Kids and Killer Caffeine

Caffeine Craze

Caffeine is capable of affecting its victims' thoughts and behavior. A NASA scientist experimenting on spiders discovered that caffeine can be more disorienting than marijuana! Implications for caffeine-sensitive people? Some mental illnesses may actually be a result of caffeine. At CaffeineWeb.com, psychiatrists, allergists and toxicologists address caffeine's potential to induce symptoms of mental illness in healthy people.

After negotiating a settlement of “free coffee for life,” Seinfeld character, Kramer becomes hopped up on caffeine when he consumes massive amounts the beverage. He talks fast, walks fast, he’s wild eyed, jerky and shows other comical physical reactions to being overly stimulated.

Comical? Yes. Exaggeration? Well, that’s another matter. The following are just some of a list of symptoms resulting from what’s known as caffeine toxicity.

• Excitement
• Restlessness
• Nervousness
• Insomnia
• Mild delirium
• Hallucinations
• Photophobia
• Neurologic symptoms
• Muscle twitching
• Tremors
• Hyperesthesia
• Hyperventilation
• Caffeine-induced psychosis
• Seizures
• Death

As you can see, it’s no joke.

As most pregnant women learn, doctors believe caffeine may be very dangerous to fetal development. They are advised to eliminate coffee and caffeine intake during pregnancy.

Other risks to your children come from ingesting too much caffeine resulting in accidental poisoning. Now, more than ever, adolescents are prone to eating and drinking dangerous levels of caffeine due to its use as an ingredient in widely popular consumables to which teens are drawn.

Not so “mellow” yellow

Caffeine can be found all in many items: from chocolate to pep pills to, of course, coffee, that potable liquid that brewed the original social network, the coffee klatch.

Even the ubiquitous aspirin contains moderate amounts of caffeine to boast its performance.

According to Wed MD, caffeine makes pain relievers 40% more effective in treating headaches and helps the body absorb headache medications more quickly. Furthermore, by reducing the amount of medicine needed, it helps reduce the likelihood of drug addiction. (See Migraines, Headaches, and Caffeine.)

And would you suspect a can of Mellow Yellow (12 oz.-53 mg) to contain almost 50% more caffeine than Pepsi and Classic Coke?

Caffeine takes 5–30 minutes to circulate throughout the body after it has been consumed, but its effects continue as long as it is in the blood, about 12 hours.

Because of its increasing availability and its long-lasting presence in the bloodstream as well as being unaware of their intake, adolescents can be at risk to consuming toxic levels of the stimulant, which can send their hearts racing—and even send them racing to the hospital.

A recently-released report from University of Massachusetts Medical School noted 4,600 caffeine-related calls to the American Association of Poison Control Centers in 2005, the most recent data available. More than half the calls involved people under 19, and 2,345 of the calls required treatment in a health care facility.

Toxicologist Richard Church, one of the study’s authors says, “As (caffeinated) drinks become more and more popular, and caffeinated beverages in general, and as the use of them sort of spills over into younger crowds, we’re noticing more calls into poison control centers, and more and more of those people are being recommended to go to their local health care facility to get some at least observation and possibly management and treatment.”

Dr. Christopher Tirotta, pediatric anesthesiologist, and advocate on children’s health and safety matters, issues a warning to parents.

“I believe [caffeine poisoning] highlights the problem of not reading the label,” says Dr. Tirotta, who is also CEO of American Scientific Resources, Inc.

“Most energy drinks are well below the toxic limit for caffeine, which is usually about 300 milligrams, dependent on weight and past exposure. However, there are some energy drinks that are close to this limit, if not over it. The message has to be one of moderation. Unfortunately, many teenagers do not take to this message well.”

As a proponent of National Safety Month, American Scientific Resources intends to address this issue further through its subsidiary web site, www.kidzmed.com.

Safety officers may by interested learn that there is a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for caffeine!

As you can see, caffeine despite its positive effects can be dangerous to your health when overused.

This is not to say that you have to give up your afternoon or after dinner coffee—unless medically advised. (Check with your doctor.)—just that you shouldn’t live off of your local Starbucks.

Additional sources:
Caffeine Behind 4,600 Calls To Poison Control http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/16844829/detail.html