Ksa, just stop talking.. you're spreading fearmongering here...
It's like when they add phenylalanine in chewing gum.
Whoopsy! Better hoipe you don't digest any protiens, ever, because
phenylalanine is an essential amino acid that your body cannot produce on its own and needs to be acquired from other food or dietary sources. I have yet to see anyone get cancer from having a balanced protien intake, or even consuming an excess of any one amino acid. Aspartame has never been proven to cause any of the hoom hah popularly associated with it like brain death, paralysis, whole-body metastatic cancers, strokes, et cetera.
There's less than 100mg of phenylalanine in a dose of aspartame sweetener anyway. The average Bluelighter probably consumes more than that in a turkey and cheese sandwich.
First reason is that it has a very strong acid called phosphoric acid. It's a triacid, yes, 3 protons, your stomach acid only has 1 proton. So PA gives 1 proton in stomach, 1 proton in intestines and later on. 3 protons. Very useful to digest the junk food and crap they serve you in America. Without Cola, the Americans would be dead, given the junk they eat every day.
Hydrochloric acid is what chemists like to call a strong acid. It dissociates completely to H+ (hydrogen ion) and Cl- (chloride) in slution.
Phosphoric acid is not a strong acid. It is a "weak acid" because it doesn't give up its protons very eaily in comparison to the mineral acids.
[orthophosphoric acid has] pKa1=2.12, pKa2=7.21, and pKa3=12.67 values at 25 °C. Even though all three hydrogen (H) atoms are equivalent on an orthophosphoric acid molecule, the successive Ka values differ since it is energetically less favorable to lose another H+ if one (or more) has already been lost and the molecule/ion is more negatively-charged.
One can use the pKa value of a weak acid to guesstimate the concentration of a solution given its molarity. For reference, a 0.1m solution of hydrochloric acid would have a pH of 1. (very acidic). The same concentration of phosphoric acid would have a pH of roughly 2-3. - 100 to 1000 times less strong, even though it has 3 protons to donate.
Moreover, digeastion is not driven solely by acid. Adding more acid in your diet won't help you digest Big Macs any better and may actually contribute to heartburn.
The basic premise of an energy drink is not far from other "natural product" beverages and modified colas. Sugar, water, caffeine, acidifying agents, minerals/vitamins/supplements, and flavours. Every compound that goes in them has to be FDA approved or GRAS.
Name one major food product that the FDA has found to be unsafe for consumption. I bet you can't.