When Joanna Ledoux mentions energy drinks during her visits to area schools, the reaction from some students worries her.
“Some kids will laugh and say, ‘Oh, well I had two or three cans,’” says Ledoux, a Flin Flon-based community dietitian for the Northern Health Region.
“They’re very popular.”
There’s no doubt about that.
Once dismissed as a passing fad, energy drinks – highly caffeinated canned beverages with brand names like Monster, Red Bull and Rockstar – constitute a multibillion-dollar industry worldwide.
Flin Flon and area consumers have jumped aboard the trend, with energy drinks occupying ample shelf space in local convenience and grocery stores. For hardcore fans, it’s easy to find locations selling the beverages by the case.
Flin Flon’s Travis Fehr, 21, estimates 80 per cent of area residents in his age range are consuming energy drinks.
Fehr himself has drunk the beverages for the past four years, and continues to down one or two cans a day.
I “drink them to wake me up,” says Fehr.
Uneasy
While Ledoux urges adults to avoid energy drinks, or at the very least have no more than one can a day, she is most uneasy about minors.
Ledoux says local youth as young as those in Grade 5 are consuming energy drinks, with many gulping more than one can daily.
Ledoux’s biggest concern? The caffeine.
“Children can only tolerate very small amounts of caffeine, and so for a child between the ages of 10 and 12, they can only actually handle 85 milligrams of caffeine per day,” says Ledoux. “Most energy drinks can have up to 200 milligrams of caffeine in a can.
“Caffeine is actually a drug, so then we’re talking about drugs and kids getting addicted to caffeine at a young age.”
Ledoux says caffeine overdose in both children and adults can cause nervousness, insomnia, irregular heartbeat and, in some youth, heart attacks.
Since caffeine sucks calcium out of bones, Ledoux worries about long-term impacts for those who start on energy drinks in their youth.
“What’s going to happen to their bones when they’re 40?” Ledoux asks.
Educated
Those sorts of questions have prompted Hapnot Collegiate to ensure students are educated about the risks of energy drinks.
“We push big time not to be consuming them, in all four health curriculums, grades 9 through 12,” says principal Brent Bedford. “Now that being said, we tell kids they shouldn’t do lots of things and it doesn’t mean they don’t do it, but we try.”
While Hapnot has no direct policy on energy drinks, the school refrains from selling anything other than water, milk and juice.
Bedford says he personally does not see the appeal of energy drinks, but he can understand why teens want them.
“I think there’s a certain amount of, you know, teenagers are invincible, right? Just ask them,” Bedford says. “So they don’t see that. And they’re likely the most susceptible to advertising. You know, [slogans like] ‘Red Bull gives you wings’ or whatever. They buy into all that stuff.”
Ledoux agrees young people’s motivation for having energy drinks is likely a combination of lack of rest and a youthful urge to try something new and a little rebellious.
No regulations
The community dietitian is hardly alone in sounding alarm bells over the beverages. Yet despite widespread health concerns, no national or provincial regulations exist to restrict the sale of energy drinks to minors.
That said, Canada’s largest city, Toronto, is pondering a ban on sales to those under the age of 18. The Canadian Medical Association, meanwhile, has called on provinces to forbid stores from selling the drinks to those too young to buy alcohol.
Though there has been no public discussion of limiting energy drink sales to adults in Flin Flon or Creighton, Ledoux says she would support a bylaw to that effect.
But are legal restrictions overkill? An online movement of energy drink fans argues their beverage of choice has been unfairly demonized.
Why, these advocates ask, is a cup of coffee – which in some cases can have more caffeine than an energy drink – a socially acceptable pick-me-up while a Monster or Rockstar is reviled?
Part of the answer, the website Caffeine Informer points out, is that energy drinks have very little long-term safety research behind them. Coffee, on the other hand, has been used for centuries and extensively studied.
What’s more, energy drinks are often very high in sugar and tend to contain taurine, an amino acid that makes the body absorb more caffeine.
As for the vitamins added to energy drinks, such as niacin, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12, Ledoux says they do not offset the risks and are in fact dangerous.
“We’re really meant to get vitamins and minerals from food, because every time we eat food, it’s a package, so vitamins are in there in a perfect way,” Ledoux says. “But when they’re adding it to an energy drink, it’s not really safe, and in fact too much of a vitamin or mineral can be toxic, too, just like a drug.”
Think twice
All of the hard questions being raised about energy drinks may be making some people think twice about buying them.
At Hapnot, Principal Bedford says the beverages are not common and appear to be less prevalent this year than in previous years.
Then there are stories such as that of Leigh Janz. Now 33, the Flin Flon resident drank energy drinks for seven years before giving them up two years ago.
At the time Janz was having more than two cans a day, but he says they started giving him toothaches.
“They do make you more awake,” says Janz, describing the drinks’ appeal.
Janz says some residents his age still down the beverages, but most of the ones he knows have joined him in quitting.
As a father, Janz says he will not allow his young son to have energy drinks when he gets older, a sentiment shared by many parents and even some businesses.
At North of 53 Consumers Co-op, for instance, cashiers strongly discourage customers under the age of 14 from buying the beverages.
“It happens more than you’d think,” says general manager Tom Therien.
Therien says the store’s informal policy originated with cashiers who are mothers and would not want their kids consuming the beverages.
For his part, Fehr, who still has one or two cans a day, says he wouldn’t dismiss a health care provider who told him energy drinks are damaging his health.
“I would probably listen more to what he has to say and then quit drinking them,” Fehr says, “and go to something healthier like vitamin water or anything healthy to wake me up in the morning.”
