It seems like an oxymoron at first. Energy drinks are usually laced with artificially produced caffeine, High Fructose Corn Syrup, synthetic Taurine (ref: Dangers of Taurine with Caffeine) and of course, for marketing effect artificially produced vitamins. How can any of this be good for you. It isn’t.
Many of today’s 18-30 year olds consume energy drink daily. Some are starting to suffer from skin, liver, pancreas or digestive tract problems. This is besides the effect these chemical cocktails can have on one’s heart (increased and irregular heartbeats) or skin (dehydration).
This generation may be more educated and savvy, but they are growing up with an addiction not dissimilar to our parent’s caffeine addiction. Unfortunately, this energy drink addiction is much more dangerous. Compound this with hours spent on the web or gaming, instead of getting outdoors exercise and fresh air, and the problem becomes worse. It has increased the incidence of diabetes and other diet-related diseases.
Why should we worry about this new breed of stimulants? One could say that a cup or two of coffee every day has never caused serious health effects. This is because coffee gets its buzz from natural coffee beans. Not from the chemical laboratories that produce synthetic caffeine.
Like most natural substances, the caffeine in the coffee beans cannot easily be separated as a distinct molecular structure. It comes with many other elements, including fibrous membranes, which actually reduce the speed of absorption of the active caffeine.
With these newly concocted energy drinks, the caffeine is produced in sleek factories, usually in Europe or Southeast Asia. This synthetic caffeine is definitely much better than natural caffeine in one regard: it is much more potent. All of the organic substances that come with the coffee or Guarana or tea do not exist with factory produced caffeine. Artificial caffeine is also less expensive to make than natural caffeine, another great thing for the large corporations that make it. Unfortunately for consumers, this highly potent and toxic caffeine is absorbed into our body as soon as it hits the digestive system.
Natural caffeine, on the other hand, is more gradually absorbed into the body. It is also less potent and therefore less toxic than artificial caffeine. There are two distinct advantages that come from a more natural stimulant (whether it be tea, coffee or Guarana). The first is that the period of heightened alertness will be longer. Instead of the huge instantaneous rush you get from energy drinks and then the commensurate crash an hour later, you get a sustained feeling of alertness for a few hours and the effect tends to wear off just as gradually.
Advantage #2 has to do with the jitters. Concentrated exposure to potent artificial caffeine tends to over saturate one’s nervous system. If overexposure is repeated, nervous system goes haywire. Nature’s way of saying: Enough! Hands shake, nervous tics develop; our body shows the same signs as it would under sustained stress and anxiety. Not a good thing.
With guaranine or tea or natural coffee beans, our circulatory and elimination systems can easily eliminate the excess quantities of caffeine without taxing the nervous system. The additional organic matters buffer and slow down the absorption enough so that the body and deal with the toxicity. But even with natural stimulants, they must be used carefully and not in excessive amounts. It is best to stick with one portion a day of coffee or one 12 oz can of an organic energy drink or a serving of warm or cold tea.
Organic coffee doesn’t have any of the artificial additives found in industrial agricultural operations. Whole Foods Markets has many of these types of coffees.
Two energy drinks that I recommend are GURU Energy Drinks from Canada and Syzmo from the US. They are both organic, come with exclusively natural caffeine from Guarana and/or coffee. The big plus for GURU is their taste (tastes great) and the fact it doesn’t have a random cocktail of added vitamins. Syzmo is excellent quality but much more expensive, and the taste needs getting used to. One of the GURU products is sweetened with Stevia (GURU Lite), which is an added bonus (see my post on Benefits of Stevia: (ref: Stevia wins over Chemicals).
In the world of teas; cold, naturally brewed beverages provide both anti-oxidants and natural caffeine. A brand I recommend highly is ITOEN, from Japan. They have some unsweetened products with a unique taste that grows on you after a while. Teas Teas
