CHICAGO (AP) - More than 500 new energy drinks launched worldwide this year, and coffee fans are probably too old to understand why.
Energy drinks attract fan mail on their own MySpace pages. They spawn urban legends. They get reviewed by bloggers. They’re a US$3.4-billion a year industry that grew by 80 per cent last year. They taste like carbonated cough syrup.
Thirty-one per cent of U.S. teenagers say they drink energy drinks, according to Simmons Research. That represents 7.6 million teens, a jump of almost three million in three years.
Nutritionists warn that the drinks, laden with caffeine and sugar, can hook kids on an unhealthy jolt-and-crash cycle. The caffeine comes from multiple sources, making it hard to tell how much the drinks contain. Some have B vitamins, which when taken in megadoses can cause rapid heartbeat, and numbness and tingling in the hands and feet.
Danger only adds to the appeal, said Bryan Greenberg, a marketing consultant.
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