Some recent studies have found a connection
between the excessive intake of energy drinks
and sudden cardiac death among young athletes.
We ask Cardiologist Dr. Ramin Mashadi to explain
these findings.
Sudden cardiac death is a non violent non
traumatic sudden collapse secondary to cardiac
vascular event.
Dr. Manshadi wants to make the public aware
of the potential danagers in excessive intake
of energy drinks.
We have to be quite aware and understand and
be educated and know what the content of these
energy drinks are.
In essence these energy drinks are not FDA
approved, for that reason they're considered
dietary supplements and because of that there
are no labelings on these drinks.
So we don't know exactly the content of caffeine
or taurine or ginseng or other things that
are in there.
The main factor is caffeine and the reason
behind it is that if you would drink a 12
ounce of soda the content of the caffeine
is only 35 milligrams.
If you drink an energy drink then the content
is quite variable.
It can be anywhere between 50 to 500 hundred
milligrams.
So ten fold increase in amount of caffeine:
so these young people especially college students
or younger or even sometimes older, people
that want to do more and more with their busy
lives, consume too much of these and they
drink to keep active or think to get the edge
to stay awake longer and caffeine is the main
factor that can stimulate the heart and propagate
and trigger arrhythmias and these arrhythmias
can lead to collapse and sudden cardiac death.
Dr. Manshadi tells us how caffeine affects
us.
Caffeine use or abuse can lead to significant
palpitations, these are some warning signs.
So if you're having excessive palpitations
when you consume these then you're quite sensitive
to caffeine or what ever that you drank had
excessive amount of caffeine.
If you basically you feel your heart pounding
really hard or if you feel light headed or
very irritated, these are some of the affects
of caffeine overdose and in a young child
which is small in as far as size excess amount
of toxic and amount of caffeine can lead to
stroke and seizures.
So what caffeine does: it's a stimulant, it
basically bombards the heart to beat really
hard it's like having and energetic drive
and at the same time its a vasoconstrictor
meaning that it constricts the arteries so
when the arteries contrict it basically propagates
scemia, which basically means you do not get
enough oxygen to the muscle of the heart.
If you do not get enough oxygen to the muscle
of the heart the muscle basically stuns and
it can propagate arrhythmias and the person
can collapse and subsequently die.
It is noted that caffeine is also a diuretic
so it basically dehydrates the athletes.
So you're running around, you're losing a
lot of water from your sweating hard, you're
also taking these caffeine loaded energy drinks
that can even enhance diuresis and it can
lead to dehydration and other arrhythmias
just because of that alone.
I absolutely think that young children and
young adults should not take these because
their receptors are not ready for this amount
of caffeine and it can lead to other issues
and problems.
There has been a study for example, college
students.
Those that consume only six of these per month,
they end up having a more addictive behavior,
they're more prone of having drug addiction
alcohol addiction and so forth.
Young children if they take these they will
have problems with insomnia not able to sleep,
irritibility and one would think that they
may have ADHD and so forth.
On top of that they do contain some amount
of sugar which can also, studies have shown
that children that use this more often than
others, they end up having more of advanced
tooth decay for example.
So in general for athletes, for young sporting
athletes the best fluid replenishment is water.
Even Gatorade if you're not exercising more
than one hour in a humid place, you do not
need Gatorade.
Water is the best replenishment that's needed
for the body when we do exercises.
I strongly feel that there should be some
regulation where there will be exact labeling
of the exact content of these caffeine, within
these drinks.
So we know exactly how much we're taking and
what the subsequent negative affects that
may happen if you take too much.
