Energy Drinks Get You Going: To The Emergency Room

Carl Lowe | Jan 18, 2013 | Comments 0

The food industry has done it again, inventing a whole new category of “food” that helps to trash our health: energy drinks. Overdosing on these concoctions and combining them with alcohol can lead to irregular heartbeat, heart attacks, headaches, rising anxiety and insomnia.

According to a government survey, people going to emergency rooms because of the after-effects of energy drinks doubled between 2007 and 2011, up from about 7,000 visits to more than 14,000. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration also notes that most of these patients are young adults or teenagers.

The report also characterizes our thirst for these beverages “a rising public health problem.” Previously, Australian researcher Amy Peacock had concludedthat energy drinks mixed with alcohol  can lead to “side-effects related to over-stimulation, including heart palpitations, increased speech speed, sleeping difficulties, agitation and tremors, jolt and crash episodes, and irritability and tension.”