MEDIA reports said presence of excessive caffeine; a harmful chemical in five out of seven energy drinks in the country’s beverage market is a big threat to public health. Bangladesh Food Safety Laboratory recently made the disclosure. As per US Food and Drug Administration the acceptable limit of caffeine for an adult is 200 milligram per day but it turned out up to 700 milligram to show how dangerous it is for consumers’ health in Bangladesh.
We must say that the country’s mostly unregulated soft drinks market poses serious public health risk but the governmental agencies are unaware to that. The energy drinks companies are cheating people under the cover of aggressive advertisement and provocative marketing slogans at the cost of maintaining quality. Even, the companies don’t obtain quality certification from the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) to start the business except for the carbonated beverages. Surprisingly, most of the products sold do not disclose the ingredients with their amounts on trade label.
Scientific test found ingredients like caffeine, sugar, taurine, glucuronolactone, inositol, guarana etc in energy drinks beyond acceptable level. Soft and energy drinks are treated as socially prestigious to many while juice is popular to children and elderly person. They take soft drinks thinking its health benefit but ironically they are harmful for health while the government is a bystander failing any action. The quality certificates are routinely issued without getting the beverages tested to find out the ingredients used in them for coloring, flavoring and sweetening as the agencies concerned lack testing facilities and such system at work.
It is shocking, until now, only two juice brands, 14 fruit juice brands and 22 carbonated beverage brands obtained quality certificates from BSTI while its quality standard is surprisingly ill-defined. Juice is a drink containing cent percent fruit pulp, fruit juice should contains around 10 per cent fruit pulp while flavoured drink contain only flavours but no pulp — which is much below than the global standard. The BSTI has never standardized energy drinks and officially does not admit these drinks sell in Bangladesh without minimum quality.
In 2015, Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research found the presence of sodium benzoate as preservatives at levels between twice and 10 times more than permitted which could cause cancer. It must be invariably said soft and energy drinks are linked to various health hazards including, obesity, diabetes, brain damage, sleeplessness, cancer as well liver and kidney malfunctions. It is difficult to believe these addictive beverages sell in the country without any quality checks. Regular and excessive caffeine intake might cause even cardiovascular diseases. We must say the regulatory bodies must have latest technology to check quality of the drinks to protect public health from its adverse impact. Any negligence is not acceptable.
