Dubious research tied to Red Bull has shaped energy drink policy

You're describing caffeine addiction. This also happens with coffee.

People at the office sometimes ask me how I manage to get up in the morning and be in a good mood without having a cup of coffee. I suspect that most of them are only in a bad mood after waking up because they have mild caffeine widthrawal.

Feeling miserable for three days seems ... unlikely after 800mg/day of caffeine. I say that to mean, it should be much longer (been there, done that, took many months) Caffeine use especially at that level massively grows the amount adenosine receptors your brain has, and they don't just disappear overnight.

A 500ml Diet Coke (assuming you don't mean the caffeine free version) also contains about 65 mg of caffeine, which is the same as an espresso. I'm not sure if you really quit. Caffeine is also in a surprisingly large amount of soft drinks you wouldn't expect.

coke etc will destroy your teeth, if not cleaned off regularly.

( don't "ask me how i know" ! )

I swore off energy drinks in high school after someone brought a case of them on the bus to a football game and I drank one and got horrible diarrhea and had to shit in the woods at halftime.

I mean, you could say the same thing about coffee.

Whenever I stumble upon articles such as this one, I always just mentally swap the words energy drink with "two coffees and a multivitamin" (or even "one coffee and a multivitamin" if we're talking about a Red Bull) and then the whole article just seems silly.

To me the surprising thing is how much sugar people are willing to drink, but I think the same thing when my friend drinks Coca Cola.

I am with you here, especially given that the examples listed in the article were basically:

* Some young man downed 6 beers and "several" energy drinks, then dove into a lake, and subsequently died. His mother said that he grew up near a lake and a was a good swimmer, so their conclusion was to blame energy drinks.

* An 18 year old woman downed 10 jagerbombs (a mix of jagermeister liquor and an energy drink) and subsequently had multiple cardiac arrests. The conclusion, again, was that it happened due to some unique properties of energy drinks, and not the fact that she consumed an equivalent of 10 energy drinks+10 shots of hard liquor in a short timespan. Too much of almost anything is bad, and I have no idea what other outcome was expected here after consuming crazy amounts of liquor and caffeine like this.

* A 17 year old man died from alcohol poisoning after mixing alcohol and energy drinks (unspecified amounts of each), and that's somehow the fault of energy drinks instead of alcohol.

I am just baffled that they couldn't find more convincing examples, given how they claimed it was such a serious and prevalent issue.

Monster has roughly the same amount of caffeine per volume as black coffee but their standard size is 16oz which is a huge cup of undiluted coffee.

A can of Monster is actually closer to two typical cups of coffee (usually a bit under 100mg vs 160mg). Though that doesn't change the point being made; nobody would blink at "I drink two cups of coffee most mornings". The various B vitamins also help avoid the jitters that caffeine can cause.

It depends on the drink, but there's often a lot more than those ingredients. The caffeine, while the same as what's in coffee per ml, you are looking at 600ml at a minimum for most of these drinks meaning you 2 cups of coffee for every serving.

>> then you look at the ingredients list and it's like >> - Water - Sugar - Vitamin B - Caffeine

I'm drinking a sugar-free Monster at the moment. The list is way longer than that. It also contains citric acid, erythritol, taurine, sodium citrate, natural & artificial flavors, L-carnitine L-tartrate, sucralose, sorbic acid, benzoic acid, ester gum, acesulfame potassium, inositol.

I could believe the UK might try to ban selling coffee to under 21s too at the current rate, honestly. There's probably at least one study about stunting growth with coffee?

Well, are either of those sold in cans and marketed to children?

My understanding is that part of the problem with mixing caffine with alcohol is that it can prevent someone from passing out; which is the body's defense mechanism against alcohol poisoning.

From that perspective I think that an argument could be made that restricting caffinated alcohol is regulating substances with known health risks.

Full disclosure: I like vodka Redbulls. So I'm not saying this like I'm someone who is moral panicking.

Vodka Red Bull always seemed crazy to me. Caffeine lasts like 6 hours so I drink one at 2 am, what the hell am I doing! Granted people do cocaine so maybe it’s inconsequential.

Drinking some coffee at 6 and 10 though before a night out, good move. Where I am, the nights can go to 4 or 6 easily.

long live 4 loco

Different than coffee?

I use on-the-go packets of energy drink powder that I drop into a small plastic bag when I travel. This allows me to have access to tasty caffeine anywhere I have water because I bring a bottle. Coffee does not offer the convenience or portability that energy drinks do.

I suppose I could bring instant coffee and drink it at room temperature or cold, but that seems sub-optimal.

I used to just carry caffeine pills with me, but people thought I was some kind of drug addict.

>Please ... don't just write "it tastes good" ... no it don't.

taste is subjective. i dont drink them often, but i enjoy a can of original green monster occasionally because i find it tastes good.

You can't ask someone why they like something more while just denying the most common, subjective reason. I don't like coffee because in my opinion it does not taste good. A peach red bull tastes just better in my opinion. Also, two things can taste good for a person at the same time. I like my energy drink which is easily accessible in my fridge but when I am out and a bout a fresh strawberry, banana or any other fresh fruit is of course better.

Speak for yourself, I love the taste of taurine. Plus there's something strangely satisfying about the taste of a standard diet Red Bull. There's no attempt at natural flavoring there: you can rightly tell God had no part in making it.

But besides that, energy drinks are an easy consistent way of getting exact amounts of caffeine. I drink pre-workout before gym days for that exact reason since it's a lot easy to get 200mg of caffine via one cold 10oz drink than trying to brew and chug two hot coffees at 8am.

Plus occasionally there's non caffeinated benefits; the Monster Rehab line really does seem to help in the morning after a night of hard drinking.

I drink Celsius. Not every day, but here and there. Also coffee.

So, a real answer instead of "it doesn't"

- It doesn't taste like coffee. Relatively flavorful, but obviously a bit on the artificial side

- I drink a Celsius when I am targeting minimal stomach disruption (e.g. before a run or before intensive cardio)

- I drink a Celsius when I don't want to wait for the coffee-maker during early morning hours.

- I drink Celsius if I run out of creamer (for coffee), something I don't need anyways but I like.

- Cold brew is acceptable substitute if I don't have a Celsius.

- Normal brewed coffee otherwise.

red bull doesn't taste great personally but most flavors of monster actually do to me. and they're less bitter than coffee and carbonated, which is nice.

Coffee gives me heartburn and acid reflux.

Energy drinks don’t.

Tea does fuck all for me caffeine wise unless I drink a full ass thermos of it. Mate kinda works but drinking it is a performance and a process.

> Please ... don't just write "it tastes good" ... no it don't.

How do you not know that different things taste good to different people?

Because I dislike the taste of coffee and people look at you weirdly when you pull out a 1 kg bag of caffeine and a portable precision scale.

I drink both coffee (no sweetener) and Monster Ultra, because I like both. Although I prefer coffee.

I drink, sugar-free Red Bull and monster ultra.

They are consistent. They are cold. They are fast.

There is none of the variation that you have in a single cup of coffee.

The preparation process is pulling a tab. No French press, no aero press, no coffee maker, scale, grinder, bags.

They don’t warm me up, I don’t have to cool them down.

I can carry them with me and drink them when I feel like drinking them without needing to worry about them leaking.

They don’t stain clothes. Or teeth (but they do eat them)

They lack the biological enzyme that coffee has that causes you to rush to the toilet. Any bowel effect is purely from the caffeine and not the passengers that come along in coffee.

I like the colors and designs.

I don’t have to feel like I’m participating in massive Third World exploitation to enjoy caffeine.

Black coffee tastes bad, so it requires milk and sugar, but I like to avoid drinking my calories.

The powdered fast stuff taste like shit.

You never know what beans public places are using and if you’re even getting enough caffeine for your needs.

<jk> Coffee doesn’t give you wings. </jk>

I asked a coworker who gave a few reasons. It's easier/cheaper to buy in bulk. He gets them by the case. He also like sweet flavors more than bitter flavors.

Because they taste better than bitter dirt water.

can you point me to any research?

What health effects compared to other caffeine sources (pills, coffee)

I haven't really noticed any, or heard much studies that wouldn't apply to similar amounts of coffee at least. Do the other supplemented ingredients add a lot of harm?

> The best case is it does no harm.

No it’s not. The best case it gives you energy (it’s in the name!) to do whatever you want and it does no harm.

Assuming it actually does no harm, why wouldn’t you want more energy any time you want it, any time you drink some delicious fizzy neon green liquid?

I’m saying this as someone who doesn’t drink energy drink (because I assume and feel that it actually causes harm, not because I couldn’t use some extra boost in energy sometimes).

>The best case is it does no harm.

Isn't it pretty obvious that people drink them for... energy?

The problem with rational decisionmaking is there are vast areas where only irrational opinions are acceptable. Try the same line of logical reasoning for vaccines, low fat high carb diets, statins, uncontrolled immigration, various economic policies, and let us know how long until you get wrongthink attacks. There are vast irrational areas of discussion where even the faintest hint of rationality is double plus ungood.

People can make up their own minds as to whether they are willing to take the risks, but first they must be given accurate information. It is important to know if the studies that say something is safe has been funded by the industries that profit from it.

It sure is our business if companies are misappropriating science to sell harmful products or advertize harmful misuse of their products.