No place in children's hands: <16s in UK to be banned from buying energy drinks
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Of course, it was almost certainly 99% the alcohol, and the rest 1% could be equally blamed on having a broken heart, or a hamburger, or candy as on the energy drinks.
(Or vodka/redbull, or vodka/Irn-Bru, or espresso martini ...)
Thanks to AI, it could be: https://g.co/gemini/share/3e1cb15c52aa
Not if you make it properly - correct water temperature of less than 100° (maybe as low as 70° for AeroPress), freshly ground beans and beans roasted less than 4 weeks ago or so. Also, drip coffee machines are terrible as they over-extract the coffee in the middle and under-extract the coffee round the outside. And a good grinder is essential to avoid too much dust and boulders that lead to over/under extraction.
Though one should point out that energy drinks have silly amounts of sugar and more caffeine than a typical mug of tea does.
Is a compound known for its primary side effect, anxiety, bad for people at the most anxious time in their lives, children?
I guess some need things to be spelled out in full.
Why assume the future won’t be even more stressful for this latest generation of young people?
The risk associated with to much caffeine according to the same study is: Disturbed heart rhythm, high blood pressure, palpitations, shortness of breath, stomach ache, nausea, anxiety, nervousness, trouble sleeping, and in the worst case, cardiac arrest.
It's not that children can't safely drink an energy drink, it's just that some teenagers might down can after can and the "safe" amount of caffeine is less than 1L of energy drink per day (which already seems like a lot).
1) https://www.food.dtu.dk/-/media/institutter/foedevareinstitu...
- The drinks have an addictive property due to caffeine and many of these drinks are full of sugar causing the consumer to continuously consume sugar. Nobody should be consuming added sugar especially not kids who's brains are still developing. They do not need insulin resistance yet another fun topic.
- The excessive B vitamins in the drinks are the cheap low quality inactive forms and worse there are only a couple different vitamins. This is a fun rabbit hole to research. Adding even one inactive B vitamin in large quantities can shut down the conversion of all inactive B vitamins in the liver and in some cases the kidneys and can lead to a B vitamin deficiency, somewhat ironically.
B vitamins are required for energy production. Shutting down the conversion process can lead to people feeling tired and weak, thinking they need more energy drinks... This is a vicious cycle that can only be remedied by a healthy diet, exercise and sleep. Excessive energy drink consumption can interrupt or lower the quality of sleep. A lack of good sleep interrupts the healing process which every person requires or they start taking age related damage earlier and faster leading to more diseases and vulnerabilities.
This rabbit hole goes many layers deeper and would require writing a book and this is even before talking about how this exacerbates all the effects of drugs that doctors have shamefully prescribed to kids and adults.
You are quite welcome. I hope this gets some people curious enough to research.
Even if they were the active form there are typically only two or three of them. A healthy diet is the optimal method to get all the B vitamins or at least the 13 critical B vitamins but if ones lifestyle is preventing this one can get them from a B-50 complex. A healthy diet should be preferred when possible.
B1 - Thiamin [Inactive] vs Thiamine Diphosphate [Active]. B2 - Flavin Mononucleotide (FMN) vs Flavin Adenine Dinucleotide (FAD). B12 - Cyanocobalamine vs Methylcobalamin.
Interesting. So the idea is that an excess of (say) FMN would block conversion to FAD?
> Cyanocobalamin is also the most common form of vitamin B12 found in supplements. It is named because it contains a cyanide molecule. The amount of cyanide found in cyanocobalamin supplements tends to be small, but the body still has to do extra “work” to remove and eliminate the cyanide molecule. If your liver is already overworked, this added step can make activating this nutrient more challenging.
I'm sceptical that the extra 'work' here to convert CNCbl to MeCbl is significantly taxing for the liver. B12 is needed in very small amounts ("the upper limit of absorption per single oral dose is about 1.5 μg" - wikipedia).
More on this: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5312744/
> Numerous studies and reviews of B12 metabolism have shown that CNCbl, MeCbl, OHCbl, and AdCbl are reduced to the core cobalamin molecule inside the cytosol. It is important to note that the ligands specific to the ingested B12 form—methyl and adenosyl—are removed during that process and not used inside cells during the conversion of cobalamin to the 2 active forms of B12
Certainly that review suggests that taking one of the bioavailable forms (MeCbl, OHCbl, AdCbl) is _better_ than the usual CNCbl one, but I see no mention of CNCbl being more 'taxing' in some sense.
A Starbucks Frappuccino has 150 mg caffeine and 60 g sugar. Almost the same as a full can of Monster.
Actually no one should.
It's complicated as there can be beneficial effects as well. The issue is likely with the dosage as typical tea drinking hasn't seemed to cause any issues and us brits have been drinking tea for a long time. I've heard anecdotes of extreme coffee drinking (multiple espressos over a short time) causing heart palpitations, but that's not common as excessive coffee tends to make people jittery (c.f. Futurama episode where Fry drinks 100 coffees).
Energy drinks have high levels of caffeine and high levels of sugar and tend to be chugged, so they're likely to excessive doses.
Found this review is likely relevant and in my view, the sleep disruption is a red flag for a healthy lifestyle: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7177467/
Sadly, there is often only enough money for caffeine or food: So you end up with children who are living off Sugar & Caffeine. They look as healthy as you'd expect.
This legislation is as much about preventing such scenarios as it is about the effects of the energy drinks themselves - (not that it'll work, but that's a another point entirely)
As for the tea/coffee points - I don't think any school allows access to a kettle - it is already a moot point.
The reason is that they understand that this enshrines alcohol as a maturity symbol. It ensures that you're seen as immature for not drinking.
An alcohol lobbying group around here made posters with a huge foaming glass of beer and the text "over 18? Prove it!". Nominally it was about showing ID, but I think youth got the intended message, and it wasn't about showing ID. Alcohol advertising is forbidden, but profit finds a way.
I see no reason to think energy drink restrictions will be different.
Things which have no possible cachet as a maturity symbol can still have other age limits if they really must (e.g, the age at which you can be decide which of your parents to live with if they're divorced is usually well below the age of majority, and that's fine).
As for alcohol, I think there should be harsh limits on private profit. I'd let you drink whatever you want, but not profit from whatever you want. Redistribute profits from alcohol sales (and also gambling, tobacco and other things where most of the profit comes from self-destructive use) in such a way that no one has an incentive to sell one more unit. Then the problems will take care of themselves, is my belief. Also, I think profit restrictions are much more palatable to the actual public than restrictions on alcohol itself, which people often chafe at. This makes profit restrictions more democratically sustainable.
I'm not necessarily in favor of prohibition, but drinks—at least sugary ones—are engineered to be addictive. And no, diet doesn't cut it.
It’s far less reasonable to allow companies to advertise and promote that harm as if it’s exciting and beneficial to anyone.
It's still not reasonable from an individual perspective, but good luck enforcing a draconian rule about not drinking alcohol. The harm outweigh the benefit.
But at the same time, there's basically no benefit to consuming alcoholic beverages that could be achieved some other ways,
You actually believe that? Adults shouldn't have the right to get tattooed, get spanked in the bedroom, drink alcohol, eat cake when they're obese?
Make of that what you will.
Note that I didn't say we shouldn't have the right to put alcohol in our bodies. There are also negative consequences to prohibition, as we have seen with the drug war. It's a disaster.
I don't find that interesting. It applies to anything that adults do, even things as basic and "positive" as having a job.
Working 8 hours at 8? Absolutely not.
Working 8 hours at 18? Double it and give it to the next person.
More, I'd argue we should tell people the consequences and make sure they understand them before they do it, which may be tantamount to telling them they shouldn't. So maybe we should tell people not to but not punish them if they do.
Toddlers shouldn't be allowed to play with electric fans. I'm OK with mommies, and even strangers, telling them not to and physically preventing it.
>An adult is an animal that has reached full growth. The biological definition of adult is an organism that has reached sexual maturity and thus capable of reproduction.
>In the human context, the term adult has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a non-adult or "minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of majority and is therefore regarded as independent, self-sufficient, and responsible. They may also be regarded as "majors". The typical age of attaining adulthood for humans is 18 years, although definition may vary by country.
Merriam-Webster:
>(adjective) fully developed and mature
>(noun) one that is adult; especially: a human being after an age (such as 21) specified by law
Your definition of "adult" is one no one uses.
>Past generations considered this character the bedrock that adult behavior rested upon.
Even if I grant that that's true, why should I care? Past generations killed infants in fields to benefit crops, and captured survivors of battles to enslave them. Appeals to tradition are uncompelling.
"Otherwise"? Uh, no. Let's appeal to neither tradition nor to novelty. Let's instead judge things on their own merits.
But that's totally irrelevant, because the definition of a word is a neutral fact; it's neither good nor bad, it just is. You just tried to appeal to tradition to bring legitimacy to your made-up nonsense. I insist: Even if it was true that past cultures defined "adult" the way you do (which I don't grant), that's not the modern meaning.
I'm 60, and I've never, ever heard of such a definition. Not encoded in law. Not by societies (American middle-class 50s? Nope. Puerto Rican immigrants? Nope. Amish? Nope.).
You made it up.
Were someone to attempt to pinpoint the exact moment you begin talking past each other, this is where I'd say to look. Legally, you're right; legally, we kind of need a hard line to for all kinds of things. Voting, driving, alcohol, cannabis, or tobacco purchase and consumption, the list goes on (even if not everything on the list uses the same line).
Socially, we have no such constraints. We can make case-by-case judgements for ourselves, and disagree with each other. Most notably, we can describe someone as acting like an adult. We can recognize that behaving like an adult, with the responsibilities that go along with that, can be independent from age.
Forgetting we have multiple definitions of "Adult" is reasonable. Nobody is perfect every minute of every day.
Refusing to acknowledge it, even after it's pointed out, is bad form; further, it's against site guidelines asking us each to use reasonable interpretations of each others thoughts and comments.
>Legally, you're right
Cool, but my response doesn't hinge on there being a legal definition of "adult". In fact, the definition I gave was biological, which besides the legal is the definition most people use in casual conversation. When would you say a dog is an adult?
>Most notably, we can describe someone as acting like an adult. We can recognize that behaving like an adult, with the responsibilities that go along with that, can be independent from age.
Sure. But notice that you had to say that acting like an adult is independent from age, and not being an adult is. You wouldn't say that someone who, say, gambled his home is not adult, except figuratively, would you? You wouldn't think he should be entrusted to a guardian and that he should be signed up for school with other children. Regardless of how irresponsible his behavior, he still is an adult in your eyes.
>Refusing to acknowledge it, even after it's pointed out, is bad form
What's been pointed out, exactly? forgetfreeman said something -- something stupid, in my opinion -- I countered it, and they doubled down on it. What, I should just capitulate to anyone who is being insistently stupid?
>it's against site guidelines asking us each to use reasonable interpretations of each others thoughts and comments.
So what's the "reasonable interpretation" for the comment? "An individual who routinely fails to understand the consequences of their actions is by definition not an adult." By all means, tell me what I missed.
I think this is similar to why we ban sales of cigarettes to the under aged. It's just common sense no?
To those who advocate for zero drug prohibition, can we imagine a world where there was no drug prohibition and kids could be marketed fentanyl on TikTok at will?
Obviously this is an extreme, but it's an example of the kind of problems our society now faces?
(For some reason the catastrophic problems China had with opium in the late 1800s springs to mind).
Or data on the amount of kids under 16 actually doing this thing?
Energy drinks are the main source of caffeine for those age 10 - 14 and 10% of those exceeds the recommended limits. For ages 15 - 17 it's 20%.