Caffeinated Sports Drinks Should Require Age Verification

Thomas,
what parent in their right mind (except hawkeye) would have their kid included in such a study where the kids are filled up with caffeinated energy drinks?

That's like saying in order to prove that alcohol is harmful to children you need a study of 100 kids drinking alcohol and only then you'll believe it.

Using that logic the government would be free to remove great many freedoms from families and kids without ever even attempting to prove that it had just cause. We are already at the point where the government decides first that it wants to remove a freedom and then next comes up with a flimsy safety justification for doing so, I dont think that we want to go further down that path.

You don't get it, do you? You have no freedom in this country - you even have less than in other civilized nations. The United States is one of the most
controlled countries there is. You are either too oblivious to see it or too ignorant.

If you check Google Scholar, you will find there's plenty of controlled studies examining the effect of alcohol on children, and demonstrating all kinds of physical and psychological problems with it. (I'm not arguing about the specific design of the study.) RexRed, too, could have checked Google Scholar, or Medline, or some other data base, on caffeinated sports drinks and children. But he chose not to. That's what I got peeved about.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44878241/ns/business-consumer_news/#.TpcikN6Ik8k

Addicted to coffee? You may be dopamine deficient
http://www.naturalnews.com/036412_coffee_dopamine_caffeine.html

We are all screwed up in our own way, we are all victims and we are all ill.

I hate to say, "I told you so..."

When caffeine kills: Energy drinks under the spotlight
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/23/14649966-when-caffeine-kills-energy-drinks-under-the-spotlight?lite

Comment:
Again we can thank G. W. Bush for legalizing caffeine drugs for kids without even a thought for their welfare... Supermarkets display these drug drinks next to the candy shelves at the checkout isles. I am all for these drinks for consenting adults but not for kids where they can buy them and sneak them under the radar of their parents... These speed drugs (caffeine) are gateway drugs for meth amphetamines, bath salts etc...

The long term death toll is unclear and will not be known for years to come. Some simple regulation of these beverages from the get go would have avoided much of this and to me is common sense... But once again, corporate lobbying trumps ethical social concerns

Mom sues Monster energy drink over teen's death
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/mom-sues-monster-energy-drink-over-teens-death-6C10455622

Once again, I saw this one coming a mile away... I am note even a doctor and I KNEW these energy drinks being sold next to the candy counter was WRONG!

In 1995 a group of NASA scientists experimented with drugs, literally. They studied the effects that various legal and illegal drugs have on house spiders, and specifically on the way they weave their webs. The results are both surprising and... not.

The spider that was high on marijuana did a fair job weaving, but then got bored or distracted and didn't finish. The one on speed went really fast, of course, but without much awareness of the overall picture: it left large gaps. The acid-trippy spider wove a psychedelic, symmetrical web which was very pretty but not great at catching bugs.

And that brings us to caffeine. Wow. As I sit here typing, a large cup of coffee beside my laptop, I, well, I don't really want it anymore.

The NASA scientists suggested the possibility of analyzing the periodic structure of the spiderwebs (or lack thereof) as a means of determining the relative toxicity levels of drugs. They do not seem to have continued down that road, however; one obstacle may have been the difficulty of extrapolating a given drug's toxicity to humans from its toxicity to spiders. Though similarities between effects on the two species do seem to exist, I'm not sure caffeine makes me feel quite like THAT. In fact, if I wove spiderwebs, that one would probably be pre-morning-cup-of-coffee.

Such questions as what the research had to do with space shuttles or Mars rovers, where the scientists got the drugs, and what happened to the spiders later unfortunately cannot be answered here. The relevant NASA briefs are cited by other academic papers and New Scientist Magazine (www.newscientist.com/article/mg14619750.500), but aren't themselves published on the web. The world wide one, that is.

A short documentary on Psychedelics & Consciousness featuring Jason Silva, Terence McKenna, Graham Hancock and Joe Rogan: http://goo.gl/rzMCo

Energy drinks dangerous for kids?
http://www.hlntv.com/article/2014/11/18/energy-drinks-dangerous-kids

ya think?

Energy drinks raise resting blood pressure, with effect most dramatic in those not used to caffeine
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150313130743.htm

Those not used to Caffeine? Children...