Doctors issue warning on popular children’s drink after spate of hospitalisations

Researchers have warned parents about the dangers of consuming the drink.

Medical professionals have suggested that children under the age of eight should avoid consuming slush ice drinks, also known as slushies.

This comes as research has shown that drinks containing the sweetening agent glycerol can result in so-called 'glycerol intoxication syndrome'.

The study highlighted a number of young people who became unwell consuming the drink, with symptoms including decreased consciousness and low blood sugar.

Glycerol, a naturally occurring substitute for alcohol and sugar, prevents the liquid from freezing solid, maintaining their icy texture.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) currently recommends that children aged four years and under do not consume the drinks due to potential side effects of headaches, nausea, and vomiting.

Academics are now calling for advice around the drinks to be revisited.

Researchers at University College Dublin looked at 21 children aged 2-7 in Ireland and the UK who fell ill after consuming the drink.

Upon arrival at emergency departments, the children were initially diagnosed with hypoglycaemia, or low blood sugar.

The research, which was published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, suggested that the drinks 'may cause a clinical syndrome of glycerol intoxication in young children'.

The children's symptoms included decreased consciousness, hypoglycaemia, lactic acidosis, and hypokalemia, or low potassium.

“Clinicians and parents should be alert to the phenomenon, and public health bodies should ensure clear messaging regarding the fact that younger children, especially those under eight years of age, should avoid slush ice drinks containing glycerol," added the researchers.

Fortunately, all 21 children included in the study made a quick recovery and were discharged, advised not to drink slushies.

Of the 21 children in the study, 20 followed the advice and had no further episodes of low blood sugar.

One child consumed another slushie at age seven and developed symptoms within one hour.

Researchers continued: “There is poor transparency around slush ice drink glycerol concentration; estimating a safe dose is therefore not easy.

“It is also likely that speed and dose of ingestion, along with other aspects such as whether the drink is consumed alongside a meal or during a fasting state, or consumed after high-intensity exercise, may be contributing factors.”

They continued to explain how the drink had 'no nutritional or health benefits.'

“To ensure safe population-level recommendations can be easily interpreted at the individual parental level, and given the variability across an age cohort of weight, we suggest that recommendations should be based on weight rather than age.

“Alternatively, the recommended age threshold may need to be higher (eight years), to ensure the dose per weight would not be exceeded given normal population variation in weight.”