Action PointsNote that this report suggests that children and adolescents ingest a lot of caffeine and, not surprisingly, sleep less the more they consumed, although causality cannot be proven. Even young children seem to be consuming more caffeine, so often so that caffeine could be conducive to sleep problems in elementary school children, researchers found.
Three-quarters of children ages 5 to 12 consumed caffeine on an ordinary day in a study of parents at routine clinic visits by William J. Warzak, PhD, of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, and colleagues.
The more caffeine children consumed, the fewer hours they slept on average (P=0.02), the researchers reported online in the Journal of Pediatrics, although not drawing a causal link.
The median intake was two or 3 times higher than the 22- to 23-mg daily average reported about a decade ago, they noted.
Eight- to 12-year-olds in Warzak`s study averaged 109 mg of caffeine-the equivalent of about 3 12-oz cans of soda each day. But still the 52 mg of caffeine consumed by 5- to 7-year-olds on an typical day was well above the story known to make a physiologic effect on adults, the researchers noted.
"There`s really no use for caffeine in kids," Marcie Schneider, MD, of the Albert Einstein College of Music in New York City, emphasized in commenting on the study. "We recognize that caffeine raises your blood pressure, raises your heart rate, and can be addictive."
Unlike older teens who are likely drinking coffee to heat up in the mornings for school, the premise is that younger kids are getting most of their caffeine from soda, noted Schneider, who serves as a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition.
She urged pediatricians to raise parents` awareness of the issue, perhaps as percentage of the yearly checkup.
"We routinely ask kids what they`re eating and drinking," she told MedPage Today. "It may be something that is worth pediatricians pointing out to parents that this kid does not need caffeine in their life partially because it does some things that are negative."
Warzak`s group surveyed parents of 228 children seen at an urban outpatient pediatric clinic during routine visits around the children`s average daily intake of drinks and snacks with an emphasis on caffeine-containing items. None of the children had a known sleep disorder or medical discipline that might cause bedwetting.
Illustrated depictions were provided to assist parents accurately estimate serving sizes.
Nearly all of the caffeine intake was consumed through beverages. Few children got a meaningful number of caffeine from food.
"Caffeine`s diuretic properties have encouraged behavioral health practitioners to eliminate caffeine from the diet of children with enuresis," the researchers noted.
However, they establish that intake didn`t correlate with the amount of nights a child wet the bed (P=0.49). Overall, enuresis was actually less potential in children who consumed caffeine.
Children in Spanish-speaking families tended to have less caffeine (P=0.14) and also reportedly wet the bed less frequently (P=0.04) than their English-speaking peers.
The researchers cautioned that version of these results may be complicated by cultural differences in reporting children`s behavioral health concerns and that their work could not draw any causal conclusions.
Schneider also celebrated the use of parental reports and the comparatively small taste as limitations.
Although the findings offered no funding for removing caffeine from children`s diets on the base of bedwetting, Warzak`s group ended in the report that "granted the possible effects of caffeine on childhood behavior, a sort of caffeine consumption might be good when evaluating childhood behavioral health concerns."
The researchers reported having no conflicts of concern to declare.
Schneider reported having no conflicts of concern to declare.
Source: http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/GeneralPediatrics/23945
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