Pakistan's Punjab province wants highly caffeinated drinks such as Red Bull to drop the "energy" tag saying it was scientifically misleading. Punjab, which is Pakistan's most populous province, the energy tag would make those unaware to drink these beverages in dangerous quantities.
The scientific advisory panel of the Punjab Food Authority (PFA) feels the word energy is a misnomer. The regulatory body says that rather than provide the body with nutritional energy, the large quantities of caffeine, taurine and guarana contained in energy drinks act as a stimulant.
“In TV commercials [drinkers] throw huge tires, they keep running and running,” the PFA’s director, Noorul Amin Mengal, told the Guardian. “These adverts are misleading our illiterate population.”
Makers of energy drinks have until the end of the year to replace the word "energy" with "stimulant" on their labels. It also wants these energy drinks makers to include warnings in Urdu stating that the drinks shouldn't be consumed by pregnant women or those under the age of 12.
A spokesperson for the PFA said some bodybuilders have ended up in hospitals after consuming large quantities of energy drinks.
“As a responsible international company, Red Bull complies with all relevant laws affecting its product in each of the 170 countries across the world in which it is on sale,” the Guardian quoted a Red Bull spokesperson as saying.
A study in 2017 found that drinking energy drink increases blood pressure up to five times more than the same amount of caffeine that's consumed through coffee.
Pakistan is not the first country to introduce regulations on energy drinks. Turkey has banned the sale or advertisement of these drinks at sports complexes, schools and hospitals.
Recently, the UK’s eight largest food retailers — Waitrose, Tesco, Co-op, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Lidl and Morrisons — implemented bans on the sale of energy drinks to children. All these food retailers have banned the sale of products with a caffeine content of more than 150 mg/L to children under 16.
