Energy Drink Side Effects
Are there side effects from the ingredients in Energy Drinks?
As the safety of an energy drink debate rages on, we thought we would take a look at what harmful consequences could result from consuming to many energy drinks.
It’s important to understand that energy drinks contain supplements and therefore, most brands contain some type of warning label about consuming more than the recommend serving. In moderation, most people will have no adverse, short term side effects from drinking energy drinks, however, the long term side effects from consuming energy drinks aren’t fully understood as of yet.
We will take a look at the most common energy drink ingredients and list the potential side effects that could result from ingesting too much of them through your favorite energy drink.
Caffeine
Of course this is the most common energy drink ingredient and most of you know the side effects, but the list wouldn’t be complete without it. Caffeine can be disguised as guarana, green tea extract, and coffee extract so be aware of this when reading energy drink labels. Caffeine can produce the following side effects;
- Dizziness, irritability, nausea, nervousness, jitters.
- Allergic reactions can include; rash, hives, itching, difficulty breathing, tightness in the chest, swelling of the (mouth, face, lips, or tongue), diarrhea, shakiness, trouble sleeping, vomiting.
- Headache and severe fatigue from withdrawal.
- Breast shrinkage in females.
It’s hard to pinpoint a safe dose because it varies from person to person and according to a person’s tolerance. Between 500 milligrams to 1000 milligrams in a 24 hour period will probably result in some of the above side effects.
Sugar
Most energy drinks are high in sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup and/or cane sugar. Some use creative names to make their version of sugar seem healthier, like “natural cane juice” or they’ll call it “glucose”. High sugar drinks are linked to the obesity epidemic and the rapid increase of type 2 diabetes. The sugar in energy drinks causes insulin spikes which later result in a “crash like” feeling.
Taurine
No side effects from Taurine in energy drinks have been documented. Some countries ( France, Denmark, and Norway) originally banned energy drinks because of their taurine content, but have since accepted that taurine consumption is safe based on the evidence to date.
B Vitamins
- More than 35mg of Niacin (B3) can cause flushing of the skin. Intake of 3000mg or more can result in liver toxicity.
- More than 100mg of B6 can cause sensory nerve problems (burning sensation) or skin lesions.
Inositol
No known side effects have been reported, but ingesting large quantities has been linked to diarrhea. Large doses have been used to treat certain psychiatric disorders.
Ginseng
- Some studies have linked it to sleeplessness, while others refute this.
- Other possible symptoms include; nausea, diarrhea, headaches, nose bleed, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, and breast pain.
Glucuronolactone
While no side effects have been reported there’s still debate on its safety which has lead Canada, England, Germany, and France from allowing it in non-prescription products.
Artificial Sweeteners
If you like the sugar-free energy drinks variety there is ongoing debate over the safety of these. Here’s good article from diet-blog on the subject.
Ginkgo Biloba
- nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, dizziness, heart palpitations, and restlessness.
- Can interact with other medication such as blood thinners and anti-depressants.
L-Carnitine
- vomiting, nausea, headache, diarrhea, stuffy nose, restlessness and sleeping difficulty.
L-Theanine
This amino acid is derived from green tea and many energy drinks and shots have begun putting “green tea extract” in their products. It produces a different type of alertness than caffeine and there hasn’t been any scientific evidence of it causing adverse side effects. Some have reported feeling light-headed when consuming a dose of more than 300mg of L-Theanine.
Conclusions
Its important to note that with some of the energy drink side effects many ingredients can have similar negative effects, so with much of the information being anecdotal from patient’s records, it’s hard to say which ingredient actually caused the problems if the patient was ingesting several combinations of these at one time.
I think, overall, the evidence supports the safety of energy drinks within the context of moderation and knowing your body i.e. allergies, tolerance etc. However, we still don’t know any long-term energy drink side effects that could result, if any, because energy drinks haven’t been around long enough to draw any conclusions from their long-term effect on the human body.
If you drink responsibly and use energy drinks when you need a boost of energy and not use them as a replacement for water, then you most likely will avoid energy drink side effects.
Sources:
The National Institutes of Health
110 Comments
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I don’t think I’d ever read that breast-shrinkage article before, haha. I just about keeled over laughing. It’s bad! But…wow.
All I know is my member is now shorter than before I drank so many energy drink. On the plus side though the girth has more than tripled leving it looking like a cheese wheel
I was looking for an article that i thought i read ages ago about the negative effects of taurine and Alzheimer’s disease; however i must have read it wrong because all of the stuff i find on the web says that taurines not only good for Alzheimer’s; but heaps of other stuff too (http://www.vitaminexpress.com/encyclopedia.php/topic/Taurine.php). As a side, side note as well research shows that caffine (five coffee cups a day)actually reverses Alzheimer’s (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090705215237.htm), with the increase in those with Alzheimer’s maby one day we could get a prescription and discount on energy drinks
I drank 4 rockstars and 2 red bulls and i couldnt walk straight from being to dizzy. I peed every 30 seconds for like an hour and my tummy hurt for a day. My head was throbing and i was as tired really tired after 3 hours of drinking them all the drinks were 64.4.oz of pure energy oh and i was about to throw up 15 times but never did. =]
I drink alot of monster energy and i dont get these side effects and im only 11
i am 11 years old and one day when i was 10 i drank so much bawls that i was bouncing off the walls but i didnt have any side effects
Being a kid helps, Kyle and Chris. You guys are young enough that while you may not have a high tolerance, your bodies are resiliant and in a near constant state of growth. In other words: you’re kids, therefore you’re tough.
I forgot to mention: THAT DOES NOT MEAN TO GO CRAZY! You’re smaller, higher doses that an adult could take (with side effects) could kill YOU. Be careful!
This gives us a lot of good information for our science project.
Where the hell was i when they did hte study about breast shrinkage?! sure as hell hasnt done anything for me -__-
Ah, you guys are a bunch of wussies. I usually drink 5+ energy drinks a day along with a pot or more of coffee. Side effects? What side effects? When you’re putting that much “energy” into your body, you eventually build up a tolerance. I can easily consume 500mg of caffeine and be sleeping like a baby 10 minutes later. The only time I ever notice any negative side effects is when I don’t consume ANY coffee or energy drinks. Withdrawl is a biach.
On the plus side: coffee and a number of energy drink components are known to have several beneficial effects. I suppose you should probably avoid the stuff if you’ve got a weak heart, but otherwise I’d say they’re just as safe as a cup of coffee and a daily vitamin.
D, you’re going to get adrenal gland fatigue if you don’t have it already
Wikipedia as a source? #FAIL.
i love energy drinks i could drink them forever when i drink energy drinks it feals like am flying weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eh eh aha it rainen
D,
MODERATION MAN!!!!! The only reason you get those negative withdrawal side effects is because you are addicted to a lot of chemicals. Caffeine is a psychoactive stimulant drug. You can get addicted to mild drugs just like hard drugs. Pretty soon you won’t be able to get “energy” from it. You have to keep drinking more. And where are you going to be when you have to drink 12 pots of coffee and 16 energy drinks a day? Peeing yourself dehydrated. Clean out your body and have a glass of water.
i have been drinking alcohol these past 6 days and going to work in the day with only having two hours or so of sleep so i buy 3 or 4 rockstars @473 ml a bottle and today i can barely breath and my nose hurtw to breath out of i feel like iv beeen sniffing so much coke my head is gonna explode and last night when i went to bed i kept twitching i feel out of it and im coughinng up blood and pissing blood pretty sure thats a problem im hopeing it will go away in the next day im jsut gonnna drink alot of water and take some multi vitamins i also have only ate a pita burgeer and poutine in the past 5 days i cant keep a thing down and today i barely was able to get down 4 potatoe wedges neverr drinking that many rock starss EVER again
It sounds like you have a nasty virus or something, I seriously doubt the Rockstar had anything to do with it. You should go see a doctor especially since you are coughing up and pissing blood.
I used to drink energy drinks all the time. Sometimes I would have 6 or more redbulls in a day. And I did this for almost 5 yrs straight. Now, I just recently discovered, that I have a heart condition called VPC (Ventricular Premature Contraction). It basically means that every few minutes my heart will stop for about a second. People say that there is no issue with energy drinks. But I am one person that can say that is completely not true. Because of all the energy drinks I used to drink, I can’t have them anymore. If I do there is a good chance that my heart will stop and may not start again. Just sayin is all