Excessive Caffeine Intake Ups Risk of Anxiety Disorders in Teens
Excessive caffeinated drinks can cause a lot of harms to people. One might feel dizzy or jittery after drinking too much coffee. It can also lead to an upset tummy, and uneasiness for hours. Now, a new study has revealed that high consumption of caffeinated drinks by adolescents leads to anxiety disorders.
Chances are high that those who drink a lot of caffeinated beverages during adolescence face issues with anxiety disorders later in life. It is due to the fact that caffeine affects the development of the adolescent brain, says Ryan Bachtell, professor of psychology and neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder.
Symptoms of anxiety disorders typically include chronic anxiety, exaggerated worry and tension even when not warranted by circumstances, and they are associated with major psychiatric disorders. The researchers conducted the study on rats to determine the adverse effects of coffee in children and teens.
Why caffeine is bad for adolescents
During adolescence, very subtle changes take place in the brain where certain pathways begin to connect with certain parts of the brain and develop a close connectivity between the regions. When a drug is introduced during this period, it can severely impact the growth and development of the brain, irrespective of it being a harmless agent like caffeine or any potent drug. Under such circumstances, the development of the pathways can be impaired to a great extent.
“One of the tests that we look at is social interaction. So they might display some sort of a social aversion or avoid a social situation because of an increased anxiety towards interacting with other folks,” the researchers said.
It became apparent from the behavior of the rats on whom they conducted the studies. The researchers put caffeine in the drinking water of adolescent rats. Having drunk that water, the young rats developed behaviors indicative of anxiety disorders even after the caffeine was removed, and that too at an alarming rate. However, when compared, the adolescent rats or adult rats who were not subjected to caffeine did not show any such development.
The investigators made the animals consume caffeine during their adolescent stage for a period of 28 days. After that, they put them off the caffeine and tested for their behavioral changes, like anxiety. It came to light that the animals that were subjected to caffeine exposure displayed an aversion to other animals. Not only this, they even displayed aversion to visiting anxiety prone areas. For instance, they shuddered to go to an open field where they would be susceptible to predators. These animals showed anxiety disorder behavior after consuming caffeine.
The same holds true for children and adolescents who are immensely fond of such caffeinated beverages more than others. This puts them directly at risk of developing similar attributes like the tested rats. The highly publicized energy drinks and other beverages that contain caffeine are equally dangerous for teens.
Drinking and binging on caffeinated beverages by adolescents has been a practice since ages. However, the problem is today’s drinks contain a higher amount of caffeine than before. The large coffee and energy drinks are found to contain higher concentrations than the traditional soda. Though the consumption of soda has decreased over years, the consumption of these high caffeinated beverages has increased. The researchers say that “these higher caffeine-containing beverages could be harmful.”
Hence, adolescents should be dissuaded from indulging in drinking such caffeinated beverages and switch to healthier options, like fruit juice and other harmless drinks. Getting anxiety disorder symptoms later in life due to early life indulgence is not appreciable, especially for something so frivolous and which can be easily avoided.
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