Energy Drinks

Energy drinks have become extremely popular with students.  The question has always been, are they safe?

Well, millions of cans have been sold and there is little documentation of health related issues.

A new study by Leah Steinke and colleagues in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy, however, has raised some concerns about the effect of energy drinks on the cardiovascular system.  

In this study fifteen people were given two energy drinks each day (100mg taurine and 100mg caffeine) for seven days.  Their blood pressure, heart rate and electrocardiographic (ECG) characteristics were measured prior to the study and then on Day1 and Day 7 over a few hours following consumption of the energy drinks.

Steinke and colleagues found that while there were no statistically significant affects associated with the ECG characteristics, the same could not be said for heart rate or blood pressure.  Heart rate was up 11% on Day 7 and blood pressure also increased.  Systolic pressure(i.e., the 'high' number in a blood pressure reading) was up 9.6% and the diastolic pressure (i.e., the 'low' number in a blood pressure reading) was up 7.8%.

Is this concerning?  Probably not for young healthy adults, however, for those with underlying but undiagnosed heart problems or high blood pressure, this could be very concerning. Especially with long term consumption.  These products clearly push the cardiovascular system in a direction that is unhealthy.

Caveat: this study was small (15 people) and the baseline health data was taken only immediately prior to the study.  Longer monitoring of the baseline data would help to determine just how much variability was natural for this small group.

Photo Credit: Grendelkhan, Wikipedia commons.

Research citation: Steinke L, et al. 2009. Effect of "Energy Drink" consumption on hemodynamic and electrocardiographic parameters in healthy young adults.  Annals of Pharmacotherapy 43(4): 596-602.