Energy Drinks Raise Blood Pressure, Study Finds
Energy Drinks Raise Blood Pressure, Study Finds – Energy drinks might give you some pep — but they might also be priming you for heart problems, a new study finds.
Researchers found that energy drinks can raise blood pressure to potentially unhealthy levels. The effect was far more prominent in young adults who did not consume caffeine regularly, according to the study, presented March 14 at an American College of Cardiology meeting in San Diego.
In this study, the research team — led by Dr. Anna Svatikova, a cardiovascular-diseases fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota — gave a can of a commercially available energy drink to 25 healthy volunteers, whose ages ranged from 19 to 40.
According to findings, the participants experienced a more marked rise in blood pressure after consuming the energy drink than after drinking the placebo. Energy drinks have high levels of caffeine as well as taurine, and both these ingredients have been shown to increase blood pressure.
Previous studies have associated the consumption of energy drinks with poor memory and learning, anxiety, hallucinations, abnormal heart rhythm, substance abuse, and risk-taking behaviors.
A study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2011 found that children, in particular, are at high risk of cardiac abnormalities from consuming energy drinks because of their smaller body size.
Category: News Videos, Videos
