Energy drinks have been surrounded by multitudes of controversial information as they include caffeine which is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the FDA. Energy drinks have been known to help adults stay awake as well as endure throughout a day. For children and adolescents however, data has shown age to be a critical factor in rating the severity of toxicity in taurine and caffeine. Aside from caffeine, which is needed to boost alertness and energy, taurine is another commonly included ingredient in energy drinks. It seems that for children there are negative risks associated with the ingestion of taurine and caffeine, especially since their brains are still developing. Another major reason that countries have limited the sale of energy drinks to minors is the due to the smaller body size and lack of tolerance to stimulants. Although brain development is at the core as to why children should not be ingesting energy drinks, another major issue is cardiovascular functioning. It has been found that acute effects of caffeine and consumption of energy drinks have shown moderate increases in blood pressure and heart rate.
Something that needs to be considered before giving adolescents and children access to energy drinks, is the idea that adults and children are in different stages of life. Adults are tasked with caring for others in the family or at least working while children are tasked with exploring the world and understanding it as they explore. The relative goals and requirements of both groups are typically different. One possible mechanism in which caffeine interacts with people is by enhancing cognitive abilities through changing general arousal levels, specifically in fatigued individuals. For an adult, the situation may be that they have more work do to whether that be physical or cognitive. In this case caffeine is useful, but for a growing child fatigue is an indicator of rest as opposed to an indication to ingest caffeine. This information suggests that the developing brain will show signs of hypersensitivity towards caffeine ingestion.
Since coffee has been around for longer, it is more established in our lifestyles than the ingestion of energy drinks. However, while energy drinks have been reported to have negative effects, companies are still targeting younger aged groups for consumption of such products. It is important to keep in the mind the total or inclusive impacts of all items being ingested. That is the inclusion of the harmful effects of coffee, which are not easily highlighted as publication bias supports coffee production and ingestion. Caffeine is one of the largest contributors to the negative impacts caused by energy drinks, but it is crucial to remember the sum of all of the ingredients which produce such effects rather than one single factor.
Source
Curran, C. P., & Marczinski, C. A. (2017). Taurine, caffeine, and energy drinks: Reviewing the risks to the adolescent brain. Birth defects research, 109(20), 1640–1648. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdr2.1177
