Kids and Cola Headaches

Kids and cola headaches.  This is Dr. Steven Andrew Davis, Speaking of Health.  Very likely the single ingested product that most often affects human behavior is – not alcohol, not sugar – it’s caffeine.  At least that is the opinion of a research group that studied how caffeine affects children; specifically how caffeine can cause headaches in some children.

A group of Israeli doctors, which published its finding in a scientific journal called Cephalalgia, isn’t the first to note how caffeine can cause headaches in those who ingest it in excess; nor the first to point out that taking away caffeine – caffeine-withdrawal – can also cause headaches in children with some real-life data.

In their hospital's headache clinic they tracked 36 boys and girls -- the typical age of whom was 9 years old -- with "daily or near-daily headache and (what they considered) excessive consumption of caffeine in the form of cola drinks." These were kids who were drinking, on average, at least 6 cans of caffeinated cola drinks a day -- and all these kids had headaches because of it. In all but 3 of these 36 kids, gradual withdrawal of their cola-drinking resulted in complete clearing of their headaches. For these kids, then, it didn't take painkillers to solve their problem -- what it took to clear their headaches was simply getting them off of caffeinated drinks.

Of course, this doesn't mean that every kid with headaches has them because of caffeine, but for kids who have headaches and take in significant amounts of caffeine, getting them gradually to stop drinking cola drinks may be what the doctor orders. Speaking of Health, I'm Dr. Steven Andrew Davis, for CBS News.

Hering-Hanit and Gadoth. Cephalalgia 2003; 23:332-335.