ENERGY DRINKS ~ Mega Thread

[egor]

^^Sobe is my first choice if I am not making jaeger bombs with the drink.

 

[Bushdoctah]

Ok here is my beef with energy drinks aka legal tweak. First of all they contain elemental vitamins witch is often toxic to the human body and could potentially be carcinogenic. On top of that these energy drinks contain massive amounts of stimulants, putting pressure on your internal organs ESPECIALLY your heart! Another problem is both the artificial chemical sweeteners, and the high fructose corn syrup used to flavor these drinks. Powerful sweeteners cause a insulin spike in the blood and contribute to such serious disorders such as diabetes, and hypoglycemia. The artificial dye in energy drinks is also unhealthy, puts stress on the kidneys and could be carcinogenic. I would quit drinking that crap, if you need stimulants daily to have energy then you have serious health issues or life stile problems that need looking after. Please take care of yourself and lay off the poison, these energy drinks are often more unhealthy then most of the recreational drugs we take. If you continue to drink them daily you will eventually suffer hypertension. Caffeine related illness kills over 15,000 people a year in the USA! Peace!

 

[Pink1966Floyd]

Still the most widely used legal drug in the world, ied say.

 

[Bauer095]

^ ummm over tobacco, alcohol, and prescription pills? nay sir.

 

[zombiesarepeaceful]

I second Bauer.

 

[Chubba75]

Still the most widely used legal drug in the world, ied say.

No doubt.

^ ummm over tobacco, alcohol, and prescription pills? nay sir.

lol, you got be kidding.

Take into account that alcohol is illegal in a lot of countries, that I've NEVER seen a tobacco smoker that doesn't drink coffee and that prescription pills are way off.

Remember that "Tea" is the most consumed beverage in the entire world, plus energy drinks, coffee, caffeine pills and soft drink/soda.

 

[Bauer095]

I didn't realize we were including all caffinated beverages under the canopy of "energy drinks"

and take it for what you will, but according to wikipedia:

The most commonly used legal intoxicant is alcohol

and

caffeine is the world's most widely consumed psychoactive substance

still though i may have misread the comment--not sure if he was referring to energy drinks or caffeine in general, but there you go.

 

[Chubba75]

The most commonly used legal intoxicant is alcohol

They musn't consider caffeine an "intoxicant" in that example, there is no way in hell this is true.

He said "drug", I just assumed he meant caffeine as I can't really classify energy drinks (the word) as a drug.

 

[Bauer095]

LOL at the warning on the back of my Sobe:

This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease

8)

Dear Sobe,

I think I have AIDS. I drank 3 Adrenaline Rush beverages yet still have not recieved diagnosis. Please offer a full refund. Thanks.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

I'm pretty much addicted to caffeine, have been for as long as I can remember. 600mg a day isn't unusual for me. I don't care what form it comes in, so long as it's liquid. I've personally found that a strong cup of home-brewed iced Maxwell House and a super mega B vitamin has most of the beneficial effects of an energy drink, except the unique touches that taurine and (if present) guarana and yerba mate add to the stimulating effect.

I don't know why, but I've given up Rockstar and No Fear and Monster recently, in favor of only diet Redbull. For some reason Redbull feels and tastes purer and less 'chemicaled up' to me, even though I doubt that's really true.

 

[mulberryman]

<<they contain elemental vitamins witch is often toxic to the human body and could potentially be carcinogenic.>>

I've read something once about this before. I believ it was somewhere along the lines of how all of the allegedly required vitamins and minerals, with a few exceptions, are not required at all, and are really part of a conspiracy created by the FDA and the AMA to sell a bunch of chemicals as multivitamins to people that really just cause cancer so that the hospitals can make bank.

 

[Bauer095]

I'm a true believer now that energy drinks are killing my innards. When I've drank one that day, I get the worst gas and all of my organs seem to be crying out for help

 

[Pink1966Floyd]

Insulfation of Caffeine work fine for me

 

[mulberryman]

Sticking coffee beans up yer bum never hurt anyone either... 8)

 

[mulberryman]

IIRC, For every 100mg of caffeine ypu consume, you need to drink ~500ml of water to remove it. Since regular coffee has about 90mg in half that amount, its safe to assume you should need to drink as much pure water as coffee to keep your renal system healthy, so I'd guess as ong as you drink plenty of water energy drinks shouldn't be too harmful. Of course, too muich water can be bad too, and if your like me and have no access to truly clean water from the tap, the tendency might be to buy an Evian (naive, backwards) with your Monster or Redbull, thus contributing to all the environmental damage and such that causes such things as polluted groundwater. Sadly, its hard not to drink these things, as there just isn't always enough energy within many of us to accomplish everything we need to thrive today. Though at least in my state, we can say we recycle more aluminum cans, and glass and plastic bottles than any other state, and almost any other country, and in fact, here in MI, we recycle more per capita than anywhere else in the world, and Detroit recycles more aluminum than any other city in the world, all this because of a simple 10 cent bottle deposit that doen't even apply to non-carbonated non-alcoholic beverages (i.e. Evian [naive, backwards]). Even with all this though, the groundwater is still nasty...

 

[Miss Peks]

Good for you? Hell no!

I've been drinking one red bull a day for the past 3 or 4 weeks and I've just now I've noticed that I've put on a bit of weight because of it (nothing else in diet has changed recently including alcohol consumption) so I'll have to either go back to having coffee or try the sugar free red bull.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

IIRC, For every 100mg of caffeine ypu consume, you need to drink ~500ml of water to remove it.

Wrong. Caffeine is actually only a middling diuretic, if that's what you're thinking. Secondly, your body's enzymes are constantly working to break down caffeine and excrete its metabolites no matter how hydrated you are.

Evian (naive, backwards)

That's hysterical, dude.

Seriously, most buyers of Evian and other brands of bottled water in the US are pretty naive if they think they're getting something better than what comes out of the tap. Except if they live in certain parts of Michigan, apparently. That's tough.

Coffee and tea are FAR better for you as mild stimulants than energy drinks. They contain loads of antioxidants and chemicals that are thought to have anti-aging and anti-cancer properties. Just don't add anything to them except fat free milk (though black is best if you don't have acid stomach problems), and they're the healthiest thing you can drink besides clean mineral water.

I don't buy the vitamin conspiracy theory, mulberryman, simply because I've noticed marked differences in how energetic and efficient my body's metabolism feels when I'm taking B vitamins, rather than not.

 

[mulberryman]

^^ What is this vitamin conspiracy theory you speak of? I take B6, B12 and niacin, C, and a number of amino acids daily, and they are all quite effective.

 

[e1evene1even]

I used to work a job where energy drinks were ubiquitous (as well as coke and meth to a lesser extent), and of the dozens I've tried, I found 5-Hour Energy to be the best by far. There's no sugar, and limited caffeine, and usually very little crash, just a gradual comedown.

What separates it from the rest in my opinion is the phenylalanine and tyrosine, which your body converts (along with the other co-factors contained in the shot) into dopamine, norepinephrine (noradrenaline), and epinephrine. There is also glucuronolactone in the energy blend, which Red Bull has but most other drinks don't. There is also an enourmous amount of B-12 in the drink (8333% of the RDA), but I believe it is used as a methyl donor along with its more traditionally accepted functions, hence the large dose.

Basically in my opinion, the caffeine in the drink is for an immediate effect, and by the time the caffeine and sugar in a regular red bull type drink is wearing off, the main effects of the drink are kicking in.

Sorry if this sounds like an advertisement, but I've researched quite a bit about nutritional supplements and was waiting for someone to finally clue in and include tyrosine and phenylalanine in an energy drink.

The ingredient list for 5 Hour Energy is here. The smartest formulation yet in my opinion.

If I were to start my own energy drink company, I would basically rip of 5 Hour Energy, include 3-5mg of desoxypipradol, and call it 24 Hour Energy

 

[sonic]

When energy drinks first came out I thought they were dumb because they are so expensive and it's much cheaper to just buy caffeine/guarana pills, B complex pills, ginseng pills, etc and get your energy that way. However, I eventually just got lazy and started drinking energy drinks. They are convenient and some of them taste alright. I like rockstar and sobe no fear because of all the active ingredients they have in them and their taste is definitely tolerable. Of course diet energy drinks are better for you because of the massive amount of sugar in regular energy drinks put there to hide the bitter taste of all the active ingredients.

Energy drinks definitely don't cause cancer. That is a myth. Of course we haven't identified a lot of causes of cancer so anything is possible, but any product that is known to cause cancer would be pulled from the shelves or at least would have a warning label on it (like cigarettes).