delicious energy

Alejandro Irusta

ENG 101

                                                Delicious Energy Drinks

What you don’t know CAN hurt you. Everyone thinks a good breakfast and

the 8hr of sleep should give you enough energy for the day. Teenagers and young

adults don’t think when they consume a  can of redbull. Do they know what

exactly they’re drinking? The amount of caffeine each energy drink can contains?

The harm they’re doing to their health? Are all energy drinks the same? many

consume 1 monster a day and yet ,they  never bother to read what ingredients it

contains. What are the main ingredients to all energy drinks? That will be sugar,

taurine, ginseng, guarana, and B vitamins. People don’t know what these main

ingredients. Is anyone notifying the world the health risks of the energy drinks?

Energy drink might have a great taste, and give you that energy for the day, but at

the end it kills you.

The high caffeinated drinks came around the states about 1997. The

beverage digest launched the energy drink “RedBull”. Energy drinks are one of the

fastest growing retail drink markets in the world. At the end of 2001 energy drinks

sales were of $8 million annually. Just 5 yrs later the energy drink beverage sales

were up to $3 billion annually. Teenagers and young adults younger than 30 years

of age are the ones whom consume energy drinks on a daily basis. They assume

it’s a faster way of getting your energy for the day. The primary target were

athletes but since the market grew and advertisement, it targeted young adults

over 18 yrs old. . Products brands like redbull, monster, and rockstar plan to reach

$9 million this year, since most of the money comes from adults under 25 years

old. In an article by M.A. Heckman and others state “The popularity of energy

drinks among the younger generation is evidenced by 34% of 18 to 24-y-olds

being regular energy drink users(O’brien and others 2008; Mintel 2009). Another

report found that about one-half of college students consume at least 1 energy

drink per month in the hope to increase their energy level, to compensate for a

lack of sleep or to mix with alcohol (Miller 2008). “

The main ingredients of an energy drinks like redbull, monster, and rockstar

are sugar, taurine, ginseng, guarana, and caffeine. Do the people who consume
energy drinks on a daily basis know that? Do they know the effects of each of
these main ingredients? Don’t they know that caffeine is a big major ingredient  for
a typical 8 ounce energy drink. It can contain from 40 to 125 milligrams of
caffeine. That’s five times the amount of caffeine found in a soda.That’s a huge
sugar rush that can raise blood pressure and heart rate.

They don’t realize the danger of taurine in energy drinks. Taurine is an

amino acid that produces in your body naturally. It regulates your heart beat. There
is about 1000mg of taurine in a can of energy drink. Having this everyday and as
well too much of it can cause a heart disease, that’s just common sense. It’s a
stimulating effect on the nervous system, which is unnatural. Guarana which I find
the main ingredient in a energy drink. Guarana also known as guaranine comes
from seeds of the guarana plant in South America. These seeds contain high level
of caffeine. The guarana seeds are denser in caffeine than coffee beans, with 3 to 4
percent vs. 1 to 2 percent. According to drugs.com  there are many side effects
while consuming guarana, “such as Anxiety; diarrhea; headache; increased
urination; nausea; nervousness; shakiness; tremors; trouble sleeping; upset
stomach; vomiting.” Young adults don’t know this because they’re not told.
Ginseng is a root which increases energy to the body and decreases stress to the
body. People may think this ingredient doesn’t do harm to someone’s body. Side
effects of ginseng are anxiety, headaches, and may develop asthma attacks. Even
birth defects. Sugar and caffeine is in everything we drink and at times into what
we eat. A can of energy can have up to 80mg of caffeine and up to 40g of sugar.

          Does anyone worry about this situation? Do pediatricians know the effects

of these energy drinks? An article “ Energy Drinks may Harm Health , Especially

For Children “ by Alice Park explains who actually worries about the harm of 

these energy drinks do to people who consume them and what Dr.Lipshultz is

trying to explain to the public. The article states “What worries pediatricians like

Lipshultz is the fact that energy drinks, which are classified as dietary

supplements, are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That

means they don't have to follow the same strict limits that the FDA places on

potentially harmful ingredients such as caffeine (a primary component of energy

drinks) that soda makers must follow. Lipshultz became personally interested in

the issue when children began coming to the hospital after getting sick from energy

drinks.”  Dr. Lipshultz is warning as many pediatricians as he can about the energy

drinks. He hopes to get more data for the future about the energy drinks, and the

consequences that energy drinks cause. People would say something like “energy
drinks are the same as sports drinks”. Again Dr Lipshultz was shocked into what
he found different of energy drinks and sports drinks. In the article he said “ “As I
started looking into it, I was very surprised by what I found,” he says.

For one, many pediatricians and families are not aware of the differences between
energy and sports drinks, and confuse the nutritional claims made for sports drinks
with the primarily stimulant-based effects of energy beverages.

Also, before 2010, U.S. poison control centers were not tracking adverse events
related to energy drinks specifically; they monitored only problems arising from
caffeine overdoses. When consumed in high enough amounts over a long enough
period of time, caffeine can cause changes in blood flow and reduce insulin
sensitivity, which affects the body's ability to regulate sugars from food”. Not even
the poison control centers are aware of the caffeine that people are consuming.this
can lead into a horrific tragedy into the population of young adults. Can be
sickness, and maybe even death.

Could there be more ways to explain to the public, more data. Possibly  

make a movie or a commercial, it’s obvious that people don’t know  the harm

they’re doing to their health by consuming these drinks. The energy drinks

marketing is increasing as the years go by. Energy drinks targeting young adults.

They have no clue about the ingredients and their effects. Not even where the

energy drinks are coming from or a brief history. I’m glad there is at least someone

like Dr. Lipshultz doing something about explaining the harm energy drinks have.