THE JUNIOR JAVA JOLT

Caffeine Kick May Be Too Much For Kids, Say Doctors. Now, A Soft-Drink Maker
Is Proposing To Add It To Brands Other Than Cola And Child-Health Advocates
Are Furious

Like many of us, Sara looks forward to her morning cappuccino. She picks it
up at her local coffee shop and sips it on her way to class. Sara just
turned 13 and will start Grade 8 at her east-end Toronto school in
September.

She first started drinking coffee when she was 6, sneaking sips behind her
babysitter's back. She dismisses the negative effects caffeine might have on
her health. "It's just coffee. I like the taste and it warms me up in
winter." Many of her 13-year-old friends feel the same way, Sara says.

But some doctors, scientists and nutritionists are saying it's too easy for
children and teens to get the caffeine buzz. These experts worry about how
kids can become dependent and how their mood and ability to concentrate at
school can be affected by withdrawal, even if their regular caffeine intake
is low.

It's not hard for children to get their hands on caffeine these days,
whether it's in its natural form in chocolate or coffee or as an additive to
cola.

Coffee bars have become regular hangouts for kids. Fancy java is even
available at corner doughnut shops. Some adolescents -- and even preteens --
are as passionate as adults about their lattes and iced coffee drinks. And
soft-drink vending machines in schools across the country make colas easily
available to kids.

Under existing Canadian regulations, cola is the only soft drink to which
caffeine can be added. But that may change. In 1998, Pepsi-Cola Canada, the
makers of Mountain Dew, asked Health Canada to change national food
standards to allow caffeine to be added to the citrus-flavoured soft drink.

This is to enhance the taste, Pepsi says, although not all scientists agree
that caffeine actually does that.

Roland Griffiths, of the Johns Hopkins University school of medicine in
Baltimore, directed a recent study examining whether caffeine actually
changes the taste of cola. The results -- released yesterday -- show that
the majority of people who drink colas couldn't recognize by taste which
drinks contained caffeine and which didn't. "This stands in sharp contrast
to the claim some soft-drink manufacturers make that they add caffeine
purely for taste," Dr. Griffiths said.

In the United States, each can of Mountain Dew contains 55 milligrams of
caffeine and is marketed as a drink that gives a rush of energy. Health
Canada spokeswoman Bonnie Fox-McIntyre says that no decision is expected
until this fall.

But the thought of adding caffeine to a soft drink other than cola -- where
people don't expect it and where it's easily accessible to kids -- is
prompting child-health advocates to speak out.

Caffeine has the same effect on children as it does on adults, Dr. Griffiths
says. And it may be even greater in kids because of their lower weight, he
adds.

Caffeine -- either in its natural plant form or as a manufactured additive
- -- is the most commonly consumed mood-altering substance in the world, says
Steven Gilbert of the Institute of Neurotoxicology and Neurological
Disorders in Seattle. Because of this, it's considered a psychoactive drug,
and it is one of the very few such drugs that can legally be purchased by
children.

The positive effects of caffeine are well known: It wakes us up, it gets us
going. But individual reactions do vary. In some people, depending on the
amount consumed, caffeine can produce jitters, anxiety and insomnia.

Dependence on caffeine can develop quickly, Dr. Griffiths says, and when
consumption is stopped, the effects of withdrawal can include nervousness,
irritability, headaches, and in some cases, flu-like symptoms such as nausea
and vomiting.

Caffeine withdrawal in adults is well documented, but only recently have
there been studies which show how cutting caffeine can affect mood and
attention span in children.

Opposition to Pepsi-Canada's move to spike Mountain Dew with caffeine has
been vigorous from groups including the Canadian Institute of Child Health
and the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington.

And on the heels of Pepsi's application, the Canadian government is looking
at whether to have separate recommendations on daily caffeine levels for
children and women are who pregnant or planning on it. At the moment, Health
Canada has one set of guidelines for everybody, recommending that maximum
daily intake not exceed 400 to 450 milligrams (a cup of brewed coffee
contains 100 to 150 milligrams, a cola 35 to 45 milligrams).

But draft reports show that the government is looking at lowering levels for
kids to 67 to 127 milligrams per day, depending on the child's weight. A
decision on whether to change recommended caffeine intake will be made at
the same time as a ruling on Mountain Dew, Ms. Fox-McIntyre says.

The Canadian government's Food and Drug Act requires caffeine to be listed
as an ingredient whenever it is used as a food additive. But most people
don't read the small print, Toronto nutritionist Marsha Rosen says. "People
come to associate caffeine with food being brown. They never twig to the
fact that they can consume caffeine in a citrus drink [like Mountain Dew].
Parents don't know to worry about a simple-looking drink."

Caffeine is, by and large, a safe drug, Dr. Gilbert says. "But just like
cigarettes are a drug-delivery device for nicotine, cola and coffee are
drug-delivery devices for caffeine. You have to ask the question -- what is
the purpose of introducing a known stimulant to kids in school when they are
still growing and developing?"

A recent study at the University of Minnesota looked specifically at
caffeine's effects on children. A team lead by Gail Bernstein, director of
the division of child and adolescent psychiatry, found that caffeine
withdrawal had negative effects on children aged 8 to 12.

Dr. Bernstein gave 30 kids approximately 120 milligrams of caffeine -- the
equivalent of about three cans of cola -- for 13 days. Twenty-four hours
after being cut off, the children were tested, showing decreased attention
span, manual dexterity, processing speed and memory. Dr. Bernstein concluded
that more research is needed.

So why can caffeine hinder performance, be it in kids or adults?

One of the reasons is that the physical structure of its molecules is
similar to that of adenosine, a naturally occurring compound produced by
nerve endings and responsible for normal brain functions.

Adenosine acts as a depressant in the body, helping to induce sleep and a
feeling of calmness, Dr. Gilbert says. "It is very ubiquitous and very
important."

It travels across the space between cells and is picked up by receptors in
the brain. When caffeine molecules dissolve in the bloodstream, they travel
up to the brain and block adenosine from getting to the receptors.

"It's like having a key that fits into a lock but doesn't open a door," Dr.
Griffiths says. Caffeine molecules fit into the openings for adenosine and
keep it from getting in. "Adenosine normally slows things down. Caffeine
speeds them up."

Some scientists believe that the regular presence of caffeine in the brain
pushes the body to produce more adenosine receptors.

"[With caffeine,] the body says okay, that's fine. I can be a bit more
active. But the body's response is also that it's not getting enough
adenosine to keep going. So it makes more adenosine receptors," Dr. Gilbert
says.

That's why caffeine withdrawal can produce side effects like headaches and
lethargy, he adds. The body is used to a certain level of caffeine, and it's
not there. "There are all these receptors that aren't being covered over by
caffeine."

Withdrawal symptoms also occur because some caffeine users become more
sensitive to adenosine, Dr. Griffiths says. One thing that adenosine does in
the body is dilate blood vessels in the brain. "So headaches may result from
that. You get pressure under the skull." Caffeine dependence can develop
quickly and after consumption of as little as 100 milligrams a day, he adds.

As well, caffeine is metabolized by the body more rapidly than other drugs,
Dr. Gilbert says. Caffeine levels in the blood rise about 30 minutes after
consumption, then begin to decline. "The body starts to metabolize caffeine.
It is trying to detoxify, to remove foreign compounds." The typical
half-life of caffeine -- the time it takes to reduce its strength by half --
is about five hours.

After that, users may experience cravings to boost their caffeine levels.
"Like with all drugs, you want to maintain it within a certain therapeutic
level, where you're getting the effect you want but without the toxic
effect," Dr. Gilbert says.

Most adults are good at managing caffeine: making sure they get the levels
their bodies need, but not so much that they start to suffer unpleasant side
effects. But some people wonder whether kids are experienced enough to watch
out for how much caffeine they take in.

And unlike adults, whose caffeine habits are usually set around specific
rituals like coffee breaks at the office, children's patterns of caffeine
consumption can vary drastically from day to day. At a friend's house, they
might have access to cola which they don't have at home. Or, they might be
in the habit of picking up a latte when they're hanging out with their
friends and not with their parents.

The club and rave culture is contributing to expectations for this
generation to always be "up" -- some would even say "wired." Some U.S.
brands of new extreme-energy drinks pack twice the caffeine punch of cola.
Although these supercharged non-cola drinks are illegal in Canada, they are
starting to show up in clubs here.

When Dr. Gilbert lectures at high schools, he finds that many 16-year-olds
drink coffee and cola for the same reasons adults do. "They come in to
school. They're a little sleepy. So it gets them going." He's also noticed
most kids know about caffeine withdrawal. "They know right away you can get
headaches when you stop drinking caffeine."

But with typical youthful nonchalance, teenagers shrug off concerns that
caffeine can make them feel lousy.

Sara says that in addition to her morning coffee, she sometimes drinks Jolt
Cola, which has twice the caffeine of regular cola. She acknowledges that it
gives her headaches, but she says she's not worried about it and has no
plans to steer clear of caffeine.

HIGHS AND LOWS OF CAFFEINE RESEARCH

Despite numerous scientific studies on caffeine in recent years, there is no
single answer on how much is okay for either adults or children. Indeed, the
results have painted a conflicting picture of caffeine -- it's good for some
things and bad for others. Here is a sampling from some of the most recent
studies:

High blood pressure: People with high blood pressure should limit how much
caffeine they consume in stressful situations. "The combination of stress
and caffeine caused additive risks in blood pressure," William Lovallo and
colleagues at the Veterans Affairs medical centre in Oklahoma City, Okla.,
write in the American Journal of Hypertension. They also found that caffeine
increased levels of cortisol, a hormone released during stressful
situations.

Parkinson's disease: Coffee may help prevent Parkinson's disease, according
to a recent report in the journal of the American Medical Association. A
team at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Honolulu speculated that
caffeine inhibits the nerve-cell destruction that can cause Parkinson's, a
disease resulting in muscle tremors, stiffness and weakness. But the
researchers said more research is needed and warned that it is too early to
recommend increasing caffeine intake to ward off the disease.

Arthritis: The risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis can increase
dramatically with coffee consumption. People who drink at least four cups of
coffee a day were twice as likely to develop arthritis, a debilitating
inflammation of the joints, researchers at the National Public Health
Institute in Helsinki reported in the journal Annals of Rheumatic Diseases.

Pregnancy: Desire for coffee decreases dramatically in pregnant women.
Researchers aren't sure why women develop a distaste for coffee in the first
trimester of pregnancy. But it may be related to volatile changes in hormone
levels, said Christina Lawson, an epidemiologist at the University of
Cincinnati, at a recent meeting of the Society of Epidemiologic Research in
Seattle. Pregnant women are generally encouraged to limit their caffeine
consumption. There's no consensus on how much is safe but about one or two
cups is the often the recommended maximum. Pregnant women can drink a couple
of cups of coffee a day without increasing the danger of a miscarriage, but
six or more cups a day can double the risk, according to a study by doctors
at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the
University of Utah, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.