Copyright 2008 NYP Holdings, Inc

October 6, 2008

By TODD VENEZIA

Your daily caffeine blast from "energy" drinks might be killing you.

A new study says the high-powered drinks have so much of a jolt that the government should put warning labels on them.

"The caffeine content of energy drinks varies over a 10-fold range, with some containing the equivalent of 14 cans of Coca-Cola. Yet the caffeine amounts are often unlabeled, and few include warnings about the potential health risks of caffeine intoxication," Roland Griffiths writes in The Gazette of Johns Hopkins University, where the study took place.

Griffiths and other researchers found that some energy drinks have as much as 500 mg. of caffeine in an 8-ounce can. That compares to 330 mg. in a 16-ounce cup of Starbucks coffee, or 35 mg. in a 12-ounce can of cola.

If drinkers are unaware of just how much caffeine is in their drinks, they run the risk of overimbibing and coming down with caffeine poisoning, the study found.

The symptoms include anxiety, an upset stomach, restlessness and, more seriously, a rapid heartbeat, which could put some people with cardiac problems in life-threatening danger, the report said.

Griffiths said that looking at a store shelf full of energy drinks is confusing because some, such as Red Bull, have a relatively moderate 76 mg. of caffeine, while others have many times that.

"It's like drinking a serving of an alcoholic beverage and not knowing if it's beer or scotch," he told the paper.

Griffiths said energy drinks are made extra troubling when they are mixed with alcohol.

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