Drinking just a single energy drink may raise the risk for cardiovascular events among young, healthy adults.
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“The worry is that if these responses are seen in healthy young people, perhaps the effects of energy drinks may be more pronounced in people who already have high blood pressure or arrhythmias”, leading to more heart attacks and strokes, Svatikova said.
“In previous research, we found that energy drink consumption increased blood pressure in healthy young adults”, says Anna Svatikova, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic cardiology fellow and the first author.
Caffeine levels remained unchanged after the placebo drink, but increased significantly after energy drink consumption.
Emergency room visits involving energy drinks doubled between 2007 and 2011, rising from about 10,000 to almost 21,000, SAMHSA said.
New research suggests that drinking one energy drink could cause changes that could conceivably trigger new cardiovascular events, Live Science reported.
For their study, Dr. Svatikova and colleagues set out to investigate how energy drinks affected the blood pressure, heart rate and stress responses of 25 healthy adults, compared with a placebo drink. They were between the ages of 26 and 31, and had no known heart risk factors. They found that blood pressure levels went up and norepinephrine levels rose twice as much after people drank the energy drink compared to when they drank the placebo beverage. Each person drank one 16-ounce can of Rockstar Punched or placebo drink in random order on two separate days.
After energy drink consumption, participants experienced a 6.2% rise in systolic blood pressure and a 6.8% rise in diastolic blood pressure.
There was no significant difference in heart rate increase between the two groups, the researchers found.
“These acute hemodynamic and adrenergic changes may predispose to increased cardiovascular risk”, the researchers said. “Asking patients about energy drink consumption should become routine for physicians, particularly when interpreting vital signs in the acute setting”.
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The team underlined that there were limitations in this pilot study mainly due to the small sample size and the only 1 energy drink being studied.
