally emailed microsoft on this one when the campaign came out. They replied back and apologized if I was offended and said they would review my complaint.

They do not probably realize that this is the main reason why I do not own an XBOX 360 today...

What is wrong with snapple or veryfine?

This is a gross lack of ethical and moral standards.

You people who vote that kids should be allowed to drink the high powered energy drinks I hope that considering there are no conclusive evidence that caffeine is healthy or a benefit to sports in the long run you are definitely in uncharted territory and using your kids as guinea pigs.

When they come to you in a month with migraines and muscle cramps at night then tell them it's ok and hand them a bottle of excedrin.

There's rarely anything original in news these days. Usually, doing a search on Google News for the subject will bring up several hundred copies of copies of copies of the same article published in the various news chains. Here's one of a few hundred on the sports drink issue:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/10/30/105505.shtml?s=he


Personally, I'd prefer we spend the money monitoring such an age limit ban on educating people and teaching them critical thinking skills and self-esteem so they can make informed choices that nurture themselves and not someone else's wallet.

That is the article, you rock, thanks!

I agree education is very essential but also putting things out of reach can also help some kids who have dead beat parents.

All the education is not going to change the fact that kids minds have not stopped growing and they need the assistance of adults to make informed decisions in this case about health.

Where in the heck was the US congress when these drugs were being introduced to kids as "soft" drinks?

Maybe emailing house pages???

I've always questioned giving caffeine to young kids. Don't they have enough energy? Most parents wouldn't let their kids drink coffee, so why heavily caffeinated soft drinks?

Even for weight loss caffeine does not work. Anything but exercise huh?

Anyone who would dispense caffeine to a teen is a crack head.

You can't tell me these studies on caffeine have not been done. The cigarette companies knew the effects of tobacco on human health long before the government ever informed us.

I am absolutely positive that these energy drinks will lead to serious public health issues in the not so distant future. Who is going to pay then?

Are they even putting warnings on the drinks? Why do we even have a surgeon general? Why the heck aren't they doing their job?

We need to get these special interest crooks out of Washington.

I will be voting for Bush but with the hesitation that these drugs have been peddled on his watch.

I will be writing a testimony in my next post here.

I can feel one coming on. Sometimes the only way people understand is to see caffeine wreck someone's life then maybe they will listen seriously.

Why can't we even get decaffeinated chocolate in the candy isle?

Hasn't say, "Hersheys" ever even considered that?

This is a conspiracy of big corporate business.

Obviously, the only thing you've noticed on his watch is this peddling of caffeine if you intend on voting for that idiot.

Let me get a cup of decaf and I will write my personal testimony on this subject. Then you will know why I can't consume even the slightest amount of caffeine.

You are obviously an uninformed special interest CNN or MSNBC viewer.

Noooo, I just see a whole lot more wrong with the world under Bush's watch than giving kids caffeine.

And for the record, I voted no.

Isn't MSNBC owned by Microsoft?

Isn't Microsoft the one peddling "Mountain Dew" with their XBOX 360?

Ok, maybe we aren't understanding each other...

You are going to vote for Bush.

I think Bush is an idiot.

What does that have to do with Microsoft? And why do I care again?

Here is my testimony,

I am going to try and make this short thought is has been a long story for me.

I am a professional entertainer and worked as a field laborer for years before my career took off.

My family were all coffee drinkers. As a child I never really knew why people drank coffee... I couldn't get past the taste. Now, I drink my (decaf) coffee black with no sugar like my dad used to do. (I was told once that this is because I have an uncompromising personality. hehe)

Well, this coffee addiction became at times 14 cups within a days period. That would correspond to about 4 energy drinks.

I remember the feeling in my chest like I could not relax my chest.

I hated this feeling but I loved coffee so I put up with it.

All of my friends worshiped the coffee pot and I still today cannot wake up in the morning without a cup of decaf.

Well, (get to the point) I used to go out and sing on coffee in clubs. Just me, my guitar and several cups of coffee.

I was an olympic style singer/athlete. I sang for four hours a night, four nights a week for four years (at the height of my career). I remember one day singing for 8 hours with only an hour break in between two four hour sets and did not even go horse in my throat.

But as time went on I became aware of what how coffee was affecting me.

So consider, I was a "sports athlete". I used my throat and diaphragm as my skill. Any doctor who ever put their hands on my throat in a physical examination would instantly tell me my occupation as a singer, it was that evident.

I am rather sensitive to chemicals so if some side effect is possible I will usually display the symptoms before anyone else will.

Singing night after night I was able to test the effects of caffeine on my system. The first thing I noticed was the quality of my voice. If I consumed coffee before a performance my voice would go slightly higher in pitch but it would lose it's tone and warmth.

No matter how I tried through vocal techniques to relax my voice I could not achieve the warmth and tone that was obscured by the drug.

Now get this, I have never had a caffeine headache in my whole life so that should tell you that I really did not drink as much coffee as many other people do.

Yet my vocal performance was suffering and I could not stand the inability to relax my chest and throat.

It was like clock work if I drank coffee I would lose my tone. I personally didn't like my voice when it did not have the warmth and tone.

Then I noticed another thing. (This took a while to realize.)

If I was going to sing four nights on coffee I would become horse on the first night and the last three nights would be torture to perform. If I didn't drink coffee I could sing for four nights and the last night my voice would be sluggish a bit hard to control but it could also sometimes be my best performance of all four nights.

So I realized that coffee was taking a reservoir of energy and spewing it out at such a rapid pace that I could not "endure" the long athletic demands I was putting on my vocal apparatus. In other words coffee only borrows energy it does not create energy.

One night versus four nights...

Also there were the night cramps... Coffee depletes your body of vitamin A. So I would get muscular cramps in the night that were so severe that I thought I was going to die.

Then came the throat pain...

I would get this pain in my throat that I could not seem to find any relief for. I would do stretching exercises ALL DAY LONG to no avail. It was like a muscle that was constantly pulling and it was very discomforting and at times exceedingly painful.

Like my throat could not relax... Remember your throat is the thing you have to breath through to remain alive... If I break a string on my guitar I replace it but if I snap a chord in my throat I die.

I did not even for once associate this pain with caffeine. It was by a stroke of luck that one day I realized that caffeine was my problem (that is another story).

So I cut caffeine out. As quickly as it came the pain was gone but my love for coffee still lingered. So every once in a while I would cheat and have a cup of coffee. Even if I did not sing and only talked on the caffeine the pain would ALWAYS return. Today I cannot even have a single chocolate bar without this pain returning. I can still sing for four hours a night, four nights a week painless as long as I don't ingest a single drop of caffeine.

But now my back won't relax. It stays tense all of the time and crushes my spine. I am constantly in pain this is why sometimes I can seem like a prick online is because I am hurting. My arrogance has little to do with the issues and more to do with a diaphragm that cannot stop tensing up and won't relax.

I can't relax...

One cup of coffee in the AM gives a person instant hardening of the arteries because it is a complete shock to the human body. (this was just released in a medical report)

That means that the probability of a stroke nearly triples.

So drink up... you have been warned.

I am terribly sensitive to caffeine. The older I get, the worse it gets. When I did not realize what was happening, I would have dizzy spells that would lay me low for 6-8 hours. My doctor finally figured it out for me.

The thing that really pisses me off is when I try to buy a soda from the soda machine. I very rarely see a diet caffeine free soda in a machine. So the choice is either I get dizzy, or I get fat!

I would vote for Bush again but I don't think they would let me...

I voted for Gore... I absolutely hated G.W. Bush you should read some of the stuff I wrote about George on Abuzz after the first election...

Then I changed my mind and voted for Bush when he was re-elected. Bush compared to the dems is like comparing a gun with a spit ball shooter.

I would never vote for Gore even if he ran as God, and if Bush could be elected a third term he would have my vote without question.

(These energy drinks are pissing me off though.)

I voted no. You can have my nephew's espresso when you pry it from my cold, dead hands -- or his.

We were both cut from the same piece of fabric...