Why Consuming Energy Drinks Can Impact Health

The society of United States has become one that demands immediate fulfillment and indulgence. They anticipate outcomes straightaway and nothing that comes their way is sufficiently promising enough. It’s currently a culture that devotes themselves to a variety of substances such as stimulants, stress meds, and aspirins, to get by on a day-to-day basis. The present culture has embraced an enhanced lifestyle through such substances, and this embracement is most evident in the high amount of consumption of non-alcoholic energy drinks. The myriad of energy drinks that are available within the market assures their consumers that they will get wings, they will surpass their hangover or fatigue, or gain super athletic powers, but they never reveal the dangers that come along with consumption of energy drinks. However, because health concerns persist on being a substantial problem within society, consumers should refrain from depending on energy drinks when they feel in need of energy.

The increased consumption of energy drinks has been also associated with an increased number of emergency visits regarding energy drinks within hospitals. “The researchers state that the health risks associated with energy drink consumption are primarily related to their caffeine content” (“Warning issued over energy drinks”, 2014). Consuming excessive amounts of caffeine is related with health problems such as heart disease, cardiac arrest, irregularity in heart beats and heart flow, among many others. While many used to hear that daily drinking of coffee is bad for one’s health, it’s shocking to be a part of a society that promotes daily drinking of a beverage that has harmful amounts of caffeine and sugar within it. However, the worst thing within an energy drink isn’t the caffeine. Rather, it’s the variety of additives and stimulants that are added to energy drinks at unknown amounts.

From taurine to ginseng to guarana, there’s an entire range of additives energy drinks utilize that have their own caffeine content. What poses a risk to society is that “because caffeine is not a nutrient, when added to food, it must only be listed as an ingredient” (“Energy Drinks Fact Sheet”, n.d.). Thus, FDA, by not regulating caffeine as an ingredient that specifies its content within a drink, is paving a pathway for energy drink companies to take advantage of the situation of people not knowing what they’re consuming. It’s ultimately up to people to know what they’re putting into their body, and it’s ultimately for their own health that they should refrain from consuming energy drinks.