A grieving father in Australia has warned against caffeine supplements after his son died from adding too much to a protein shake.
Lachlan Foote, a 21-year-old musician, came home in the early hours of New Year's Day last year and made himself a protein shake. He added a fatal amount of caffeine powder and later posted on Facebook it had tasted strange.
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"I think my protein powder has gone off. Just made an anti hangover / workout shake and it tasted awful," he wrote.
Lachlan was found a few hours later blacked out on the floor of the bathroom of the family's Blackheath home, he never regained consciousness, News.com.au reported.
A coroner's report released this week showed the amount of caffeine Lachlan had added to his protein shake proved to be deadly, his father Nigel wrote in a Facebook post.
The report said one teaspoon of the pure caffeine powder was the equivelant of up to 50 cups of coffee, News.com.au reported.
In June last year the US Food and Drug Agency issued a third warning about pure caffeine powder and liquid, warning a teaspoon is the same as 28 cups of coffee, which would be toxic.
"While I don’t wish to keep raising the subject of Lachlan’s death on facebook, I’m posting this because there’s a possibility it might save someone’s life," Nigel Foote wrote.
"Dawn and I have finally received the Coroner’s findings regarding Lachlan – he died of ‘caffeine toxicity’ (not from a dodgy batch of protein powder as we had first thought). There was nothing else in his system except a small amount of alcohol (.043)."
Nigel said the powder can be legally bought in Australia and he suspected a friend had given it to his son.
Caffeine is a popular supplement with people who work out.
Nigel Foote said the powder was in the kitchen cupboard, where anyone could have accessed it and he didn't think Lachlan knew how deadly it could be.
"We’re concerned that there might be other young people in his circle who bought or shared in this batch of pure caffeine powder and, like Lachlan, be unaware of the danger… hence this post," he wrote.
He urged his son's friends to share the post as a warning to others.
Newshub
