Energy Drinks - Unhealthy?

Diet and Nutrition
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My dad is slowly becoming a grumpy old man. Regardless, I would like to have him around for a while longer. He buys Lo-Carb Monster energy drinks by the case from Sam’s club and probably has about 2-3 per day. Yet, he can be sitting on the couch or on the computer chair and fall asleep sitting up. He gets plenty of sleep every night, though.

From what I can tell, the energy drinks have absolutely no effect as far as giving him energy anymore. I don’t completely understand how caffeine and the adrenal glands and all that stuff works so I can’t really give an intelligent argument to make him stop. Can anyone help me come up with a good argument to try to persuade my dad to stop drinking these things?

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Sleep Apnoea?

Just a wild guess.

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Absolutely slammin’ ass.

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I drink 1 can a day of the lo-carb monster and have the same problems as your dad. I do have sleep apnea which is the biggest reason for my fatique during the day. I wear a c-pap at night which is helping but after 5 hours of work i usually need a lift. The best suggestion that has help me get off the lo-cab drinks is to get back on my diet where I was eating every 3 hours. I realize then i didn’t need the energy drinks as much.

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I used to have this problem too but I broke the habit, now I limit myself to 1 cup of coffee per day, no diet soda, nothing, so I Only get 100-200 mg of caffeine per day or whatever is in a cup of coffee.

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[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
Well I know how I would get him to stop, but that ain’t gonna work for you.

MAybe you should lead him to the answer yourself, by sitting him down and making him gently question his actions.

Ask him ‘why’ he’s drinking them, if he’s aware of the long-term damage associated with stimulant and artificial sweetner use.

If not, then educate him. If he is aware, then perhaps he just doesn’t give a f**k. Which would be a shame, since you love him, but you have to be aware that self-destructive tendancies abound and you can’t always reason against them.

I should know; I have a good friend who is “Killing himself as fast as his conscience will allow him”. He has a young daughter, is an educated man, etc, but his mindset is ‘fu*k it all’.

BBB[/quote]

What long term damage?

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I do 1/2 bottle of Endorush for morning fatloss ignition, Amino Energy throughout the day for general recovery/amino supplementation, if I need a pick me up at work (i.e. 2 oclock feeling) I’ll have the rest of the endorush. Then before my workout I have a pre-workout.

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You know what, I never thought about the sleep apnea thing. He actually snores absurdly loud due to a deviated septum that for whatever reason he won’t get fixed. I assume that can cause sleep apnea. BBB, that sucks about your friend. I brought this topic up to him today as I actually have a little bit of a caffeine addiction myself. I mostly drink coffee sweetened with splenda or stevia, though. My parting statement to him was that you shouldn’t be able to fall asleep shortly after drinking a Monster. I’ll try to find some articles or studies for him to read.

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[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:

[quote]Kvetch wrote:

[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
Well I know how I would get him to stop, but that ain’t gonna work for you.

MAybe you should lead him to the answer yourself, by sitting him down and making him gently question his actions.

Ask him ‘why’ he’s drinking them, if he’s aware of the long-term damage associated with stimulant and artificial sweetner use.

If not, then educate him. If he is aware, then perhaps he just doesn’t give a f**k. Which would be a shame, since you love him, but you have to be aware that self-destructive tendancies abound and you can’t always reason against them.

I should know; I have a good friend who is “Killing himself as fast as his conscience will allow him”. He has a young daughter, is an educated man, etc, but his mindset is ‘fu*k it all’.

BBB[/quote]

What long term damage?
[/quote]

Caffine causes the following:

Hardening of the arteries and reduced insulin sensitivity, both of which contribute to heart disease. Reduced insulin sens. contibutes to central obesity (fat around the organs) and type II diabetes.

Sweeteners… well the jury is still out on them to a degree, though nearly every patient I have tested on them comes back weak. They may be excitotoxic and aspartame degrades into formic acid and formaldehyde in the body, neither of which are anything other than harmful.

BBB[/quote]

BBB,

Is this hardening of the arteries correlated to a certain intake of caffiene? For instance, is this observed with the typical 1-2 cups a day of coffee, or is it only with the more extreme caffiene intakes? This is fascinating stuff, and I’m interested to hear your response.

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[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
Sweeteners… well the jury is still out on them to a degree, though nearly every patient I have tested on them comes back weak. They may be excitotoxic and aspartame degrades into formic acid and formaldehyde in the body, neither of which are anything other than harmful.[/quote] Do your patients experience insulin spikes from calorie free sweeteners?

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[quote]wiggles wrote:

[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:

[quote]Kvetch wrote:

[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
Well I know how I would get him to stop, but that ain’t gonna work for you.

MAybe you should lead him to the answer yourself, by sitting him down and making him gently question his actions.

Ask him ‘why’ he’s drinking them, if he’s aware of the long-term damage associated with stimulant and artificial sweetner use.

If not, then educate him. If he is aware, then perhaps he just doesn’t give a f**k. Which would be a shame, since you love him, but you have to be aware that self-destructive tendancies abound and you can’t always reason against them.

I should know; I have a good friend who is “Killing himself as fast as his conscience will allow him”. He has a young daughter, is an educated man, etc, but his mindset is ‘fu*k it all’.

BBB[/quote]

What long term damage?
[/quote]

Caffine causes the following:

Hardening of the arteries and reduced insulin sensitivity, both of which contribute to heart disease. Reduced insulin sens. contibutes to central obesity (fat around the organs) and type II diabetes.

Sweeteners… well the jury is still out on them to a degree, though nearly every patient I have tested on them comes back weak. They may be excitotoxic and aspartame degrades into formic acid and formaldehyde in the body, neither of which are anything other than harmful.

BBB[/quote]

BBB,

Is this hardening of the arteries correlated to a certain intake of caffiene? For instance, is this observed with the typical 1-2 cups a day of coffee, or is it only with the more extreme caffiene intakes? This is fascinating stuff, and I’m interested to hear your response.[/quote]

As am I.

I am willing to bet that it’s in extreme long-term use. People have been drinking coffee for a long time now and it’s not something I’ve really heard much of. But I could be 100% wrong haha.

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[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:

Caffeine causes the following:

Hardening of the arteries and reduced insulin sensitivity, both of which contribute to heart disease. Reduced insulin sens. contibutes to central obesity (fat around the organs) and type II diabetes.

Sweeteners… well the jury is still out on them to a degree, though nearly every patient I have tested on them comes back weak. They may be excitotoxic and aspartame degrades into formic acid and formaldehyde in the body, neither of which are anything other than harmful.

BBB[/quote]

Resistance training hardens the arteries as well and yet overall has mostly beneficial effects on cardiometabolic health. Also, the link that you proposed that caffeine—>hardening arteries —> reduced general insulin sensitivity —> increased visceral adiposity is probably spurious at best and NEEDS TONS OF EVIDENCE to prove. One must initially show:

a) That moderate doses of caffeine over moderate periods of time (say 2 cups of coffee a day over a period of a year) significantly hardens arteries (I’m not sure what this really means in detail).

b)If this hardening of arteries leads to a real significant increase in whole-body insulin resistance and/or other risk factors for heart disease independent of confounding variables and/or the caffeine itself effects either/or negatively.

c)If overall caffeine causes a slight decrease in whole body insulin sensitivity, will that ultimately lead to type II diabetes and obesity at the dosages of caffeine and the contexts we are talking about?

2)Again, this is a question of dose, context, and effect. Is the dose formaldehyde and formic acid significant enough to cause any serious effects?

I’d like to see some evidence, if possible.

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Coffee and caffeine are not the same. Coffee has many other components, such as antioxidants, besides just caffeine. Also, the short-term and long-term effects are not the same, sometimes opposite.

I’ve looked at lots and lots of research on coffee and found no reasons to give up my two cups in the morning.

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[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:

[quote]wiggles wrote:

[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:

[quote]Kvetch wrote:

[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
Well I know how I would get him to stop, but that ain’t gonna work for you.

MAybe you should lead him to the answer yourself, by sitting him down and making him gently question his actions.

Ask him ‘why’ he’s drinking them, if he’s aware of the long-term damage associated with stimulant and artificial sweetner use.

If not, then educate him. If he is aware, then perhaps he just doesn’t give a f**k. Which would be a shame, since you love him, but you have to be aware that self-destructive tendancies abound and you can’t always reason against them.

I should know; I have a good friend who is “Killing himself as fast as his conscience will allow him”. He has a young daughter, is an educated man, etc, but his mindset is ‘fu*k it all’.

BBB[/quote]

What long term damage?
[/quote]

Caffine causes the following:

Hardening of the arteries and reduced insulin sensitivity, both of which contribute to heart disease. Reduced insulin sens. contibutes to central obesity (fat around the organs) and type II diabetes.

Sweeteners… well the jury is still out on them to a degree, though nearly every patient I have tested on them comes back weak. They may be excitotoxic and aspartame degrades into formic acid and formaldehyde in the body, neither of which are anything other than harmful.

BBB[/quote]

BBB,

Is this hardening of the arteries correlated to a certain intake of caffiene? For instance, is this observed with the typical 1-2 cups a day of coffee, or is it only with the more extreme caffiene intakes? This is fascinating stuff, and I’m interested to hear your response.[/quote]

Not as far as I’m aware, though generally speaking, more stims cause greater insulin resistance.

Coffe is a fantastic thing. Sociability, taste, antioxidant, etc, etc and for those reasons I enjoy 1-2 cups on the average day. Indeed I am drinking my ‘morning blend’ of green tea, honey, coffee, cocoa RIGHT NOW, lol.

BBB[/quote]

Ah excellent. I’ve seen so much on the benefits of coffee that this had me somewhat concerned. Especially coming from a source like yourself, I tend to trust the information you put out. Thank you for the response. And I’d be interested in hearing how to make your morning blend. I know I used your nootropic cocktail (from the Brain Boosters, but I used creatine, ani, choline bitartrate, and gatorade powder from what I had around) as an basis for a study drink this round of finals, and I had some of the best scores/retention I’ve ever had. Plus, that morning blend just plain sounds tasty.

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Sorry for the stupidity of my part. I misread your first sentence and therefore was arguing against a point you had never made.

Still, I stand skeptical on if caffeine in moderate doses over prolonged periods of time will contribute SIGNIFICANTLY to an increase in insulin resistance independent of context and if that physiological effect does actually occur, is it enough to link caffeine to obesity and/or increases visceral adiposity (which usually is there if one is obese). Also, on the hardening of artery walls, the same question implies; is it significant enough to seriously have a large effect on oneâ??s heart disease risk? I donâ??t know that much on this issue so Iâ??m just being a skeptic. Iâ??ll look it up eventually.

On the formic acid/formaldehyde issue, I have no clue how much formic acid/formaldehyde is broken down from aspartame but what I am certain of is that the dose makes the poison. Both are highly poisonous in high doses but not necessarily at the minute doses found as a byproduct of digesting aspartame. Again, I honestly just want to see the evidence (which Iâ??ll look up eventually).

Iâ??m only half-way done my undergraduate physiology degree, so I still have a long way to go ï??. I honestly have no urge to satisfy by personal opinions when it comes to scientific discussion, I just want to know the truth (and what evidence people had to bring them to the truth).