Energy Drinks and Uncertainty
A stimulant is any substance that raises the level of psychological or nervous activity in the body. Stimulants are classified as drugs and the most famous and widely used stimulant in the United States is caffeine. According to the Kuakini Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Hawaii that researches in numerous medical fields, as many as 90% of Americans consume caffeine in some form or another on a daily basis. This is far from a new phenomenon and it is not exclusive to the US. Coffee is believed to be the first stimulant drink and, while it is unclear who first created coffee and when it was believed to be invented somewhere in Eastern Africa around the 11th century. With companies as large as Dunkin’ Donuts, Caribou Coffee, and especially Starbucks, which has over 13,000 locations in the US alone, (this means that there is at least one Starbucks for every 25,170 people) it is clear that it will not be going away any time soon.
However, there has been another, much more recent phenomenon in the form of energy drinks. Energy drinks are described by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention as beverages that contain large amounts of caffeine, sugars, and other legal stimulants such as guarana, taurine, and L-carnitine and are marketed as being able to provide high amounts of mental and physical stimulation. The very first energy drink could be considered Coke which was introduced in May of 1886. This qualifies because of the mix of caffeine and cocaine which made it an effective stimulant, but cocaine was later removed from the recipe in 1903. In recent years, energy drinks have exploded in popularity. “It is estimated that about 30% of teenagers between the ages of 12 through 17 years in the United States consume energy drinks on a regular basis.”(Shah) Recently, however, there have been movements to ban or restrict access to energy drinks. Multiple school districts have banned energy drinks calling them easily accessible, legal highs. England is looking to ban the consumption of energy drinks to anyone under the age of 18 and multiple other European countries such as Denmark, France, and Norway have already succeeded in banning the sale of energy drinks to minors. Uruguay has also already completely outlawed Red Bull because of concerns over the chemical Taurine. These restrictions have come about due to concerns arising related to their potential health risks; research has supported the idea that energy drinks can have numerous short and long term dangers. “Between 2007 and 2011, the number of energy drink-related visits to emergency departments doubled. In 2011, 1 in 10 of these visits resulted in hospitalization,”(Energy Drinks) and up to this point, there have been a total of 34 energy drink-related deaths.
When answering the question: how dangerous are energy drinks? The short answer is that it depends on a lot of factors including which energy drinks you’re taking and what chemicals are present, how much you are drinking, pre-existing medical conditions, gender, body mass, and whether or not you are mixing anything else into the drinks. The most common stimulant which is present in almost all energy drinks is caffeine. Caffeine is a natural chemical that is produced by around 60 different types of plants. It is tasteless, provides no nutritional value, and can come either as a solid or diluted into liquids, which is how most people consume it. As mentioned previously, it is also a stimulant, meaning that it increases awareness and makes the taker feel more energetic. The way that it achieves this is by blocking the receptors in the brain that are responsible for making you feel drowsy for up to around 6 hours at a time. Taking caffeine consistently will eventually lead to withdrawal symptoms if the user does not continue to take it, such as headaches and exhaustion. This also means that caffeine is classified as an addictive substance. According to the Mayo Clinic, it is recommended that a healthy adult takes no more than 400mg of caffeine per day, however this number can vary based off of gender, body mass, age, and even genetics. To put that into perspective, a strong cup of coffee contains about 100mg and a can of Coca-Cola contains 34mg. Taking more than 400mg per day can have many negative side effects on the body such as headaches, irritability, nervousness, high blood pressure, and tremors just to name a few (Pietrangelo). High caffeine intake can also hinder the development of the cardiovascular and nervous systems in children. To overdose off of caffeine, one would need to consume around 10,000mg and, while rare, symptoms of this include vomiting, hallucinations, confusion, and in some cases heart failure and death. The reason it is rare to reach this point is that people will generally vomit to remove the caffeine from their body before it becomes fatal.
There are many different energy drinks and the contents of each can vary greatly from brand to brand but this essay will focus on the original flavored Red Bull, both because it is definitively the most popular energy drink in the world (earning Red Bull a combined $2.9 Billion in 2019(Foster)) and also because it is one of the main subjects of controversy as to whether or not energy drinks should be banned. That being said, an 8.4fl oz can of Red Bull comes in at 80mg of caffeine. To put that into perspective, one would need to consume 125 cans of original Red Bull to reach a fatal amount. Theoretically, this should be impossible as you would throw up the Red Bull long before you hit the fatal limit, but that is only if you consider the caffeine as a factor. Red Bull, and most energy drinks for that matter, contain other stimulants that one would want to consider that act in similar ways. In addition to caffeine, Red Bull also contains glucuronolactone, taurine, and several B Vitamins, all of which are known stimulants but as of right now their effects on the human body are not fully understood; that is where some of the concerns from countries like Uruguay are coming from. People with specific health conditions might be more at risk of drinking energy drinks as well, one example of this is diabetics. Energy drinks generally contain large amounts of added sugars and Red Bull is no exception, containing 27g of sugar which is over half of the recommended daily limit for men and exceeding the recommended daily limit for women. Because of all the added sugar, and caffeine on top of that raising your blood pressure it can raise a diabetic’s blood sugar to dangerous levels.
There is one more big danger with using energy drinks and that is using it as a mix-in with alcohol. In 2010 the Food and Drug Administration announced that caffeine is an unsafe additive to alcohol and banned the sale of pre-mixed drinks (Arria). The reason being that, because alcohol is a depressant, it counteracts the effects of the stimulants, resulting in the drinker of a mixed drink feeling less intoxicated, but their motor coordination and reaction time will be just as impaired. “About 25 percent of college students consume alcohol with energy drinks, and they binge-drink significantly more often than students who don’t mix them” (Energy Drinks). Additionally, in 2011 42% of all energy drink-related emergency room visits involved mixing the beverages with alcohol.
There is no doubt that energy drinks will be staying for a while, because it is a multibillion-dollar industry that has been thriving since its creation and will fight to keep itself relevant. The bottom line is that to the vast majority of people, energy drinks are not immediately harmful in moderation, such as once every few weeks and they should pose no real threat unless you have a pre-existing medical condition. But always be very mindful of what you put into your body as energy drinks, as of right now, are still being researched. “Further investigation is warranted on whether an individual ingredient or a unique combination leads to the observed electrophysiological and hemodynamic changes. The impact of long‐term energy drinks consumption remains unknown” (Shah).
Works Cited
Arria, Amelia M., and Mary C. O’brien. “The “High” Risk of Energy Drinks.” JAMA Network, 9 Feb. 2011, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/645466.
“Energy Drinks.” National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 26 July 2018, https://nccih.nih.gov/health/energy-drinks.
Foster, James. “Top Selling Energy Drink Brands.” caffeineinformer, 7 Feb. 1019, https://www.caffeineinformer.com/the-15-top-energy-drink-brands.
“Caffeine: How much is too much?” Mayo Clinic, 8 Mar. 2017, www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/basics/nutrition-basics/hlv-20049477.
Pietrangelo, Ann, and Kristeen Cherney. “The Effects of Caffeine on Your Body.” healthline, 7 Aug. 2017, https://www.healthline.com/health/caffeine-effects-on-body#1.
Shah, Sachin A. “Impact of High Volume Energy Drink Consumption on Electrocardiographic and Blood Pressure Parameters: A Randomized Trial.” Journal of the American Heart Association, vol. 8, no. 11, 29 May 2019, https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/JAHA.118.011318.