The Sandspur

Issue date: 9/24/07 Section: Life & Times

Whether it be a long night studying or just not feeling up to par, college students choose to drink energy drinks to get full energy before the start of classes.

There are many different energy drinks that contain large doses of caffeine. Some of the most popular drinks are Red Bull, Full Throttle, Tab and Rockstar.

Energy drinks contain as much as 80 mg of caffeine, that according Brown University that is equivalent of a cup of coffee.

These drinks are especially recommended for people under the age of thirty. These drinks
can be extremely powerful and should be enjoyed responsibly, they can boost the heart rate and blood pressure, dehydrate the body and, just like other energy components, they may cause insomnia.

A number of college students like to exercise for refreshment and they may drink
energy drinks right before going to the gym, but in reality this is detrimental.

According to Health Education at Brown University the combination of fluid loss from sweating and the quality of the caffeine can leave the person using it dangerously dehydrated. This is not to scare
people from drinking them because they're not all bad but they should not be consumed
regularly. When you hear that they improve performance and concentration that can be misleading.

Just as a safety note for college students, energy drinks are stimulants and alcohol is a depressant the combination of the two of
them can be highly dangerous.

According to Liz Applegate, a sports nutritionist at the University of California of Davis, energy drinks do contain vitamins
and amino acids, but they are nothing more than caffeine in a can with a lot of sugar. These drinks raise a lot of concerns for nutritionists and doctors, mostly because
of the dehydration factors.

According to The Medical Review board, water is an issue because caffeine, like alcohol, is a diuretic that promotes fluid loss.
Energy drinks have been compared on many instances to having the same effects as when
drinking soda.

Another problem with energy drinks is that they are drunk in large amounts at a time, unlike coffee, which is sipped slowly and has time to process in the body. Some people that drink energy drinks may be sensitive to caffeine and this may have effects such as anxiety, palpitations, irritability, and insomnia.

Sugar is a quick form of energy so the companies who make these drinks just add a lot of sugar to make their products more reliable and keep them selling. Some vitamins are added to the drinks to make it
appear healthy but they have very little it probably has no real effects.

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