Energy Drinks

History and background of energy drinks

The timeline of how energy drinks were established and who the founders were that brought energy drinks across the globe. According to the Article “The History of Energy Drinks” (2018), mentioned and showed a timeline of events.

In 1960, the first energy drink was established in Japan as a medicinal tonic drink from a Pharmaceutical company of Taisho. A medicinal tonic drink is referred as a medicinal drink. It contains a mixture of essential vitamins, taurine, and niacin, which can boost your energy and water concentration (“The History of Energy Drinks,” 2018).

In 1987, Red Bull was created by an Austrian man named Dietrich Mateschitz. He is known to be a billionaire businessman who added caffeine and sugar to the drink. Later, Red Bull was introduced in America being the top selling product on the market. Between the years of 2005 – 2006, there was a two billion dollar increase of energy drinks sold globally (“The History of Energy Drinks,” 2018).

As the years went by, the market was doing fairly good. Unfortunately, in 2012, 13 deaths were reported from using 5 hour energy drinks (“The History of Energy Drinks,” 2018).
Lastly, in 2013, Washington State banned energy drinks for those who were under the age of 18 (“The History of Energy Drinks,” 2018).

Asking the audience, does anyone know what an energy drink is?

According to Karrie Heneman, PhD (Project Scientist) and Sheri Zidenberg-Cherr, PhD (Cooperative Extension) who are a Nutrition Science Specialist in the Department of Nutrition and went to the University of Davis (2007), they defined energy drinks as a “beverage that contains caffeine and other ingredients, such as taurine, guarana, and vitamin B to provide its consumers an extra energy.”

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What does energy drinks consist of?

As I previously mentioned that energy drinks contain caffeine, sugar, vitamin B, amino acids, taurine, and guarana (Wong, 2018). Taurine is an amino acid that metabolize fats (dictionary.com, 2018). Guarana is a Brazilian seed that have the worse side effects than coffee (Barron, 2017).

Ask the audience, can anyone name the four most common types of energy drinks?

As of today, there are a lot of energy drinks on the market industry. According to Cathy Wong, postdoc at UC Berkeley (2018), she talked about how the U.S. has sold over $12.5 billion energy drinks and how the market is targeting people between the ages of 18 – 30. However, the most common ones that people see in ads, commercial, and stores are:

• Red Bull = It contains of water, sugar, and caffeine. Red Bull was developed to keep truck drivers and factory workers awake, but now everyone is using it to keep themselves awake (Bell, 2015).
• Monster = It contains high amounts of caffeine and gives a powerful buzz of energy to the body. There are over 34 different types of monster drinks and people don’t really know the flavor of them. All they know is that there is less sweet and has a lighter taste (Gill, 2017).
• 5 Hour Energy Drink Shot = It contains vitamin B, caffeine. There is no sugar and calories added. It is presented in a small container that gives you a boost of energy (Hanes, 2017).
• Rockstar = It gives energy but then leads to multiple types of health condition, such as increasing blood pressure, gaining weight, and difficulty sleeping (Corleone, 2017).

[Transition: As I get deeper and deeper into the research, I come across a current group of people that consume energy drinks regularly in their daily life or perhaps once in a while.

We will now be focusing on this group of people, which happens to be college students].

College students are the ones that are being targeted to consume these types of energy drinks.

In a study done by Brenda M Malinauskas and colleges, who are from the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics (2007), they did a survey of 496 college students who were attending at the Central Atlantic State University to see the feeling of jolt (the energy) and crash (drop in energy. They reported that 51% of the students consume more than one energy drink each month. About 67% of users drink energy drinks for not having enough sleep and 65% use it to increase their energy. College students consume energy drinks for 1-4 days per month. It also talked about how high caffeine intake for women who are at the age of less than 40 will have daily headaches.

What are the advantages (pros) and disadvantages (cons) of using energy drinks?

According to Nicole Dossantos, who wrote an article about the “Pros and Cons of Energy Drink (2015), stated that athletes drink energy drinks enhance their performance and college students use it to increase their energy for staying up all night.

Advantages (pros) – all of the information came from (Dossantos, 2015).

• Can give you an energy boost
• Vitamin B helps improve your mood and heart diseases
• B12 = keeps your red blood cells and nerves healthy
• B6 = helps the body to function with the immune system, nervous system, and cardiovascular
• Can help and treat with stress, anxiety, muscle cramps, and blood disorders

Disadvantages (cons) – all of the information came from (Dossantos, 2015).

• There is a lot of caffeine and sugar
• Using it during exercise is not a good idea, because the body will become dehydrated
• You can become very addicted to it
• Can cause headaches and migraines due to the caffeine intake
• Intaking too much caffeine can disturb your sleep and can cause an increase in your blood pressure