Working around people who drink 5 or 6 energy drinks a day for years. Also consume 1 or 2 a day on average.
Keep seeing everyone talk about how dangerous they are, yet nothing about what makes them dangerous.
Edit: Answers to questions.
Wow, thanks for all the info. Amazing feedback!
Based on feedback, I’d like to specify and give some info of my own. To get more detailed info if possible.
Reign energy drinks have 300mg caffeine. I’ve seen people crush a 12 pack in 2 or 3 days. What are the risks they are giving themselves? The sugar-free ones are not usually consumed, but I have some, and they have 200mg caffeine in each.
I also drink those 5 hour energy drinks too but I will substitute 1 5hr drink for 1 energy drink and will never consume more than 3 in a day. Is that still within a healthy limit?
My routine is as follows:
Wake up, eat breakfast within 2 hours. Drink 1 energy booster an hour or 2 after that, and then wait 4-5 hours and drink another. I have a hard stop on all caffeine and sugar 5 hours before bedtime to help get down off the energy high and sleep better.
A lot of people talked about the sugar and the sugar free drinks. Yet, I see a lot of sugar substitutions like Sucralose, Stevia, aspartame, etc… I have no idea if these are better/safer than actual sugar but I do consume sugar free variants from time to time.
I guess a more detailed title would be, as someone with high heart risks, what are the dangerous levels of caffeine, sugar, and sugar substitutes for me to consume?
I’m wondering now if there is anything else in these drinks that could be a harm. I’ve read the labels on the ones I have and I’m seeing “proprietary blend” on several of them. The ingredients listed afterward are vague and little contact is given. Anyone know what is in them?
Edit #2: Info about why I started drinking them and what led to this post.
I work 17 hour days for 15 days straight. I get 7 hours between shifts to shower and sleep. Pretty much go go go till I get days off. The first day or 2, I die and hardly get out of bed.
I started drinking energy drinks to keep me going, but if I drink them on days off, it is because I’m having caffeine withdrawals and a huge headache.
My wife is super worried about me because I have a history of heart disease in my family, and too much could easily do serious damage.
Can I cold turkey quit energy drink? Will it have any effects other than the severe headache I’ve already experienced from trying to refrain?
In: Other
Assuming it’s a 16oz Monster Energy Drink, that’s 66g of sugar and 298 calories per can. That’s not healthy for anyone.
x5 is brutal, that’s diabetes 101.
Energy drinks don’t actually give you energy, they just make you feel less tired. Your body uses melatonin to make you tired so your body can be given time to rest up. By using energy drinks, you’re pushing your body past its normal limit and overclocking it.
Think of, say, your heart as a machine. It’s constantly running, 24/7, but it doesn’t need to be used as heavily when you’re sleeping and resting. If you’re tired, your body is actively putting you in a state of being that makes your heart work less. By circumventing this with energy drinks, your heart is once again being overclocked. This wears it down faster and puts it at higher risk of making a mistake, which in this case would be a heart attack. You’re trying to force more energy out of your body than you have to spare.
Tons of sugar and tons of caffeine. There is also almost always more than 1 serving in a can. So you are getting double, triple, or sometimes quadruple the amount listed in the nutrition facts if you drink 1 can, let alone 2 or 3.
Energy drinks are like rocket fuel for your body. They have a lot of caffeine, which is like a super-charge for your energy, and sugar, which gives you quick energy bursts. But, when you use too much rocket fuel, it can cause problems.
1. **Caffeine Overload**:
Caffeine acts like jumper cables that give your heart a sudden jolt of energy, making it work faster. This is okay in small doses, but just like how constantly jump-starting a car can wear out the battery, too much caffeine can put a lot of stress on your heart.
**Sugar Mountain**:
Sugar in energy drinks is like a fast ride up a hill. It’s fun at first, but what goes up must come down. This rollercoaster can lead to big crashes in your body’s energy, and over time, too much sugar can lead to weight gain and even diabetes, which is when your body has a hard time dealing with all the sugar.
Sugar NOT fat is one of the leading contributors to heart disease or heart attacks. Lobbyist have done a good job with getting attention off of sugar. Not only is your heart working harder, but now it’s also suffering. It will catch up with people in the long term. It also hides true exhaustion or fatigue. This is needed to let you know if you need to eat healthier. It’s turning off your body’s warning signals.
3. **Addiction**:
It makes you an addict.
Just like how some people can’t stop playing video games, caffeine and sugar can be super addicting. Your body starts to think it needs these drinks to feel normal, which can make it hard to stop drinking them. Some studies find it comparable to cocaine
**Hard on the Bones**:
Some energy drinks have a lot of acid and other stuff that can make it tough for your body to keep your bones strong. It’s like if you kept taking bricks away from a tower – eventually, it can get wobbly.
*It literally dissolves your teeth.*
The sugar that stays on your teeth help perfect the breeding ground for bacteria to eat away at your enamel. These cavities are usually harder to detect until too late. They usually occur in between the teeth.
**Messing with Sleep**:
Drinking energy drinks is like having a party in your brain when you’re trying to sleep. Caffeine tells your brain to stay awake, so even if you’re tired, your brain can’t relax and go to sleep easily.
So, even though energy drinks can make you feel super energetic and awake, drinking a lot of them can be hard on your heart, make your bones weaker, get you hooked, and mess up your sleep. It’s like if you always took the fast lane everywhere—you might get places quickly, but it’s a lot rougher on your car.
So not only does it damage your heart and other organs, but now it interrupts REM so your body is unable to fully heal the damage.
I haven’t changed my oil in years and my car seems to be running fine.
I keep hearing everyone talk about how much damage not having oil can do to my car, but they never say what exactly it is that makes it dangerous.
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it just puts more strain on the system. More strain = more wear, more wear = more things breaking. i bet those coworkers get hurt more often. Everything from clumsy mistakes (e.g. hit your finger with a hammer) to increased speed of “wear and tear” issues like joint/muscle pain – you just can’t see it because there’s no one that’s “clean” to compare it to.
To use a protracted metaphor:
When you are running on normal conditions your body is like a reactor. It burns fuel creates heat and energy to do work. When your body does this, it creates waste products that slowly make the reactor work less efficiently and run hot. When that waste product builds up to certain levels (active all day) or the reactor runs especially hot such as from a particularly high demand activity (hard exercise), then a siren goes off informing you of dangerous operating conditions (melatonin/”I feel sleepy” hormones) and a need for a reduction in activity and clean up (rest/sleep) so that the reactor can return to normal temperatures.
Drinking an energy drink (or most any stimulant, including simple coffee or caffeine) is just hitting the mute button on the siren. It lets you operate while ignoring that you are no longer in a safe operating condition. It doesn’t actually reduce the reactor’s temperature or clean any of the waste products out, it just turns off the alarm (feeling sleepy) so you don’t notice it anymore.
Obviously, you can run a little hot for a while periodically without necessarily exploding. However; eventually you run higher and higher risks of meltdown or malfunction the longer you run outside normal operating parameters.
Seen a lot of comments here mention sugar too. Is it a lot better/safer to drink no sugar energy drinks (i.e red bull no sugar)? Obviously the large amounts of caffeine still isn’t good, but does the no sugar make it alright or do they pack it full of other preservatives which are just as bad?
Caffeine is a stimulant. At your levels you’re within safe amounts. At their levels, they are wrecking their heart health, wrecking their mental health (anxiety) and at that point they are always tired and groggy unless they have the drinks because their bodies are producing extra chemicals to slow them down and keep their heart from beating out of their chest.
Actual widespread research has indicated caffeine is safe and has a positive impact on lifespan and helps prevent dementia to some extent. Most of this is just neo-puritanism. Sadly this also coming from the left not just the far right. You can OD on just about anything even water but caffeine is pretty self limiting do to side effects.
One thing to know is that caffeine doesn’t really give you energy, rather it just blocks what makes you tired.
On top of that, after enough of it the body starts releasing adrenaline, which of course makes your heart work unnecessarily harder, and any extra stress on the heart is not good right off the bat.
And on top of that if it’s the normal ones, they tend to have a ton of sugar, last I recall it’s like 60g, which is already a lot to consume, let alone 2+
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