Should You Avoid Energy Drinks?
By Randi Morse
Ah, caffeine, the one thing that separates us from the animals. One of the easiest ways to get caffeine into your body quickly is with energy drinks. Energy drinks have become a huge market and it's now easy to find a variety of types of energy drinks in almost every store. Trying to find some energy after a long gym workout? Need a bit of energy to get you through the long meeting you have coming up? No problem! Just drink an energy drink and you'll feel energy flowing through you in no time. But are energy drinks even good for you? Not really. While the makers of energy drinks swear that their products are safe and are made with mainly natural ingredients, you might still want to avoid using them.
Not Regulated
Most companies that produce energy drinks have discovered that if they list their product as a dietary supplement, they will not have to pass their product through the Food and Drug Administration. This means that the company making the energy drink does not need to tell consumers everything that is in the product. Any product that hasn't been through the FDA's strict protocol is not required to have all the ingredients listed. This may mean that you're drinking more caffeine than you thought you were, or that you're drinking ingredients you're allergic to.
Your Heart and Caffeine
You may love caffeine, but does caffeine love your heart? Caffeine is one of the biggest ingredients in almost every energy drink. In fact, in a 250 ml can of energy drink you are likely to find as much as 300 milligrams of caffeine. It's often much easier to drink several energy drinks a day than it is to drink tons of coffee every day. This may be because the energy drinks are cold and feel more refreshing. If you drink too many energy drinks, you then increase the chance of developing a cardiovascular disease due to exceeding the recommended daily allowance of caffeine.
Too Much Sugar
You know that your energy drink likely has tons of caffeine it, but did you know that it also has a great deal of sugar in it as well? To make energy drinks taste good, companies must put a lot of sugar into the drink in order to make it palatable. So while you may feel a rush of energy for a while, you will likely experience a pretty big crash a few hours later due to dropping blood sugar levels.
Energy drinks are a shortcut to get a burst of energy, and in some situations, they can be recommended. For daily use, however, it's a good idea to find something else to help increase your energy. Save the energy drinks for emergency situations.
To learn more about your health, wellness and fitness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic in Rockford, Ill.