--- title: Energy Drinks and Traumatic Brain Injury Linked in Teens description: Teens who got serious brain injuries in the last year were also more likely to report drinking energy drinks in a new study. canonical: https://time.com/4035872/energy-drinks-traumatic-brain-injury/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-16T18:00:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:57:49.249Z article:section: Health og:title: Energy Drinks and Traumatic Brain Injury Are Linked in Teens og:description: Teens who got serious brain injuries in the last year were also more likely to report drinking energy drinks in a new study. og:url: https://time.com/4035872/energy-drinks-traumatic-brain-injury/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4eb9e8e4e1c0d452/6988604c8e06017e23461fdb/brain-health-illo.jpg?branch=production&width=1000&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1000 og:image:height: 563 og:image:alt: TIME.com stock health brain og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Energy Drinks and Traumatic Brain Injury Are Linked in Teens twitter:description: Teens who got serious brain injuries in the last year were also more likely to report drinking energy drinks in a new study. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4eb9e8e4e1c0d452/6988604c8e06017e23461fdb/brain-health-illo.jpg?branch=production&width=1000&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Study Links Energy Drinks and Traumatic Brain Injury in Teens > Sponsored content. 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Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=2a7c41ad-683f-4a2f-a0fc-eb7491a68eef&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Wearing a Weapon: The Football Helmet's Dangerous Evolution [Watch (HLS stream): Wearing a Weapon: The Football Helmet's Dangerous Evolution](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ArcR8sPL.m3u8) (2:19)  _Published 2015-01-28. The history of how helmets arrived on the football field_ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Sep 16, 2015 6:00 PM UTC  Illustration by Sydney Rae Hass for TIME by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Sep 16, 2015 6:00 PM UTC In a new study, researchers found that teens who reported having a traumatic brain injury in the past year were seven times more likely to report drinking at least five energy drinks in the last week, compared to teens who did not have a traumatic brain injury, or TBI. The new report, published Wednesday in the journal _PLOS_ _ONE_, looked at 2013 survey information from 10,272 students from 7th to 12th grade. Teens who experienced a TBI in the last 12 months were at least twice more likely to report drinking energy drinks mixed with alcohol. In addition, teens who got a TBI while playing team sports like hockey had double the odds of drinking energy drinks in the last year, compared to teens who suffered a TBI from other injuries like fights or a car accident. **MORE:** [Here’s Why Energy Drinks Have Doctors Worried](http://time.com/3935287/energy-drinks-have-doctors-worried/) “We think the common denominator between traumatic brain injuries and energy drinks is sports,” says study author Gabriela Ilie, of the division of Neurosurgery and Injury Prevention Research Office at St. Michael’s Hospital. “Marketing campaigns for energy drinks usually are carefully crafted to include sponsorship of events that are very appealing to this age group, like snowboarding.” The reported use of energy drinks and alcohol among young people is of special concern, the study authors say. [Prior research](http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/18/why-alcoholic-energy-drinks-are-dangerous-its-not-just-the-caffeine/) has suggested that caffeine can mask the effects of alcohol, making it more difficult for a person to determine when they should stop drinking. “Mix \[the energy drinks\] with alcohol and suddenly the effects of energy drinks alone pale in comparison to the physical and emotional risks posed by this mixture to a developing brain,” says Ilie. “Let us keep in mind that our brain doesn’t stop developing until mid-20s or even early 30s.” The researchers cannot draw a causal link between energy drinks and TBIs from their data. Ilie says the effects of energy drinks on a healthy brain are still very little understood, and more research is needed to understand the connection. [As TIME has previously reported](http://time.com/3935287/energy-drinks-have-doctors-worried/), data suggest that about 50% of adolescents consume energy drinks, and 31% do so on a regular basis. Young people appear to increasingly choose energy drinks over soda, and the U.S. energy-drink market is projected to grow more than 11% by 2019 to $26.6 billion in annual revenue. “Suggesting that drinking energy drinks in some way uniquely contributes to this or any other injury is counter to the facts,” the American Beverage Association, a trade group that represents the beverage industry told TIME in a comment on the study. “In fact, this study does not and cannot show a causal link between energy drinks and any adverse health outcome. Importantly, just this year the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) once again confirmed the safety of energy drinks and their ingredients after an extensive review. Energy drinks are non-alcoholic beverages and when it comes to caffeine, most mainstream energy drinks contain about half as much as a similar sized cup of coffeehouse coffee. And energy drink manufacturers voluntarily go far beyond all federal requirements when it comes to labeling and education.” “Until we better understand what the effects of these drinks are, we need to be vigilant and discourage the association between energy drinks and sports,” says Ilie. “Surely there has to be another way to promote these drinks without the risk of harmful effects on teens.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] We're in the midst of this concussion epidemic. How did we get here? [ MUSIC ] We have to look at the history of the helmet itself. Helmets, you know, if we think of the first helmet, you think of the leather head, or a helmet that doesn't have the facemask. And when Teddy Roosevelt was President ,. There was a year where 18 men died playing football. And the reason why they died is skull fractures. And so Teddy Roosevelt, who loved football, he said this is not gonna be good. So he got together all the teams that were around then, you know, Yale, Harvard, Rutgers. He said look, guys. We have to put some rules in place. And they put it together an institute to just kinda makes the game a little bit more safe. A couple years later they instituted the helmet, but it didn't have face mask. Now when we were studying football's history we saw that we got to this concussion epidemic around the 1950s. Because there's this gentlemen Otto Graham who was a quarterback, he had a huge gash on his face and his coach said look, were, I'm gonna lose this guy unless I protect his face. So his coach was Paul Brown and he made this. This plastic face mask when we put it on, onto the helmet. And soon, the face mask became a standard issue. Now, that doesn't seem like a big deal, it's a safety feature. But, it actually made the game more dangerous. And how did it do that? Well, it changed our behavior. Before, we used to tackle with our shoulders, we were afraid to break our noses and our jaws because we didn't have a face mask. Mask. But when the face mask was instituted. Well, then the helmet actually became weaponized. And we started tackling with our heads. So the helmet was never designed to mitigate concussions. It was designed to stop skull fractures. You can think of it as bubble wrap for the head. If you think of your head as an egg, your brain is the yolk. Your skull is the shell. The helmet is sort of bubble wrap on top of that. Prevents the shell from breaking, but it doesn't do anything to stop your yolk, or your brain from sloshing around. And that's what gives rise to a concussion. So, a lot of people say the concussion epidemic started in the 90s but we would say. That, that trend started in the 50s when the face mask was instituted. 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