GRIFFITH teenagers are being admitted to hospital in record numbers with caffeine overdoses due to a growing obsession with energy drinks.
According to the Murrumbidgee Local Health Network (MLHN), Griffith Base Hospital has treated about 10 cases of caffeine overdose in teenagers in the past year alone.
The revelation comes after the NSW Poisons Information Centre released new statistics showing there had been 297 reports of energy drink overdoses statewide in the past seven years.
Nearly half the cases reported were so severe the patients had to be hospitalised while one person died from overdosing on caffeine.
Owner of Wyangan Automotive Amanda Vitucci, who sells the energy drinks, said she was so concerned about the negative affects of the drinks she had taken to screening the younger children who go to her store to buy them.
“If they look about primary school age then I ask them whether their mum knows they are buying it,” she said. “I wouldn’t want my kids drinking those things and you don’t know how many the child might have had before coming to your store.
“If they’re a certain age, I think everyone who sells these drinks should ask them the same thing – it can’t hurt.”
Ms Vitucci said high school kids and men in their early 20s were the most common consumers of the drinks but she had noticed a rise in the number of young children buying them.
Local health educator and mum Jenny Ellis, who has an 11-year-old and 15-year-old, said there was a lack of education about the risks of giving kids energy drinks.
“Kids don’t need extra stimulants but because they’re sitting in front of the TV or computer all day they often lack energy and so their parents think they’re doing the right thing by giving them these drinks,” she said. “I’ve seen parents demand their child drink three cokes a day.
“They hear all these terms like guarana and ginseng and think it’s got to be good but all the stimulant kids need is to get out and be active.”
Mrs Ellis said she would never let her kids have energy
drinks and even fizzy drinks were a bad choice.
“It’s a recipe for disaster but kids are attracted to these drinks,” she said. “Teenage boys are developing psoriasis of the liver, which is a disease alcoholics get, because of too many soft drinks.”
MLHN’s clinical director of drug and alcohol services Dr Gilbert Whitton said parents should be aware of the dangers of caffeine with excessive consumption often leading to heart palpitations, headaches, tremors, sleep problems and anxiety.
Dr Whitton said teenagers should not ingest more than 80mg of caffeine a day.
Studies have shown that ingesting just 400mg of caffeine can cause “caffeine intoxication” while two grams can be enough to send someone to hospital.
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