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1346017 Yang, Ji-hye

The Need to Control the Consumption of Energy Drinks

Recently, many kinds of energy drinks have appeared. An energy drink is a beverage that

includes high levels of caffeine. It has a wake-up effect, so people who have to stay up all night,

like students or workers, enjoy drinking that beverage. However, with the increase of the

consumption of energy drinks, the number of people who have died from addiction to caffeine has

also risen. In fact, according to research by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the

number of deaths from energy drinks in 2011 was more than two times that of 2007. In this

situation, to reduce the dangers, the Korean government also should control the consumption of

energy drinks.

The most important reason is that energy drinks have so many side effects. First, caffeine,

the main component of the energy drinks, is a highly addictive substance. If a person takes in

much caffeine consistently, he could die at worst. According to the Korea Consumer Agency, two

cans of energy drinks contain more caffeine than the acceptable daily allowance of it. However,

people just consider an energy drink as a light drink, not as a harmful drink. Actually, students

perceive energy drinks as ‘solution drinks to drowsiness’ or ‘drinks which help us study hard’. What

was worse, they often mix many kinds of energy drinks to beat sleepiness. Second, if people take

in too much caffeine, their brain function will decline. A stimulant, like caffeine, is effective when

people want to gain a prompt effect or cope with an emergency. However, if these stimulants are

taken for a long time, the response to the stimulation would be lessened, and eventually, there

would be no response to the stimulants at all. Except for these two side effects, there are still many

side effects like a decline in learning ability, decrease in concentration, gastrointestinal trouble, etc.

Therefore the Korean government should control the sale of energy drinks to let people know about

their dangers.

As I mentioned earlier, the number of deaths from energy drinks is increasing. Especially,

most of them are students who wanted to study more and stay up late. However, most people

don’t know about the dangers and side effects of energy drinks. If the Korean government doesn’t

control the sale of energy drinks, the situation that people take too much caffeine would be very

serious. Not only the US, but also many other countries started to regulate the consumption of the

energy drinks to decrease the dangers. However, although there are many problems with the sale

of energy drinks, there are no regulations on them in Korea. Hence, before the situation gets more

serious, the Korean government also should control the consumption of energy drinks.