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
The sugar alternatives are nor actual fuel for your body. They can just activate your taste buds in the same way or an even stringer way as regular sugars do. Most alternate sugars don’t even get absorbed by your body as far as i know.
The multi billion dollar company that is trying to take every cent out of every pocket it can, spends god knows how much money on ink to print a specific warning on every single can they produce to not drink too much of their own product.
A friend of my husband had what must be classed as an energy drink addiction He drank multiple cans daily. He didn’t smoke, wasn’t overweight, no family heart disease history and led active lifestyle. Sadly he died aged 39 of a massive heart attack leaving behind a devastated wife and baby son. His family wanted the connection between his early death and energy drink consumption noted in his post-mortem but the pathologist refrained from doing so.
People keep mentioning sugar free options, have you tried sugar free Red Bull🤮🤢 It’s like french kissing your Mum, it’s similar but something’s just not right🤣
A few anecdotes around energy drinks.
Caffeine on it’s own is not inherently bad. Yes you can get headaches from withdrawals/dehydration, but people are known to drink huge amounts coffee with far less harmful impacts as energy drinks.
The concerns come from being young, as it’s a little unknown if it is more detrimental to less developed bodies, or if it’s the other ingredients as young people tend to go for energy drinks over coffee.
When it comes to sport, it’s thought that energy drinks before exercise is one of the leading causes of heart attacks in young people. Likely because of the increased heart rate. Young people’s hearts should already be able to go quite high for exercise and quickly come back to rest, they don’t need this added boost from the drink.
Another example is from a friend who drank energy drinks a lot, one day they collapsed and now they suffer from fatigue. They’re unable to do any strenuous exercise without being short of breath, even though they’re otherwise fit, healthy and young (27 or 28 when it happened). Again I think it’s a heart issue and the energy drinks created an irregular heartbeat.
It doesn’t seem to be something that’s guaranteed to happen, and it seems if you stop, there’s no long lasting side effects. It’s just that once you go above your bodies breaking point, that’s when the long term damage is done. That breaking point is unknown, because there’s usually no underlying health issues or checks done prior to the breaking point.
I’d say the energy drinks are not the only things killing you. The work schedule most definitly is.
To approach from a different angle that I do know is not super helpful to our realities- water is what gives your body energy. (If I’m misremembering this info pls correct me)
When you consume food that has the potential to release energy usable by your body, it requires water at a molecular level to break it into the usable parts. Hence, without water you can’t access the energy in foods etc
Quitting/reducing caffeine isn’t easy, and then the impacts of chugging more water during an intense 17hr shift may not be ideal for you either
>Will it have any effects other than the severe headache I’ve already experienced from trying to refrain?
Headaches are the most common withdrawal symptom of caffeine. Basically, your body loves to have homeostasis. Caffeine causes certain blood vessels in your head to constrict. This means that when you consume caffeine your body creates more chemical signals to dilate the same blood vessels to ensure that you have the correct amount of flow. Your body is even smart enough to anticipate the caffeine entering your system if you take it on a regular basis and will start compensating for the constriction. It is this anticipation of your regular caffeine intake that causes you to have headaches. This anticipation is also why people feel tired in the morning before they have their morning coffee if it is a routine – the body is anticipating the stimulant and compensating for it. It is also why you begin to feel the effects less over the long term as your body learns to compensate for the high.
Other withdrawal symptoms of caffeine include fatigue, decreased energy/activeness, decreased alertness, drowsiness, decreased contentedness, depressed mood, difficulty concentrating, irritability, and feeling foggy/not clearheaded.
>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.
This is terrible for your body. You need to have 7-8 hours of good sleep each and every night and failure to do so will cause a lot of chronic long term health issues over time including things like high blood pressure, weakened immune system, mental fog, and cardiovascular issues. The immune system weakeness caused by a chronic lack of sleep also increases your risk of developing cancers and when you get sick you will get more sick and stay sick for longer as your immune system takes longer to muster a defense.
17 hour days for 15 days straight sounds like the problem here. The caffeine addiction is merely a symptom of an unsustainable lifestyle.
I often wonder if these drinks were involved when you hear about young people dropping dead for no apparent reason. Lots of people have undiagnosed heart problems. I use to drink them but decided to clean up my act and go for longevity.
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