Mammoth Blog

There was a time when the world was freaking out over Red Bull. It was banned in several countries on suspicions that it contributed to a few dance floor deaths (by heart attack, not just from the annoying techno music).

Today energy drinks have snaked their way so tightly into our culture that people don't give them a second thought. Well, sometimes we do, like this past month when some Red Bull drinks in Hong Kong were found to contain actual cocaine.

Energy drinks have replaced cigarettes as the illicit drug heavily pushed to our youth by the big pharmacies, which could be ironic. And they can be as expensive, depending on your habit.

It's not just dance floor denizens tossing them back, either. I went into the washroom of one of my practitioner's of medicine and there were a dozen empty cans of Red Bull strewn around in there. Does this guy work on his patients when his heart rate is 150? The coolers at the Blue Canoe are so full of energy drinks that I find it hard to find a small bottle of Coke, which is also an energy drink if you are honest with yourself about what energy drinks really are: liquid stimulants. So is coffee, at least the good kind is, the stuff that still has its natural caffeine. They should not be called Energy Drinks. There are no health benefits. They do nothing for you that a caffeine pill or double espresso couldn't handle. They should be called "Sugary Stimulants" or perhaps "Heart Rate Accelerators."

Some of them are offered as sugar free now, which is an improvement from a health standpoint, I guess, unless you believe that sugar substitutes cause epilepsy or strokes.

The first thing the Government should do is ban people from drinking them before playing high heart rate inducing sports. The second is to regulate advertising. How is it that they can say "Red Bull Gives You Wings," a ridiculous and dangerous claim, when a brewery can't even show people sipping beer on TV, or vaguely imply that drinking might make you happier than you otherwise are. Why the hell else would I drink? Oh yeah, the taste.

And that's another thing. I love the taste of a good cup of coffee, and most colas are reasonably tasty. I really enjoy a good dark rum and Coke with a slice of lime, too. It's fun playing off stimulants and depressants, which many Vodka and Red Bull, Jagerbomb, and "Amp and Beer" drinkers do every weekend. I do it sometimes in order to keep writing late, to stay focused for a good live band, or to watch Saturday Night Live.

I'll take a break from wine, beer and spirits to have a double espresso. But I only drink what tastes great. Meanwhile, most energy drinks taste like cough medicine or worse, and Red Bull is one of the worst culprits. I put out a few questions about energy drinks to a local music internet forum that I suspected was visited by users (and boy was I right!) and I learned a few interesting things. One thing is that they actually taste pretty good, and are not just medicinal sugar bombs. Some of the brands reported to taste good are Amp, Sobe Arush, Rockstar Juiced 80%, Monster Khaos, Rockstar Mocha, Full Throttle and NOS.

It is arguably hypocritical for me to claim coffee is fine while energy drinks are the antichrist, akin to The Hills and the popularity of Twilight as indicators of the downfall of civilization (that already happened, people). I'll accept that I'm the pot calling the kettle black, the grey haired guy yelling at kids to get off his lawn, but one has to look at the usage habits of coffee addicts versus energy drinkers. Sure, coffee in excess can cause cardiovascular problems, but we who use coffee regularly are pretty good at self prescribing. When my heart starts fluttering, I've had too much.

Conversely, there are plenty of studies that show concern about energy drinks, maybe because of the extra stimulating effects of taurine and other natural components that are present in addition to caffeine in some of the drinks.

You can link to the abstracts of these studies from the Red Bull section of Wikipedia (which should always be referenced with caution, as there are often falsehoods put in by hackers and jokesters), but you need to pay to see the full articles.

They cite some at Wikipedia. A 2008 study claimed that one can of sugar free Red Bull temporarily raised the cardiovascular risk in the individuals in the study to a level comparable to that of an individual with established coronary artery disease. Red Bull argues that coffee does the same thing. Another study mentions a case of a Red Bull overdose causing postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome in a young athlete. I'm not sure what that is, but it doesn't sound good.

Even locally, my informal survey elicited some scary responses. Evan Phinney of Saint John said: "I don't drink them because I find they make my heart rate too high. I get all flushed and my heart goes fluttery. Oh, and my sister passed out after drinking one and some booze. Not good." Another reported on her bad experience with energy drinks: "First time I tried them they did nothing; last summer I decided to try again when I was working double shifts. I got the bad shakes and had to kneel on the floor with my head against the counter, then blacked out for a second. Only after half the can! But I was also under anxiety and stress at the time, as well as being exhausted."

Coffee can be as bad, according to Montrealer (via Fredericton) Maggie Estey, who also noted from her trip to China that folks there offer Red Bull instead of water when you are thirsty, "Recently I drank two cups of coffee in half an hour and thought the world was going to end. True story."

The key advice I have here, especially in the summer when people tend to party hardy even more, is to be sensible. Stimulating, heart-rate raising drugs, in whatever form, should be used with caution, especially if you are engaging in aerobic activity or drinking alcohol.

In other words, don't drink too much anything.

http://herenb.canadaeast.com/food/article/695748