This summer’s hottest ‘energy’ drink, endorsed by a pair of high-profile influencers, contains an alarming amount of caffeine—and it’s marketed directly to teens and kids. Here’s what you should know about the beverage, marketing to kids, caffeine labeling, and Senator Schumer’s call for the FDA to investigate.
Researchersrecruited 100 coffee drinkers without heart rhythm irregularities. (Most typically drank about ½ cup to 3 cups of coffee a day.) For 2 weeks, each participant got a text saying that they should either consume coffee or avoid all caffeine the next day, in random order.
More than half of middle-aged and older adults have lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS). That can include urinary leakage, urgency, and frequent visits to the bathroom, day or night. Others experience recurrent urinary tract infections or painful kidney stones. Here’s what to know about keeping your urinary tract in shape.
Atrial fibrillation—aka AFib or AF—is an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) in the upper chambers (atria) of the heart. In AFib, random irregular electrical signals cause the atria to quiver. So some of the blood stays behind in the atria, which makes the blood more likely to clot.
AFib can cause rapid, fluttering, or pounding heartbeats, lightheadedness, extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain...or no symptoms at all.
In a study that tracked roughly 386,000 people for 4½ years, drinking coffee wasn’t linked to a higher risk of irregular heart rhythms like atrial fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia.
Because caffeine appears to increase the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, including miscarriages, preterm delivery, stillbirth, and childhood leukemia (and possibly birth defects) and inhibits fetal growth, women who are pregnant or may become pregnant should avoid caffeine.
In September 2015, FDA issued enforcement letters to five companies that sold pure, powdered caffeine. While those companies stopped marketing the product, the problem is bigger than those companies.
CSPI thus requests that FDA limit the form in which caffeine is sold to prevent unreasonable risks to adolescents and others from overdoses of caffeine.
