Written by: Azka Yamin & Dee Champ
What happens when you swig down some of your regular sport drink studying the night before an exam? Or during the tennis practice? Do you feel an instant boost, like the nitrous oxide boost on your car from the movies? Yes. That’s exactly how you feel for a short while but when all of that energy starts to take a toll on your body in all the wrong possible ways, it is too late then to make the right choice. Bypassing all the natural body processes for short term results creates a negative impact on the body’s organs paving way for malfunctions in the future.
To understand why these drinks, work the way they do, we first need to understand what they are actually composed of. Sports drinks are referred to as isotonic refreshments; this means their particle concentration is similar to that of blood found in the human capillaries. They are commonly used as refreshments defined to give active substitution of liquids, electrolytes, and sugar fuel for working muscles (Warnings issued over energy drinks, 2014). Beverages of this sort can be used for energy before, during or after a sport or any energy taxing activity. Ideally, they should taste great and provide every single essential supplement, electrolytes, and liquid prerequisites that are lost during activity to rehydrate the body. They are a quickly developing portion of the overall drink market.
After the advent of sports drinks as liquid substitute for burnt out energy during a task, other products that contain all essential nutrient requirements of a day have also been commercially successful. Protein bars, entire meal bars that contain all nutrients are packaged into small, easily transportable bars for use on-the-go.
An appropriately manufactured sports drink should improve the liquid utilization of the body efficiently while making liquid retention practical. It is mostly flexibly sugary to improve instant execution of tasks that require energy. This enhances the physiological reactions catering to the energy requirements of the body. It is supposed to be just as concentrated as blood which means it should be isotonic. This is because if the particle concentration of energy drink varies even slightly it will make the cells of the body slightly hypo or hypertonic leading to drastic effect on the cell function. And if one brick of the house slightly malfunctions, the entire house structure is in jeopardy (Energy Drinks, 2018).
Since sports drinks are refreshments made of water, sugars and modest quantities of minerals like sodium and potassium, different salts can be added now and then to create an illusion of different flavor or apparently diverse nutrient table. They are made with explicit measures of sodium and sugar to make it simple for your body to assimilate. Sports beverages may help improve how well you play out a game by supplanting the supplements that are lost in your muscles at the moment but the sugar content in them can be harmful for your kidneys in the long term.
These drinks are known to contain a lot of caffeine. The mark may not say how much caffeine is in different fixings, so it tends to be difficult to tell how much caffeine is in the beverage. A solitary caffeinated drink can contain as much as 500 mg of caffeine. You would need to drink 14 jars of cola to get a similar measure of caffeine (Energy Drinks, 2018). Caffeinated drinks typically contain sugars, which add to the calories. This could prompt weight gain. The sugars can likewise prompt dental issues, causing cavities and ultimately tooth loss.
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that kids and adolescents should not use caffeinated drinks. The most ideal route for youngsters and teenagers to improve energy is through reasonable balanced eating habits. Getting enough rest additionally can help keep energy up. These drinks mess up the circulatory system of the body by putting strain on it. This can lead to sleeping troubles in kids and adults. These beverages may exacerbate existing health problems. Excessive sport drink consumption has been found to make hypertension and anomalous pulses persistent in people with heart diseases and can build up glucose in those with diabetes. Steep increasing or decreasing levels of glucose hamper the insulin action of the body. Insulin action is what controls the blood sugar levels and hence fat deposition in the body.
At one point when your body becomes accustomed to a lot of energy drinks and afterward you quit utilizing it, you can get manifestations like migraines, feeling tired, experiencing difficulty thinking, and becoming bad tempered. This is why making the right, informed choice in the first place is very important. It might seem the easy way out as compared to a balanced diet, adequate sleep and regular exercise but it is important to remember that the faster you get it, the easier it slips away. And after that you’re left with a whole bunch of nothing and health issues.
The sugar and caffeine in these beverages may make it harder to rest for a while. It leaves you feeling jumpy. A few people may feel they need less rest, because of the incitement they get from the caffeine. This can cause lack of sleep. While it may benefit you the night before the exam or during the tennis practice, the human body has its limit to standing continuous strain. At the end it will crumble down like a house of cards.
Red Bull was presented in Austria in 1987 and in the United States in 1997. From that point forward, the Energy Refreshment (EB) market has grown dramatically. Many different brands are currently advertised, with caffeine content going from an unassuming 50 mg to a disturbing 505 mg for each can or bottle. In the United States, Red Bull comprised 65% of the $650-million energy/power saver market in 2005, and its deals are increasing at a whopping 35% every year. The United States is the world's biggest shopper of EBs by volume, about 290 million gallons in 2007, or 3.8 gallons per individual every year (Bedford, 2020).
Regulations regarding patent ships are different for energy refreshments across the world but are the most lenient in the United States of America. An example of this is the fact that no Energy Refreshments are prohibited in the U.S, and EB organizations can say anything they desire with respect to energy and execution impacts. These regulatory differences can be observed when a specific energy drink is banned in various countries but is sold in the USA. In those countries organizations are even prohibited to use them on electronic media presentations. Since the target audience of these drinks are generally youngsters it prevents their attention going to such stimulatory products. The so-called ‘energy shots’ can have detrimental effects on the human body. Nausea, anxiety and other unpleasant effects are seen to be experienced by frequent users (Hartney, 2020).
It is understandable for all these statistics to get intimidating but there is a silver lining to all this discussion. Energy drinks should most definitely be a no-go area but an alternative to them is tea. Of all kinds. Tea, especially green tea, has antioxidants that help fight off various kinds of oxidative stress on the body. These oxidative stress lead to malfunction of cell components and hamper its ability to fight diseases. The capability of your nervous system to transmit messages from one part of the body to the other remains intact as you age because of the beneficial components of tea. The tea plant Camellia sinensis has shown to give protection against the harmful ultraviolet rays of the Sun. These rays can interfere with the control center of the cell i.e. nucleus. Changes in the genetic material manifest when cells make faulty proteins that then malfunction. It also occurs by a cell dividing in uncontrollable fashion. This state of a cell is called cancer. Tea plants contain heroic compounds that with a balanced diet not only save you from cancer in future but also fight off existing faulty cells.
Making educated choices can prevent us from going down a road that will come to haunt us in the future. When things come fast and unnatural you should know that they will not last long. It is said that one should treat their body like a temple. A healthy body cannot be achieved in a day or two, you must slowly work on it. Make new habit loops. A habit loop is what governs our life. A well determined response to a cue. This Cue, Routine and Reward loop can be changed just by varying the routine to the same cues that puts your well-formed habits into action. Next time when you feel the urge to sip in from a can of an energy drink, make the right choice. Develop a new habit slowly and gradually. A diluted effort in this regard goes a long way but it always starts when you make the right choice.
References
Bedford, E. (2020, July 2). Energy drinks market in the U.S. - statistics & facts. Retrieved from Statista: https://www.statista.com/topics/1687/energy-drinks/#dossierSummary__chapter1
Energy Drinks. (2018, July). Retrieved from National Centre for Contemporary and Integrative Health: https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/energy-drinks
Hartney, E. (2020, September 17). Are Energy Drinks Addictive to Kids? Retrieved from Very well mind: https://www.verywellmind.com/effects-of-energy-drinks-21843
Warnings issued over energy drinks. (2014, October 15). Retrieved from NHS: https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/warnings-issued-over-energy-drinks/