Prime drinks were introduced to Australia earlier this year with the sports drink's popularity immediately skyrocketing.
Created by controversial YouTubers Logan Paul and KSI, the drink has been heavily marketed to their huge fanbase of mostly younger males.
The interest in the drink, specifically among children, has parents, schools and health experts concerned with the impact it could have on kids.
Here's what you need to know.
What is Prime drink?
It's the brand name for three products which are being marketed as sports hydration drinks.
However, experts are wary of these claims — more on that below.
Here's a breakdown of the different products:
- Prime Hydration: A still, coconut water-based electrolyte drink that claims to be fortified with "BCAAs and vitamins". It is available for purchase in Australia through retailers and bottles have a disclaimer saying it's not suitable for children aged under 15
- Prime Energy: A carbonated drink that contains 200mg of caffeine per 355mL can – double the Australian legal limit of caffeine per 100mL. This product is not available to purchase through retailers in Australia but can be bought through online marketplaces and resellers. The Prime website says it's not suitable for under 18s
- Prime Hydration+ Sticks: A powdered version of Prime Hydration that consumers reconstitute with water. This product is also not available for retail purchase in Australia
Young people have been flooding supermarkets, trying to purchase the drink, with stocks quickly selling out.
Despite not being available in stores in Australia, Prime Energy is reportedly being bought by young Australians through online sellers
Some retailers and consumers are also taking advantage of the scarcity and hype by selling the drinks at a higher price.
One 500ml bottle of Prime Hydration, which retails for $4.50 in some stores, was listed on online marketplaces for about $20.
Students are also reportedly selling the drinks to their peers in the school playground.
Is it OK for kids?
The health concern for children is less about the Prime Hydration product and more about the Prime Energy drink, which is technically not sold in Australia, but can be bought from third-party sellers.
This is because Prime Energy contains a massive amount of caffeine.
The Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) code restricts how much caffeine can be added to drinks.
It allows the maximum amount of caffeine in a drink in Australia to be 32mg per 100ml.
A can of Prime Energy — the drink which isn't available at supermarkets — contains almost double the legal limit.
Griffith University sports dietitian Professor Ben Desbrow said the consumption of highly caffeinated drinks had a range of physiological and cognitive effects, including insomnia, increased breathing and heart rate, and restlessness.
"In this case, giving a dose of caffeine to young children who've got … developing cognitive function is not a wise idea," he said.
Why are schools banning the drinks?
Despite being caffeine-free, bottles of Prime Hydration — the one available in supermarkets — have a disclaimer on its containers, saying it's not suitable for children under the age of 15, pregnant or breastfeeding women.
It also says it should only be used under medical or dietetic supervision.
On Prime's official website it states; "PRIME Energy is not recommended for children under the age of 18, women who are pregnant or nursing, or individuals who are sensitive to caffeine."
Following health advice, several schools across Australia have banned Prime products from school grounds.
A Woolworths spokesperson told the ABC the retailer would not be giving a statement in relation to stocking the Prime sports drink, as other energy drinks and sports supplement products that they sell also have similar warnings on their labels.
What are the ingredients in Prime Hydration?
While the ingredients vary slightly from flavour to flavour, the two main ingredients in Prime Hydration are filtered water and coconut water from concentrate.
The product is sugar-free and sweetened with Sucralose and acesulfame potassium.
However, the rest of the ingredients include preservative additives and added vitamins.
Is Prime Hydration actually good for you?
While it won't actively harm you, it also isn't going to magically do what it says on the bottle, according to Professor Ben Desbrow.
For example, Prime Hydration boasts 250mg of BCAAs in each serving. This stands for branch chain amino acids, which are protein-building blocks.
While BCAAs are used in supplementary form to help muscle growth, Professor Desbrow said the jury was still out on their benefit to a regular person.
"Usually, when you see benefits of BCAAs, it's from people that are quite sick in hospital, but the evidence of their effectiveness from a sports repair and recovery perspective is pretty limited when the person's total protein intake is adequate," he said.
"For the average kid who might be consuming this product, it's going to provide them with no benefit whatsoever."
Professor Desbrow also expressed concern with the use of artificial sweeteners in the product.
"I'm not a huge fan of artificial sweeteners, because what they are is an indigestible carbohydrate. They get into your digestive system, and we don't have the enzymes to break those sugars down," he said.
"Some of these compounds interact with your gut biome in your lower intestines, and we just don't know a lot about what effect that has."
Ultimately, Professor Desbrow said, most of the time fortified sports drinks were unnecessary.
"We have a very confused general population on what good sports nutrition actually looks like. They tend to think it needs to be in a supplemental form, but the athletes I work with have a food-first policy," Professor Desbrow said.
"[Sports drinks] offer very little benefit to people who are not participating in endurance sport and really shouldn't be encouraged for individuals who are not doing a lot of physical exercise, because you're not going to get any benefit."
Who are Logan Paul and KSI?
Logan Paul has established an extremely strong following on YouTube by posting content such as pranks, daily vlogs and music videos.
Paul has run into multiple controversies throughout his time in the public view, ranging from alleged sexism and misogyny to claims of animal abuse.
He drew international attention in 2018 when he uploaded a video from Japan that appeared to feature a recently deceased person he said died by suicide.
The video was taken down three days later and, as a result of the backlash, YouTube removed Paul from their Google Preferred ad program, and he was dropped from several acting projects.
Similarly, KSI (real name Olajide Olatunji) began posting gaming videos on YouTube in 2009 before branching out into music and rapping.
KSI was criticised early in his YouTube career for repeatedly making jokes about sexual assault in his videos.
The pair have a combined YouTube following of more than 40 million viewers.
KSI and Paul came together in 2018 to compete in an amateur boxing match, for which they charged $US10 to watch online.
As both of their boxing careers progressed, they faced off again in 2019 for a cruiserweight professional boxing match.
The match was broadcast on Sky Sports Box Office in the UK and Ireland for a fee of $US9.95 ($18.30) and sold 216,000 pay-per-views, according to Sky Sports.
