Health
Kids who consume energy drinks are more prone to mental health disorders, study finds
Energy drinks could pose a risk to young brains, according to new research.
Those who consumed energy drinks — which are intended to boost energy through the use of caffeine or other stimulants — were shown to have a higher risk of mental health issues, including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
These findings stem from a review by Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health at Teesside University and Newcastle University in the U.K.
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In the review, published in the journal Public Health, researchers looked at data from 57 studies of over 1.2 million children and young people from more than 21 countries who consumed energy drinks.
The researchers conducted this review as a follow-up to an initial review in 2016.
Kids who consumed energy drinks were shown to have a higher risk of mental health issues, including ADHD, depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, according to new research. (iStock)
“We have found an even greater list of mental and physical health outcomes associated with children and young people consuming energy drinks,” lead author Amelia Lake, professor of public health nutrition at Teesside University, told Fox News Digital.
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“We repeated [the review] only to find an ever-growing evident space that suggests the consumption of these drinks is associated with negative health outcomes.”
The caffeine content of energy drinks ranges from 50 mg to 505 mg per serving, compared to 90 mg in 8.45 ounces of coffee, 50 mg in 8.45 ounces of tea and 34 mg in 16.9 ounces of soda, the researchers noted.
Insufficient sleep can negatively impact a child’s brain development, which can lead to learning problems. (iStock)
Based on the findings, the researchers and other U.K. health organizations are calling for the government to ban sales of energy drinks to children under age 16.
“This evidence suggests that energy drinks have no place in the diets of children and young people,” said Lake.
“Policymakers should follow the example from countries that have placed age restrictions on their sales to children.”
Experts weigh in
Erin Palinski-Wade, a New Jersey-based registered dietitian, was not involved in the new research but said its findings did not surprise her.
“Energy drinks are not a safe choice for children and no safe guidelines have been established for caffeine consumption in those under the age of 18,” she told Fox News Digital.
“This evidence suggests that energy drinks have no place in the diets of children and young people.”
Caffeine has a half-life of six to eight hours, she noted — which means it takes that long for it to leave the system.
“Even small amounts of caffeine can impact quality and quantity of sleep, and poor sleep is directly correlated with a decline in both mental and physical health — in adults as well as children,” Palinski-Wade noted.
“Energy drinks are not a safe choice for children and no safe guidelines have been established for caffeine consumption in those under the age of 18,” a nutritionist told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“A lack of quality sleep can lead to impaired cognitive functions such as decision-making, conflict resolution, working memory and learning, along with changes in behavior, mood and an increased risk of depression.”
Insufficient sleep can also negatively impact a child’s brain development, she added, which can lead to learning problems and more frequent negative emotions.
“A lack of sleep can also impact memory and concentration, making it harder to perform academically, especially if sleep is chronically interrupted,” the expert said.
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Even in healthy adults, daily caffeine intake should not exceed 400 mg per day, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“With an average energy drink containing 200 mg of caffeine or more, it can be easy to exceed this intake, even as an adult,” said Palinski-Wade. “For children, these drinks are best avoided.”
Insufficient sleep can negatively impact a child’s brain development, which can lead to learning problems and more frequent negative emotions, experts said. (iStock)
Dr. Alex Dimitriu, a psychiatrist and sleep doctor who is also the founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine in California, was not involved in the study but offered his expert input.
“The concern with any exogenous substance in children under the age of 21 is that the human brain is not done forming until people are about the age of 26,” Dimitriu told Fox News Digital.
“For this reason, substance use, including energy drinks, can markedly alter development, and certainly build patterns that resemble drug-seeking behavior as children look to external ‘fixes,’ for possible mood, focus or energy symptoms.”
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The impact of energy drinks on sleep is particularly concerning, as the effect can be “bidirectional,” noted Dimitriu.
“Poor sleep may lead kids to use energy drinks, and energy drinks can lead to poor sleep,” he said.
“Because sleep is essential for brain development, anything that diminishes sleep quality can affect cognitive and emotional performance, both in the long and short term.”
“Because sleep is essential for brain development, anything that diminishes sleep quality can affect cognitive and emotional performance, both in the long and short term,” an expert told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
Many people with undiagnosed ADHD also tend to gravitate toward stimulants, energy drinks and caffeine, Dimitriu pointed out — “so it is essential to also understand what the motivation is for children using these substances, and to treat underlying causes.”
“Lack of sleep is a huge cause of emotional and cognitive disturbance, for both adults and children in the U.S.,” he added.
Potential limitations
The review did have some limitations, the researchers acknowledged.
Some of the included studies were lacking in quality and design, while others did not clearly define the ages of the participants. They also do not prove that energy drinks cause the observed health issues, the journal entry stated.
Many people with undiagnosed ADHD also tend to gravitate toward stimulants, energy drinks and caffeine, a psychologist pointed out. (iStock)
“We accept the evidence is from mostly cross-sectional studies, exploring association rather than causation,” Lake told Fox News Digital.
“Experimental studies to establish causation have both ethical and feasibility issues.”
Industry associations and regulators react
In response to the study, a spokesperson from the American Beverage Association (ABA) provided a statement to Fox News Digital.
“It’s important to note that neither study found that energy drinks cause sleep problems or any health issues and that the authors acknowledge there may be other reasons for their findings,” the American Beverage Association said in a statement to Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“Energy drinks have been enjoyed by billions of people around the world for more than 30 years and are recognized by government food safety agencies worldwide, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Health Canada and the European Food Safety Authority, as safe for consumption,” the group said.
“It’s important to note that neither study found that energy drinks cause sleep problems or any health issues — and that the authors acknowledge there may be other reasons for their findings.”
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The ABA spokesperson also noted that a mainstream energy drink contains 80mg of caffeine per 8 oz. serving — “which is approximately half the amount of caffeine found in a similar-sized serving of coffeehouse coffee.”
The association added, “America’s leading energy drink manufacturers voluntarily go beyond all federal requirements when it comes to responsible labeling and marketing practices, including displaying total caffeine content from all sources and to not promote excessive or unduly rapid consumption of their drinks.”
“The FDA is reviewing the findings of the paper,” the agency told Fox News Digital in a statement. (iStock)
When contacted for comment, the U.K. Food Standards Agency (FDA) directed Fox News Digital to its guidelines for caffeine consumption by children and teens, as specified below.
“Single doses of caffeine up to 3mg/kg body weight (bw) and daily intakes of caffeine up to 3mg/kg bw do not raise safety concerns. For a 10-year-old child weighing 30kg, this would work out to around 90mg of caffeine. Even a small can of energy drink can contain up to 200mg of caffeine and exceed the recommended daily intake for a child.”
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Fox News Digital also reached out to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting comment.
“In general, the FDA does not comment on specific studies, but evaluates them as part of the body of evidence to further our understanding about a particular issue and assist in our mission to protect public health,” an agency spokesperson said. “The FDA is reviewing the findings of the paper.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Red Bull and Monster Beverage Corporation requesting comment on the review’s findings.
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Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests.
The observational study, led by Jorge Nieva, M.D., of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck Medicine, was presented this month at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in San Diego. It has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Researchers looked at dietary, smoking and demographic data for 187 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer at age 50 or younger.
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They found that among non-smokers, there was a link between healthier-than-average diets – rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains – and the chance of lung cancer development.
Young lung cancer patients ate more servings of dark green vegetables, legumes and whole grains compared to the average U.S. adult, the researchers found.
Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests. (iStock)
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association.
“Commercially produced (non-organic) fruits, vegetables and whole grains are more likely to be associated with a higher residue of pesticides than dairy, meat and many processed foods,” according to Nieva. He also noted that agricultural workers exposed to pesticides tend to have higher rates of lung cancer.
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“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” Nieva told Fox News Digital.
The disease is becoming more common in non-smokers 50 and younger, especially women – despite the fact that smoking rates have been falling for decades, the researcher noted.
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association. (iStock)
“These patients tend to have eaten much healthier diets before their diagnosis than the average American,” he went on. “We need to support research into understanding why Americans – and women in particular – who no longer smoke very much are still having lung cancer,” he said.
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The study did have some limitations, Nieva acknowledged, primarily that it relied on survey data and was limited by the participants’ memories of their food intake.
“Also, the survey participants were self-selected, and this could have biased the findings,” he told Fox News Digital.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking.”
The researchers did not test specific foods for pesticides, relying instead on average pesticide levels for certain types of food. Looking ahead, they plan to test patients’ blood and urine samples to directly measure pesticide levels, Nieva said.
Although the study shows only an association and does not prove that pesticides caused lung cancer, Nieva recommends that people wash their produce before eating and choose organic foods whenever possible.
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“This work represents a critical step toward identifying modifiable environmental factors that may contribute to lung cancer in young adults,” said Nieva. “Our hope is that these insights can guide both public health recommendations and future investigation into lung cancer prevention.”
“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but is by no means certain,” a doctor said. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, said the study is “interesting,” but that it “raises far more questions than it answers.”
“It is a small study (around 150) and observational, so no proof,” the doctor, who was not involved in the research, told Fox News Digital.
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“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but it is by no means certain,” Siegel went on. “How much exposure is needed? How much of it gets into food and in which areas? This requires much further study.”
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Kayla Nichols, communications director for Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, a distributed global network, said the organization agrees with the study’s conclusion that more research should be done on the rise in lung cancer, particularly in individuals eating diets higher in produce and fiber.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” the researcher told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“There is a bounty of existing research that already links pesticide exposure to increased risk of multiple types of cancers,” Nichols, who was also not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. She called for more research on chronic, low-level exposures to pesticides, as well as more effective policies to protect the public from pesticide residues on food.
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The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, as well as industry partners including AstraZeneca and Genentech, among others.
Fox News Digital reached out to several pesticide companies and trade groups for comment.
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Colorectal cancer, once considered a disease of older age, is becoming a crisis for younger adults. New research shows one group getting hit the hardest – those without a college degree.
A recent study from the American Cancer Society analyzed data from over 101,000 adults aged 25 to 49 who died from colorectal cancer between 1994 and 2023.
While death rates remained stable for college graduates, they climbed significantly for those without a bachelor’s degree, the findings showed.
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For young adults with a high school education or less, the mortality rate rose from 4.0 to 5.2 per 100,000 people, while the rate for those with at least a bachelor’s degree stayed flat, at approximately 2.7 per 100,000.
This does not mean that a degree offers some kind of biological protection, researchers cautioned.
Colorectal cancer, once considered a disease of older age, is becoming a crisis for younger adults. (iStock)
The difference is likely driven by the conditions in which people live and work, which often correlate with education levels, the researchers noted.
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The study suggests that the higher death rates are likely driven by differences in the prevalence of risk factors, including obesity, physical inactivity, smoking and diet, which are “known to be elevated among children and young adults with lower [socioeconomic status].”
Because the study relied on death certificates, researchers couldn’t say exactly why college graduates had better outcomes.
Because the researchers didn’t have the patients’ actual medical records, they couldn’t see things like frequency of screenings or treatment options, which would impact survival outcomes. (iStock)
Certificates typically list the cause of death, age, race and education level, but they do not include a person’s full medical history.
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Because the researchers didn’t have the patients’ actual medical records, they couldn’t see things like frequency of screenings or treatment options, which would impact survival outcomes.
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Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death for men under 50 and the second leading cause for women in the same age group, according to recent statistics.
While colorectal cancer death rates remained stable for college graduates, they climbed significantly for those without a bachelor’s degree, the findings showed. (iStock)
Because the disease is highly treatable when caught early, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) lowered the recommended screening age from 50 to 45 in 2021.
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Common signs and symptoms of colorectal cancer can include a change in bowel habits, such as diarrhea, constipation or narrowing of the stool, that lasts for more than a few days, according to the American Cancer Society.
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Other signs that warrant seeing a doctor include blood in the stool or a persistent feeling of needing to go to the bathroom but being unable to go.
The research was published in JAMA Oncology.
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A young woman who started vaping at the age of 15 has been given just 18 months to live — after being diagnosed with lung cancer in her early 20s.
Kayley Boda, 22, of Manchester, in the United Kingdom, was engaging in heavy vaping on a regular basis when she started coughing up a brown substance with “grainy bits” in it in January 2025, news agency SWNS reported.
The retail assistant said doctors turned her away eight times, telling her she had a chest infection — until she began coughing up blood.
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After seven biopsies, Boda was diagnosed with lung cancer. She underwent surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy — and in February 2026, got the all-clear, the same source reported.
Two months later, though, doctors said the cancer had come back in the pleural lining. Now she’s been given 18 months to live.
Kayley Boda, 22, is shown in the hospital. She started coughing up a brown substance with “grainy bits” in January 2025, she said. She had been vaping since the age of 15. (SWNS)
The young woman has now issued a warning to others to be aware of the dangers of vaping.
Boda said she smoked a bit as a young teenager. She took up vaping after that.
Then, “a few months after I switched from reusable vapes to disposable ones, I started coughing up brown, grainy mucus,” as SWNS reported.
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“Doctors turned me away eight times with a chest infection. … Then I started coughing up blood, so they did an X-ray and found a shadow on my lung,” she added.
“They told me they were 99% sure, [since I was] so young, that it wasn’t cancer, so not to worry about it. When I got the results back, and they told me it was lung cancer, it felt so surreal.”
Boda said she was “very naive” before her diagnosis and thought that “something like this would never happen to me.”
She said that she had surgery to remove half of her right lung.
“After the surgery, I started chemo and I had a terrible reaction to it. I couldn’t lift my head up. I was throwing up blood. I was urinating blood. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep.”
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She said that when she got the “all clear [in Feb. 2026], it felt amazing, but just two months later I was told the cancer had come back, and I have 18 months to live.”
She added, “I’m 22. This isn’t meant to happen to somebody my age.”
“Stay off the vapes because they will catch up with you.”
She blames her cancer on vaping, she said.
“My symptoms started a few months after I started disposable vapes, and there’s no lung cancer in my family,” she said. “I haven’t vaped for three months, I’ve made my partner stop, I’ve made my mom stop, I’m urging all my friends to stop. Stay off the vapes,” she continued, “because they will catch up with you.”
When doctors did an X-ray, they found a shadow on Boda’s right lung. She was later diagnosed with lung cancer and has undergone surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy. (SWNS)
She said she’d been using reusable vapes since the age of 15 and began using disposable vapes a few months before her cancer symptoms started.
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In November 2024, when she developed a rash all over her body, doctors said it could have been due to shingles, chicken pox or scabies, she told SWNS.
‘Nothing worked’
“I got treated for all three, and nothing worked,” Boda said. “It got to the point where I was cutting myself from scratching so hard.”
A few months after that, she began coughing up a dark brown mucus, with “grainy bits, the consistency of sugar, in it,” she said. When the coughing continued, she visited the doctor’s office, but was told it could be scarring from pneumonia or a chest infection, she also said.
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It wasn’t until March 2025 that she began coughing up bright red blood. At that point, doctors gave her a chest X-ray and told her they’d found a shadow on her lower right lung.
Over the next four months, she had seven biopsies as doctors took samples from the “shadow.” In August, when she went to get the results, she was told she had stage one lung cancer.
Boda is shown in the hospital. She was diagnosed with lung cancer and had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy. (SWNS)
In September 2025, she had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, and the surrounding lymph nodes. During the surgery, doctors upstaged her cancer from stage one to stage three after finding cancer in six surrounding lymph nodes, she said.
Following the surgery, Boda was unable to breathe properly and had to learn to walk all over again.
“The oncologist said this is so rare.”
After finishing chemotherapy in February 2026, Kayley was given the all clear, leaving her feeling elated.
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However, just a month after that, she began experiencing extreme chest pains and was told by doctors she had a pleural effusion — a build-up of fluid in the lungs. She had the fluid removed, but when doctors tested it, they discovered her cancer had returned to the pleural lining of her lungs, giving her 18 months to live.
“The oncologist said this is so rare, and usually something they see in patients that are 80 years old,” she said, as SWNS reported.
Increasingly, vacation hot spots are enforcing strict bans on the use of e-cigarettes in public venues. (iStock)
Boda claimed that doctors were unable to pin her cancer to a specific cause — but told her that smoking and vaping definitely didn’t help.
Since her diagnosis, she has stopped and is urging others to stop, too.
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She’s hoping to raise the thousands of dollars needed for treatment to try to prolong her life, she said.
Last year, Fox News Digital reported on the case of a Pennsylvania woman, 26, who said she vaped for just one year before her lungs collapsed. She was 22 when she took up the habit, she said in an interview.
“Everybody warned me about it, but I didn’t listen — I wish that I did,” she said.
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Dr. David Campbell, clinical director and program director at Recover Together Bend in Oregon, told Fox News Digital at that time that signs of collapsed lungs include sharp chest or shoulder pain, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing.
Lung issues are just one of the many health issues linked to vaping, he warned. The habit can also increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, as well as exposure to harmful heavy metals.
Melissa Rudy of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.
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