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Hooked on the Buzz
Venom, Sobe Adrenaline Rush, Monster, PimpJuice, Vamp, Huracan, Rip It Lime Wrecker Energy Fuel, Radioactive Energy, Whoop Ass, Killer Buzz. That's a mouthful. But it's just a taste of the hundreds of so-called energy drinks now tempting kids with the lure of an instant, 100 percent legal over-the-counter jolt.
"They get you really hyped up," gushes Marnee Maxine Causey, 14, an eighth-grader at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, California. She guzzles her favorites, like Rockstar and Hyphy Juice, three or four times a week, and is especially tempted on game days to get "pumped" before playing basketball.
Call it buzz in a bottle -- the new high-dose sugary caffeine drinks that supercharge the MySpace crowd. They're already a $4.9 billion industry, according to Beverage Digest, with over 100 new drinks hitting the market in 2006. Many pack double or even triple the amount of caffeine of traditional soda. Ditto for the gourmet coffee concoctions, so loaded with sugar and calories, they're basically a candy bar in a cup.
While kids as young as middle-schoolers get their buzz on, they're also getting hooked. And all this caffeine can have serious consequences for growing bodies.
Angela Sharkey, MD, a pediatric cardiologist, sees the kiddie caffeine trend at her local coffee shop in St. Louis, where teenagers line up before school for Mocha Frappuccinos and Caramel Macchiatos. Over the past five years, Dr. Sharkey has treated more and more young people suffering from dizziness and fainting. "The kids end up dehydrated because they haven't been drinking anything but caffeinated beverages all day," she says. She sends them back to school with a bottle of water and a doctor's note saying that they should be allowed to drink it during their classes.
OD'ing on caffeine can have scarier aftereffects. At very high doses, the stimulant can cause a racing heart rate, heart palpitations, even seizures.
Stephen Martinelli's favorite energy drink was Amp, with 75 milligrams of caffeine per 8.4-ounce serving (roughly twice the amount in a can of soda). But when the 16-year-old from Gwinnett County, Georgia, heard about Cocaine Energy Drink, which packed a whopping 280 milligrams, he decided to give it a shot: "Friends told me about it and said it was really strong," says the high school sophomore. The illicit name didn't hurt either. "Cocaine was popular," he explains. "Everyone wanted to try it, because it sounded like taking drugs."
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