What are energy drinks?
Energy
drinks are beverages like Red Bull, Venom, Adrenaline Rush, 180,
ISO Sprint, and Whoopass, which contain large doses of caffeine
and other legal stimulants like ephedrine, guarana, and ginseng.
Energy drinks may contain as much as 80 mg of caffeine, the equivalent
of a cup of coffee. Compared to the 37 mg. of caffeine in a Mountain
Dew, or the 23 mg. in a Coca-Cola Classic, that's a big punch. These
drinks are marketed to people under 30, especially to college students,
and are widely available both on and off campus.
Are there short-term dangers to drinking
energy drinks?
Individual
responses to caffeine vary, and these drinks should be treated carefully
because of how powerful they are. Energy drinks' stimulating properties
can boost the heart rate and blood pressure (sometimes to the point
of palpitations), dehydrate the body, and, like other stimulants,
prevent sleep.
Energy
drinks should not be used while exercising as the combination of
fluid loss from sweating and the diuretic quality of the caffeine
can leave the user severely dehydrated.
Know
what you're drinking. Energy drinks are not necessarily bad for
you, but they shouldn't be seen as "natural alternatives"
either. Some of the claims they make like "improved performance
and concentration" can be misleading. If you think of them
as highly-caffeinated drinks, you'll have a more accurate picture
of what they are and how they affect you. You wouldn't use Mountain
Dew as a sports drink. And a drink like Red Bull and vodka is more
like strong coffee and whisky than anything else.
What happens when energy drinks are combined
with alcohol?
Energy
drinks are also used as mixers with alcohol. This combination carries
a number of dangers:
Since
energy drinks are stimulants and alcohol is a depressant, the
combination of effects may be dangerous. The stimulant effects
can mask how intoxicated you are and prevent you from realizing
how much alcohol you have consumed. Fatigue is one of the ways
the body normally tells someone that they've had enough to drink.
The
stimulant effect can give the person the impression they aren't
impaired. No matter how alert you feel, your blood
alcohol concentration (BAC) is the same as it would
be without the energy drink. Once the stimulant effect wears off,
the depressant effects of the alcohol will remain and could cause
vomiting in your sleep or respiratory depression.
Both
energy drinks and alcohol are very dehydrating (the caffeine in
energy drinks is a diuretic). Dehydration can hinder your body's
ability to metabolize alcohol and will increase the toxicity,
and therefore the hangover, the next day.
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