how bad are energy drinks? i get sugar free or low carb

[aliensarecool]

all i see that's bad is maybe caffeine. the rest is just water and vitamins.

 

[TurelGrigori]

The food colorings could be bad for some people. Some energy drinks use sodium benzoate as a preservative. SB has mounting evidence against it for a number of problems.

I suspect that extremely few people suffer any serious ill-effects from occasionally using energy drinks. Anything that moves from occasional use to being a staple of one's diet requires more scrutiny. If you find that you are upside down, scurrying around on your ceiling, mumbling things to yourself you might have had a few to many.

An interesting thing is taurine is listed as a GABA agonist. It might be that energy drinks are buffered caffeine. A difficulty in discussing energy drinks is that their formulas have diverged from the original 'Red Bull' formula quite a bit. If you are taking prescriptions or recreational drugs you would probably want to know the cyp450 implications of the ever increasing kinds of ingredients in the energy drink you are taking with any drugs.

 

[CHiLD-0F-THE-BEAT]

Have you thought of using the Search Engine OP?

There are lots of threads on similar questions like this one, this one and this one. There may be more, I think that paints the picture though.

The general consensus is that anything in moderation is a-OK - including energy drinks and artificial sweeteners. Excessive use of either can however have some seriously detrimental effects on your health.

How regularly do you drink these sugar free energy drinks?

 

[Renz Envy]

Energy drinks really are not all that bad IMO. They're loaded with things like B-vitamins and Taurine

 

[Darksidesam]

They arent very kind to your Teeth either.
Use them as 'Tools'

 

[LOGan1314]

see, you already got the idea...sugar free or low carb they are KINDA ok....but the food coloring or even the sweetners (ASPARTAME is DEATH) can be bad...otherwise they are basically caffeine and vitamins.

 

[LOGan1314]

Probably better off railing speed

do you never drink caffeine in reasonable doses (60-120mg?)

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

see, you already got the idea...sugar free or low carb they are KINDA ok....but the food coloring or even the sweetners (ASPARTAME is DEATH) can be bad...otherwise they are basically caffeine and vitamins.

By this, I would say just go out and buy some No-Doz or Vivarin or generic caffeine 100mg or 200mg caffeine tablets and vitamins.

 

[LOGan1314]

^^Yeah thats what i do i drink green or black tea and supplement the other vitamins (as well as eat alot of fruits and veggies)

 

[rm-rf]

note: the "general consensus" is usually manufactured by the sort of economic elites that would love for you to slightly harm yourself every day for profit

your body makes its own energy. instead of relying on artificial stimulation, balance of diet, exercise, and rest should produce sufficient energy for any daily activity.

adding artificial stimulation does harm the body in a variety of insidious ways, most of which you wont feel the effects of for about 10-20 years. the very principle that one is expending energy stores one doesnt have should be fair warning. there is a cost to breaking down and removing caffeine and its metabolites from the body, it is not a "nutrient" the body uses for food. there is a cost to removing the inert chemicals leftover from the manufacture and processing of the product itself. there is most certainly a cost to sending biochemical signals to the brain that sugar is entering the digestive system, when no glucose or other simple sugar is present. there is a huge cost in processing the artificial vitamins and removing their toxic byproducts without killing other cells in the body (Dont try and tell me cyanocobalamin or niacinimide is good for anyone). Also, artificial vitamins have some level of chemical residues leftover from their manufacture. Many of the sweetening agents in "energy drinks" are known neurotoxins. The chemicals used to give it a "pretty color" so your childlike, trivially minded, naive consumer will be attracted to it, are known carcinogens.

Drinking one once in your lifetime wont kill you. Including them as a regular part of your lifestyle will harm you slowly over time. Toxicity aside, vitality is sacrificed when chemical stimulation is envoked. You will age faster.

to say that a substance like aspartame is absolutely harmless is the sort of newsspeak manufactured by chemlabs seeking profits and plenty of obedient sheep to consume their products, not by health practitioners who have the supreme goal of human health as a primary concern.

 

[Darksidesam]

I just don't understand why dont just use either Sugar or Stevia in everything and completely ditch the other sweeteners.

 

[rm-rf]

Better question still, why this all-of-the-sudden-for-the-first-time-in-the-history-of-the-species need for sweetness, period?

Has anyone ever stopped to wonder if theyre being manipulated by their food products?

 

[addictivepersona]

I just don't understand why dont just use either Sugar or Stevia in everything and completely ditch the other sweeteners.

Sugar adds calories and carbohydrates. The "devil" for most people. 8)

 

[malakaix]

I can't drink them, but then i really don't like caffeine in general.

It's interesting how 10-15 years ago people seemed to function just fine when the popularity of energy drinks was low/virtually non-existent. Now i know many people who are absolutely dependent on them just to get through a day of work; i suppose for some they've replaced the regular coffee 'o clock. But have you seen the cans they come in, there massive! Which usually has twice the amount of caffeine but for some people consumed at the same rate.. maybe more. I think in moderation there would be little long-term problems.. but excessive use, i could see it.

 

[delta_9]

Better question still, why this all-of-the-sudden-for-the-first-time-in-the-history-of-the-species need for sweetness, period?

We do "need" sweetness. Or rather I should say we need the ability to sense sweetness via our taste buds. Without this, early man would have had a harder time finding the calories necessary to survive.

 

[modern buddha]

Energy drinks are pointless. If you need extra calories or energy, a balanced diet, exercise and potentially a fruit smoothie every so often does wonders.

 

[Shimmer.Fade]

Have a delicious coffee with a bit of milk instead...hard to beat one in the morning.

 

[moonyham]

redbull to me is probably the least worst and the only one i consume. Regular not sugar free. I think all sugar free stuff is pretty much poison.

 

[euphoria]

try yerba mate instead!

 

[rm-rf]

We do "need" sweetness. Or rather I should say we need the ability to sense sweetness via our taste buds. Without this, early man would have had a harder time finding the calories necessary to survive.

did ya just take that at face value, or are you just that well programmed? or are you being clever and pointing out the violent manipulation of the subconscious with which corporations have taken hold of our consumption patterns?

what did people do before industrialism for food? get lost trying to locate energy sources as they werent insidiously and inexorably laden with sugar?

the point im making is that people nowadays are programmed to only respond positively to food products that deceive the tongue into perceiving large quantities of sugar, fats, or both. go into a nutritional supplement store and compare the quantity of protein supplements with added sweeteners to those that dont - cuz were all marketed to like a pile of undisciplined 5 year olds and cant fathom consuming something that isnt designed for a child.

this sort of marketing deception and manipulation makes it extremely difficult for those of us who give a shit about our digestive systems to buy groceries, etc. we have to sift through 95% of the products in a store until we find something that doesnt send an array of incorrect electro chemical signals to our body on contact with the tongue. due to the blind obedience of the average western consumer, even "health" products are rarely actually healthy. at the other end of the spectrum lies beverages - every time i enter a store i see nothing but hundreds of cans of different artificially colored liquids containing toxic chemical sweeteners, corn syrup, or both, and a couple of semi reasonable drinks pushed off to the side (That are still processed to hell and almost nutritionally useless anyways).

you believe you are consuming diversity and all you have is the same fake ass (toxic) crap with different labels on it.

or you could just rationalize it as a natural phenomenon and go on consuming like a good little asset...

Energy drinks are pointless. If you need extra calories or energy, a balanced diet, exercise and potentially a fruit smoothie every so often does wonders.

I wouldn't use them at all. If you want energy, eat well and get work on your stamina. Instead of eating artificial sugars get some fruit into your system.