Are energy drinks harmful to your health?

They supposedly can help hasten your recovery from illness and even help boost your endurance and stamina at the gym/sporting activities. Photo/FILE

What you need to know:

  • Most energy drinks contain large amounts of caffeine, which is a stimulant – not an energy giving food/substance.
  • It gives you a temporary mental high while your body’s energy levels remain low. To counteract this, some of these drinks contain lots of sugar.

Every day, we see advertisements for energy drinks. They are marketed as drinks that are designed to improve your performance, increase your energy levels and stimulate your mind.

They supposedly can help hasten your recovery from illness and even help boost your endurance and stamina at the gym/sporting activities. But is all that hype true?

Are these drinks truly ‘energy giving’?

Back in primary school, most of us were taught that energy giving foods were mainly starches (carbohydrates) like maize, wheat products, yams, sweet potatoes and the like. These are foods which literally boost your body’s energy stores and can keep you going for hours.

Most energy drinks contain large amounts of caffeine, which is a stimulant – not an energy giving food/substance.

It gives you a temporary mental high while your body’s energy levels remain low. To counteract this, some of these drinks contain lots of sugar.

The only problem with these drinks is that the sugar in them is a ‘simple sugar’ (similar to over-the-counter glucose and sugar). It does not give long-lasting energy (it is comparable to drinking very sugary tea when hungry). You feel better temporarily but after a short while you feel hungry again.

Too much caffeine is dangerous to your health

In a bid to give energy drink users a greater buzz, some companies have resorted to using large amounts of caffeine in their products. Although most regulating bodies require companies to state that the drink has caffeine, most do not insist on the producers telling the consumer how much caffeine is actually in each drink.

Too much caffeine can lead to nervousness, irritability, insomnia, rapid heartbeat (and, sometimes, irregular heart beat) and problems with blood pressure. There have been reported incidences of confusion and seizures (rare).

‘Wide Awake Drunks’

One of the most popular trends among people under 40 years is mixing alcohol with energy drinks. Generally speaking, as one takes in more alcohol, your brain and body slows down. Eventually, you become drunk, go into a stupor and black out.

When you mix alcohol with energy drinks, you are trying to keep your body alert and invigorated as you continue to drink. Remember, fatigue is one of the ways the body tells you that you’ve had enough to drink. The consumption of high amounts of caffeine contained in energy drinks reduces drowsiness without diminishing the effects of alcohol.

This results in a state of ‘wide awake drunkenness’ where you have high alcohol levels in your blood (which would ordinarily even cause you to black out) yet you are wide awake and are able to continue drinking. Most people are surprised at the vast quantities of alcohol they can consume when they are also consuming energy drinks.

What people don’t realise is that regardless of how alert they may feel, their normal abilities are impaired and they should not be performing tasks such as driving.

When caffeine is taken in very large quantities, it causes you to urinate more often. Alcohol has the same effect. When taken in combination, it can lead to dehydration.

Guarana and Ginseng

Some energy drinks contain guarana and ginseng. Most of us don’t even know what those are yet we still drink them. Guarana is a plant extract which contains caffeine in varying quantities. If taken in large doses, it can cause caffeine toxicity. If an energy drink advertises that it has no caffeine, but has guarana, you are still ingesting caffeine.

Ginseng is a herbal extract thought to have stimulant (and some even say, aphrodisiac and healing properties). Although the quantities found in energy drinks are rarely toxic, it can interact with your regular medication and cause side-effects.

Weight and diabetic issues

Although you are unlikely to get overweight or obese from drinking energy drinks only, they can hinder your weight management plan.

Those drinks that have lots of sugar can contribute to weight gain (especially if you keep taking large amounts). They can also make your diabetes harder to control as they can affect your blood sugar levels.

Sports drinks vs Energy drinks

Both energy drinks and sports drinks target young, active people. They particularly seek out those who are keen on sports/gym/exercise activities.

They are both routinely advertised as “exercise drinks’.

The only difference is that sports drinks are supposed to contain only water and natural salts that the body loses during a workout (they should not contain stimulants like caffeine).

They are not supposed to give you a high. They should just replace what you lose as you exercise. However, neither sports drinks nor energy drinks should take the place of regular meals or natural products such as water, fruit juices and milk.

Energy drinks for the sick?

Some energy drink companies advertise their products as being good for people recuperating from an illness.

There is no medical evidence to support this marketing campaign. High amounts of sugar and caffeine are the last thing a sick person needs.

Lethal ‘combos’ used by Kenyan teenagers

Most supermarkets, bars of repute and fuel station stores cannot legally sell alcohol to teenagers yet teens still feel that they need to get high each time they go out.

To deal with the alcohol restrictions currently in place, a rather dangerous trend has emerged among urban Kenyan teens.

They are now mixing energy drinks, cigarette smoking and either marijuana or miraa or khat or drug-spiked shisha to get their high.

The cumulative effect of these substances is highly dangerous to the brain. Most parents are oblivious of this trend because their child comes home looking fairly alert and not smelling of alcohol which gives the parent a false sense of security.

This article was first published in the Business Daily.