Energy Drinks - The Truth

Every one of us from time to time is going through serious physical and mental efforts. In such condition it's practically impossible to bring back alertness and freshness with a cup of coffee or a glass of juice. Because of that, Energy drinks like Red Bull become more and more trendy and popular. The taste of all Energy drinks is almost indistinguishable from the ordinary soda, but the composition of ingredients varies from one brand to another. The Energy drinks contain all kinds of vitamins, caffeine, and many other components that imitate the feeling of freshness and "refill" a person with vital energy to help in overcoming fatigue. Such components are Taurine or Carnitin. Those chemicals improve the metabolism and the concentration and cause significant withdrawal of tiredness symptoms. The use of Energy drinks becomes very popular among young people especially with alcohol drinks: As they say "With them it's much easier to drink and dance during the whole night in discotheques". The First Energy drinks appeared in China. They arrived to Europe during the 80's. The million dollar question is: How safe is this magic poison in cans? One of the main components of it is Caffeine. It causes to temporal alertness but does not enrich the body with energy. By that we push our body to its limits and even beyond. The content of the synthetic caffeine in non-alcoholic Energy drinks is up to 320 mg / l vs. the recommended upper tolerable levels of consumption of 150 mg per day. But that's not all. As was found, "Red Bull" - the most popular and fashionable Energy drink can be deadly to humans. The production and sale of the drink is already banned in Australia and New Zealand. In France, Denmark and Norway energy drinks are prohibited for sale in food stores and are allowed to be sold only in pharmacies because they are considered as no other than medicine. Another interesting fact: Red Bull actually became popular as a cocktail with vodka. Now It is Especially not recommended to use Energy drinks in combination with alcohol or caffeine. There are known cases of death of youngsters that drank very large amounts of "Energy" drinks after a workout at the gym, in combination with or even without an alcohol. One of them is a tragic case of a young 18- year-old basketball player that died right after the match. He drank 3 cans of non alcoholic Energy drinks before the match. The federal health services warned about the usage of Energy drinks because of the negative impact they might have and because of the fact that currently there is not enough information about the safety of Energy formula. The use of Energy drinks in combination with alcohol may cause major changes in the human psyche and in the physiologic state of the body. So when and in what quantities of Energy drinks can we have? Drinking 2-3 cans a day can cause not only increasing of the nervous anxiety or insomnia, but also fatal arrhythmia, a sharp increase in blood sugar and raising blood pressure. Even the manufacturers recommend drinking of no more than 2 cans a day, but to person suffering from high blood pressure, it can easily cause to fatal hypertonic crisis. It is not recommended to allow drinking of Energy drinks to children, pregnant women and persons suffering from cardiovascular diseases. Many countries demand a comprehensive exam of Energy drinks and their components. To ensure safe usage, the amount recommended is no more than 2 cans per day, use of no more than one Energy component in one single Energy drink and prohibit sale of soft drinks containing Energy compounds in school cafeterias. In general, it would be much safer to avoid drinking of Energy drinks as coffee or juice, before and after serious physical effort or sports as body reaction can be unpredictable.