Luke Holland

Professor Freeland

English 1201

3-20-2022

Caffeine Literature review

Caffeine has become a necessity in Americans' lives. The University of Pennsylvania has

reported that eighty-five percent of Americans consume at least one caffeinated drink a day.

Caffeine is a stimulant of the central nervous system and can give athletes a boost in their

performance. When used correctly it gives so much of a boost that the NCAA banned the

substances. Even though the highest consumers of coffee are from the ages of fifty to sixty-four,

the industry has begun to target young adults and even teens. This presents a problem because as

more studies analyze the effect of high caffeine intake on children, the results have

overwhelmingly supported the fact that it is putting kids at risk. This raises the question of why

should children not consume highly caffeinated beverages and how can we reduce the number of

kids building an addiction?

Caffeine is the most commonly used drug in the world and it all started in the 1800s in

China. At the beginning of its use, it was consumed in the form of tea. Then it was more

commonly consumed in coffee. Coffee started as an expensive drink that only was given to the

wealthy, it was also used medically. This suggests that people knew very early that caffeine has

health benefits. As time progressed coffee was able to be grown and harvested cheaply and was

sold everywhere and just recently become commonly used. This has led us to where we are

today, 85% of Americans drink caffeine in some form every day. Just recently researchers have

shifted their focus on the benefits of the drug and have started to look at its negative side. The
reason the focus has been shifted is because of an increase in emergency room visits caused by

caffeine overdoses. Now that specifically energy drinks are marketed toward kids and young

adults the concerns have increased.

When caffeine is taken at an excessive level, similar to what is in an energy drink,

research from the University of Massachusetts in the Emergency Health department has found a

list of health problems. The author Brian J Wolk says high intakes of caffeine can “cause caffeine

intoxication, resulting in tachycardia, vomiting, cardiac arrhythmias, seizures, and death.” These

side effects have been well established and universally agreed upon in the medical community.

These are very serious side effects and as stated by the author, can be fatal. These energy drinks

have detrimental effects on the heart by creating irregular heartbeats, including the mentioned

tachycardia and cardiac arrhythmias. Tachycardia is when the heart is beating very fast, in

children it is classified as 160 or more per minute. Cardiac arrhythmias are when the heart is

skipping beats or any other irregular heartbeat.

Energy drinks are well known to have a dangerous impact on our physical health but the

lesser-known and equally as dangerous is the impact on our mental health. This was best

demonstrated in Italy. Petrelli F led the study testing both young adults and teenagers. They were

tested with and without energy drink consumption. Upon analyzing the results it was concluded

that the average anxiety and depression levels both increased. The subjects first were tested and

showed minimal levels of anxiety and then after energy drink consumption experienced mild

anxiety. One of the miss conceptions about energy drinks is that if you drink them the only thing

at risk is your heart but as Petrelli shows mental health also is negatively impacted leading to an

increase in anxiety and depression.

 In addition to the serious physical and mental side effects, there is a third reason energy

drinks are harmful to our health. Research has been found that energy drinks can impact

behaviors. One study, in particular, was done by Åsa Svensson in Sweden. She found that there

was a consistency between drinking energy drinks as an adolescent and performing

norm-breaking behaviors. Breaking norm behaviors is defined in Sociology as doing something

against social norms or rules. Another study that supports this finding is one mentioned earlier by

Brian J Wolk. He also went further by saying that energy drinks can also impair driving,

exacerbate psychiatric disease, create a dependency on the drink and increase the risk of other

substance addictions.

Despite all of these terrible side effects, Americans love their caffeine and that is because

there are some benefits. When used properly caffeine has been found to enhance muscular

endurance, movement velocity, and muscular strength. (Naci S Guest, 2021) These are

particularly useful to athletes who want a boost in their performance. However not every

American drinking caffeine is an athlete looking for a boost. Even when an athlete is using

caffeine, in most cases they are overusing caffeine with too high of doses. Many Americans just

use caffeine as a boost because they missed out on sleep. In this case, a large amount of caffeine

is needed for the impact wanted, and then it disrupts our sleep patterns even further. (Brian J

Wolk, 2012)

How do we limit the number of children impacted by caffeine’s negative impact? One

way to decrease the amount of caffeine consumed by children would be to restrict the sale of

highly caffeinated drinks to minors. If the sales of these drinks were restricted to them, there is

the potential to protect their physical, and mental health and prevent them from making poor
choices down the road. I believe that just the chance to prevent this is worth stopping an athlete

from getting a short boost in their ability to sprint or jump.

 Work Cited

Guest, Nanci S et al. “International society of sports nutrition position stand: caffeine and

exercise performance.” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition vol. 18,1

1. 2 Jan. 2021, doi:10.1186/s12970-020-00383-4

Kaur, Simrat et al. “Consumption of energy drinks is associated with depression, anxiety,

and stress in young adult males: Evidence from a longitudinal cohort study.”

Depression and anxiety vol. 37,11 (2020): 1089-1098. doi:10.1002/da.23090

Mitchell, Diane C et al. “Beverage caffeine intakes in the U.S.” Food and chemical toxicology :

an international journal published for the British Industrial Biological Research

Association vol. 63 (2014): 136-42. doi:10.1016/j.fct.2013.10.042

Petrelli, F et al. “Mental and physical effects of energy drinks consumption in an Italian young

people group: a pilot study.” Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene vol. 59,1

E80-E87. 30 Mar. 2018, doi:10.15167/2421-4248/jpmh2018.59.1.900

Svensson, Åsa et al. “Longitudinal Associations Between Energy Drink Consumption, Health,

and Norm-Breaking Behavior Among Swedish Adolescents.” Frontiers in public health

vol. 9 597613. 11 Jun. 2021, doi:10.3389/fpubh.2021.597613

Walsh, Colleen. “Author Michael Pollan Discusses How Caffeine Changed the World.”
 Harvard Gazette, Harvard Gazette, 20 Aug. 2020,

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/08/author-michael-pollan-discusses-how-caff

eine-changed-the-world/.

Wolk, Brian J et al. “Toxicity of energy drinks.” Current opinion in pediatrics vol. 24,2 (2012):

243-51. doi:10.1097/MOP.0b013e3283506827