Energy drinks dangerous when consumed to excess

Slopestyle mountain bikers effortlessly flying through the air, skiers back-flipping spans of impossible height, and bikini-clad women holding blue and chrome checked cans aren’t the only reality of energy drinks these days: serious illness and death may be lurking inside the cans that claim to give us wings.

Sugar laden energy drinks are a staple in convenience store coolers across university campuses, and it isn’t uncommon to see at least a few students accompanied by the loud, colorful cans in the library. Often chosen as an alternative to coffee, the sweet, crisp beverages students turn to when their eyelids start to get heavy contain more than 10 per cent of our daily-recommended intake of sugar, and almost no additional nutritional value — something experts say can be a cause for concern.

“They’re empty calories, in terms of there’s not a lot of other nutrients that are being provided with those calories,” Adele Gagnon, Registered Dietician and Nutrition Research Coordinator with the Clinical Research Unit at the University of Alberta, said.

The content of sugar in many energy drinks is comparable to that of soft drinks such as Coca-Cola or Pepsi, she added.

Lena Lupari, a 26-year-old mother-of-three made British headlines over the summer after losing her vision which she says is due to consuming an obscene amount of Red Bull. Lupari was drinking, on average, 28 cans daily, which provided her with about 3,000 calories, all from added sugar. At the time of her hospital visit, Lupari weighed about 360 pounds. The cause for her blindness was determined to be Idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH), a condition in which pressure inside the skull exceeds normal levels. This pressure threatens (amongst other things) the optic nerve, which relays information from the eyes to the brain. IIH is commonly found in women of Lupari’s age who are obese.

Though Lupari’s case is something of an extreme, and can be attributed to poor lifestyle choices, sugar is not the only potentially dangerous ingredient of energy drinks. Caffeine, the psychoactive stimulant that is responsible for the temporary wakefulness felt from energy drinks, has been linked to, though not proven responsible for, lethal conditions.

Around the same time as Lupari was feeling the effects of a swollen brain, a trial in the 2011 death of American 14-year-old Alais Fournier was beginning, this time linked to Monster Energy. Fournier had reportedly consumed two 710 mL cans of the beverage, and subsequently died of “acute caffeine toxicity,” something Monster is contesting. It has been reported that Fournier suffered from a heart condition as well.

This isn’t the first time an energy drink has been named relation to the death or illness of an individual. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States keeps a database of incidents potentially related to the consumption of caffeinated energy drinks. Caffeinated energy drinks have been implicated in 17 deaths, and 74 other serious conditions according to the database.

All of these incidents aside, the consumption of caffeinated energy drinks is not something to necessarily be afraid of, but mindfulness and moderation can play a key role in staying healthy.

Heidi Bates, Registered Dietitian and the Director of the University of Alberta Integrated Dietetic Internship, who has instructed at the U of A for nearly 15 years, said that if you find yourself taking in more and more energy drinks on a consistent basis, perhaps some lifestyle “renovation” is needed.

“Take some time and look at how you might organize things differently,” Bates said. “[Energy drinks] are not designed to be a replacement for basic, good, healthy living, which would include healthy eating, physical activity, and adequate amounts of sleep.”