Prime time: The real impact energy drinks have on your sleep and physical health

High in sugar and caffeine, energy drinks are being promoted as a quick way for young people to refuel.  But experts warn the breezy social media marketing campaigns, often employing high-profile influencers, ignore the impact these drinks can have on sleep and physical health

The hydration and energy drink company co-owned by UK Rapper and social media personality, KSI and US Youtuber, Logan Paul has made headlines worldwide following reports of fights breaking out among customers in a race to get their hands on the product.

IN the world of energy drinks, Prime is the buzziest new kid on the block, its hype assured by stories of fights in supermarket aisles to grab the last bottle, and tales of young boys buying it at extortionate prices.

Behind it are two YouTube celebs, former rivals turned business partners. Logan Paul and KSI once feuded in the boxing arena but now co-own a drinks company. Just over a year ago, the social media personalities took to Instagram to launch Prime Hydration.

In just three months, sales of Prime had reached over $10m worldwide. In January alone this year, the company made $45m in Prime sales.

And no wonder: When British branches of Aldi began stocking the drink in December, it reportedly sold out “within 30 seconds” after “shocking scenes” that saw “shoppers fight off kids” to get their hands on a bottle. There were reports of 10-year-olds obsessed with the drink, and teen boys happy to pay £8 for a bottle; the supermarket price is about £2.

Prime is not widely available in Ireland and the big supermarket chains aren’t carrying it, though some corner-type shops are. Huge markups have been reported here too, such as 500ml bottles being sold for €13 in Galway and a hefty €18 in Cork.

Professor Amelia Lake, professor of public health nutrition at Teesside University in the UK, has been researching energy drinks in the context of children and teens for almost 10 years. The Irish-born academic, originally from Co Tyrone, is associate director of Fuse, The Centre for Translational Research in Public Health (http://www.fuse.ac.uk/).

“When I noticed the hype around Prime, my first reaction was surprise. Prime Hydration isn’t what we’d describe as an energy drink — it’s a rehydration-type drink. It’s not available in caffeinated form in the UK — it is in the US. And the caffeinated form is coming to the UK.”

On its website, Prime Hydration professes to have “bold, thirst-quenching flavors to help you refresh, replenish, and refuel”. It contains coconut water, amino acids, B vitamins and electrolytes, has no added sugar or caffeine and comes in flavours such as Ice Pop, Meta Moon and Tropical Punch.

Prime Energy however contains 200mg caffeine. Kathryn Stewart, a dietician at Dublin Nutrition Centre, says this is twice the amount in a cup of coffee, and three to four times the caffeine content of a cup of tea.

Dietician Kathryn Stewart of the Dublin Nutrition Centre.

Lake believes the ground has been prepared for Prime Energy’s arrival on this side of the Atlantic.

“The market has been pump-primed — to excuse the pun — so the market’s ready for the caffeinated version. And it’s definitely on its way over here.”

Lake notes Prime’s use of social media and influencers rather than traditional advertising routes.

“It indicates the [desired] audience is younger. These companies rely on children, young people, doing the promotion for them. Prime is a really good example of this,” she says, referring to the chaotic shove-and-grab hysteria the drink provoked in supermarkets in late 2022. Demand, she says, is being “driven by young people and actioned by parents”.

Daniel, a 13-year-old in secondary school, has a collection of about a dozen Prime bottles.

“I got the first bottle and pretty much kept every one I got after that. They’re very popular among a lot of my friends, they collect them too.”

His appreciation of the drink itself varies depending on the flavour. “They’re quite good overall. They’re not very fizzy. For the bottle, I prefer the Blue Raspberry one. I think that looks good.”

He’s all too aware of the hype surrounding Prime.

“It’s become a bit of a crazy monkey,” he says, adding that he has school friends selling it for three times the recommended price.

Daniel’s mum says word has gone around WhatsApp and mums’ groups about Prime. Knowing her son is so into collecting the bottles, she gave him one as a Christmas present that she sourced on eBay for £30 (€34.25).

“I went on eBay for 10 days trying to track it. Someone had bought it and was re-selling it privately. I went into a bidding war.”

Prime is a hugely successful hydration and energy drink company co-owned by UK Rapper and social media personality KSI and US YouTuber Logan Paul.

Fastest-growing sector globally

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) defines energy drinks as “non-alcoholic drinks that contain caffeine (usually the main ingredient), taurine, vitamins and sometimes a combination of other ingredients (eg guarana and ginseng)”.

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing sector in the global soft drinks market, but they’ve been around for over 70 years. The first energy drink is believed to be Dr Enuf, created by a Chicago businessman in 1949 and still for sale in some US regions. A lemon-lime flavoured drink, it contains B vitamins, caffeine and cane sugar. Back then, it was said to relieve “untold misery” from aches and pains – and was also reputed to alleviate that “tired run-down feeling”.

According to Euromonitor International’s December 2022 report, the top three energy drink brands in Ireland are Lucozade, Red Bull and Monster. Other big-selling brands include Energise Sport and Boost. A 2019 Safefood survey of energy drinks on the island of Ireland found we’re close to the very top of energy drink consumption compared to other EU countries. Safefood identified 10 products on the Irish market in 2000; by 2015, it had expanded to 39 products.

The 2019 research showed a 3.4% increase between 2015 and 2018 in volume of energy drinks sold across supermarkets, convenience stores and discount shops. This translated to 26.7m litres consumed annually — equal to every person in Ireland drinking 5.5 litres of energy drinks per year.

On a recent Friday afternoon trip to Tesco, the shelves confirm the popularity of the top three-selling brands. Lucozade is there in all its versions (Lucozade Fruit Punch, 750ml, depicts an athletic, topless young man) and Monster with its edgy logo, like a monster’s claw has torn the packaging. And Red Bull with its familiar logo of two charging bulls, promising to “vitalise body and mind”.

In the short time I’m there, a boy who looks to be about 12 plucks a 500ml bottle of Focus BPM Energy off the shelf (no caffeine but 14g of added sugar), a girl in her mid-teens grabs a 500ml can of Punch Monster (caffeine content 160mg) while a young dad, wheeling two toddlers in a buggy, goes for a can of Monster Ultra Fiesta Mango (caffeine content 160mg). Dad aside, the clientele is largely teen.

Safefood director of research Dr Aileen McGloin points to EFSA research that found 68% of adolescents consume energy drinks, with 12% of them chronic daily consumers. McGloin says the target audience is young, particularly male.

“The appeal really seems to be about lifestyle. Energy drinks are associated with exciting, extreme sports, high-energy lifestyle, sense of adventure. Logan Paul and KSI are the typical personalities of the role models using them.”

Lake says energy drinks culture is associated with everything cool.

“Gaming, motor sports, snow sports, music — it’s basically very cool. There’s a lot of gender-patterning: larger cans that are more appealing to boys, smaller and more expensive ones for girls — one particular brand is using a lot of pastel colours.”

In a 2015 blog post, Mandy Cheetham, Fuse research associate at Teesside University, wrote about the social meanings of energy drinks revealed in previous Fuse research: “Young people described the social spaces in which they drink energy drinks … weekend sleepovers, whilst gaming, hanging out with mates in the park, or on the way to or from school.

“Shared, swapped, and exchanged, energy drinks, and the sponsorship, branding and marketing associated with them, are woven into the social fabric of young people’s lives.”

Amelia Lake, professor of public health nutrition at Teesside University, England.

Impact on behaviour in classroom

Lake began researching energy drinks and children, focusing on 10- to 14-year-olds, after teachers from North of England schools reported the negative effect of energy drink consumption on behaviours and learning in their classrooms.

“There wasn’t a lot of research on these drinks in primary school age children,” says Lake, adding that ‘energy’ is quite a positive word, however the impact on students couldn’t be described in the same terms.

“Teachers were having problems in the classroom because kids were fuelled with energy drinks. They were using these drinks to stay awake and play computer games.”

Lake says research done prior to hers shows that use of energy drinks by under-18s is associated with a range of negative effects and unhealthy behaviours, including physical health complaints, for example, headaches, palpitations and insomnia, and higher rates of alcohol, smoking and drug use.

For children and young people, she highlights in particular the adverse impact of caffeine on sleep.

“Sleep is most important for the growing brain. Lack of sleep, fuelled by caffeine drinks, [leads] to poorer outcomes in classrooms.”

Safefood’s 2019 survey found average caffeine content of all energy drinks increased from 90mg to 106mg per serving (one espresso has 80mg) between 2015-2019.

“EFSA recommends we don’t consume more than 400mg of caffeine a day. Red Bull has 80mg in the 250ml can and Monster has 160mg in the 500ml can,” says McGloin.

Stewart is also concerned about the caffeine content of the drinks and points out that Prime Energy has more than twice the caffeine of a can of Red Bull.

“Caffeine can stimulate the nervous system and increase alertness but in excessive amounts it can also cause headaches, hyperactivity, anxiety and interrupted sleep.”

And caffeine consumption in teens may impact bones in later life.

“Teenage years are a time of maximum bone growth, and caffeine can interfere with the absorption of calcium in the small intestine which may lead to reduced bone deposition in bones. In addition, energy drinks may be replacing calcium-rich drinks such as milk,” says Stewart.

Then there’s the sugar question, with McGloin pointing to the “really high level of sugar” in many of these drinks, despite the 2018 introduction of the Sugar Sweetened Drinks Tax.

“A 500ml can of Monster contains 14 teaspoons of sugar. If you have one can of Monster a day you’ve already exceeded your recommended daily amount of sugar, whether you’re male or female,” says McGloin, who highlights the relationship between sugar in drinks and the risk of overweight/obesity.

“There’s also a relationship between consumption of sugary drinks and risk of developing Type 2 diabetes later on.”

It’s also troubling that energy drinks manufacturers are targeting children and young people via social media. Prime is a very good example of this.

“Children are less protected from the advertising of unhealthy foods via digital marketing. With broadcast media there are restrictions; we don’t have these when it comes to digital and social media,” says McGloin.

Lake says the children she interviewed could see energy drinks were being targeted at them.

“They were very aware of how accessible the drinks were. One child said: ‘every shop sells them, apart from the pet shop and the furniture shop’. They could see the ads on bus stops, popping up on their Internet screens, at sports events.

“And children are aware these aren’t the healthy option but there’s a lot of peer pressure, peer influence.”

While manufacturers may say they aren’t targeting kids and teens, Lake says those who become ambassadors for these brands should take their responsibilities to children and young people seriously.

“They should do so because of the long-term impact on nutritional and mental health. Because this is an additional health crisis that’s contributing to increased adverse chronic health outcomes.”

European countries take action

Several countries have acted on the health and nutritional concerns energy drinks pose.

• Lithuania, Latvia, and Turkey have all banned the sale of energy drinks to under-18s (in 2014, 2016, and 2018 respectively).
• Before 2009, energy drinks not legally be sold in grocery shops in Norway because of their high caffeine content.
• In Sweden, selling energy drinks to under-15s is prohibited and some products are restricted to pharmacies.
• Nearer to home, the Welsh government launched a consultation last year on proposals to end the sale of energy drinks to under-16s. It was spurred on by research findings that up to one-third of secondary school-age children in Britain are consuming at least one energy drink a week.
• Results of the consultation showed 72% of respondents agreeing in principle to a ban on selling energy drinks to children.

This article was first published on March 31, 2023.