Energy Drink Ingredients
Caffeine
Caffeine is a nuturally occuring chemical stimulant. In its pure form it is a white crystalline powder that tastes bitter. It is considered a psychoactive drug which is a drug that acts on the central nervous system where it affects brain function, resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behavior.
Inlike many other psychoactive substances, it is both legal and unregulated in nearly all parts of the world. It is consumed by 90% of adults consume caffeine daily through such beverages as coffee, tea, soft drinks, and energy drinks. Global consumption of caffeine has been estimated at 120,000 tonnes per year, making it the world's most popular psychoactive substance. This amounts to one serving of a caffeinated beverage for every person every day.
Known positive effects of moderate use of caffeine include:
- Protective effect against some diseases, including colorectal cancer, liver disease, and heart disease
- Increased attention
- Increased memory performance
- Increased physical performance
- Increased muscular recovery
- Mild diuretic, increasing urine production to flush fluid out of the body
- May protect people from liver cirrhosis
- Orimary treatment of the breathing disorders apnea of prematurity, i.e. cessation of breathing by a premature infant
- May somewhat reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes
- May reduce symptoms of depression and lower suicide risk
- Can have both positive and negative effects on anxiety disorders depending on the dose. At high doses, typically greater than 300 mg, it can both cause and worsen anxiety. At low doses it may reduce symptoms of anxiety
- Some studies have however found a modest protective against Alzheimer disease, but the evidence is inconclusive.
- As a mild stimulant, it is often used medicinally to treat certain kinds of headache pain
- Used as diet supplement by supressing the appetitite, burning calories through thermogenesis, and reducing water through its diuretic properties (increased urination)
- Caffeine is found in many plant species, where it acts as a natural pesticide by paralyzing and killing insects feeding off it
Known neagative effects of excessive use of caffeine include:
- Toxic (death) at sufficiently high doses, i.e. roughly 80 to 100 cups of coffee for an average adult taken within a limited time
- Strong tolerance with heavy use that develops rapidly and can produce clinically significant physical and mental dependence
- Heavy coffee consumption may increase the risk of bladder cancer
- Increases intraocular eye pressure which may not be advisable for those with glaucoma
- High doses may trigger anxiety and rarely mania and psychosis
- Evidence for a risk to pregnancy is not for certain, but some medical professionals advise pregnant women limit consumption to the equivalent of two cups of coffee per day or less.
- At mild toxicity levels, like other stimulants, caffeine may result in restlessness, fidgeting, anxiety, excitement, insomnia, flushing of the face, increased urination, gastrointestinal disturbance, muscle twitching, a rambling flow of thought and speech, irritability, irregular or rapid heart beat, and psychomotor agitation.
- In larger overdoses, may result in mania, depression, lapses in judgment, disorientation, disinhibition, delusions, hallucinations, or psychosis may occur, and rhabdomyolysis (breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue)
- While safe in humans, caffeine is considerably toxic to various animals, such as dogs and birds, due to their inability to metabolize the compound
