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Πηγή
Energy Drink Ingredients, Effects and Concerns
Interview with Mark Blumenthal
Interviewed by Raena Morgan
November 12, 2009
Raena Morgan: Mark, when it comes to energy drinks, what are the primary ingredients in these drinks that are providing us with this energy?
Mark Blumenthal: Well the market has experience an incredible-
RM: Right.
MB: -explosion of these so called energy drinks, and there’s two classes; there’s energy drinks, which are full of water and other forms of sugars or sometimes non-caloric sweeteners with various kinds of stimulant materials of food items, caffeine, herbs, et cetera; and then there’s energy shots, which are usually two ounce little bottles that contain a lot of the same ingredients you find in energy drinks without the water obviously, and without often the sugar or whatever because-
RM: Okay.
MB: -or as much sugar, because you don’t need to sweeten it because you’re taking a shot that might be sugar sweetener or sweetened with stevia or sweetened with some other form of sweetener. Basically- and this market’s exploding, it’s something like a four billion dollar industry that’s kind of come out of nowhere in the last few years.
RM: It is everywhere, yeah.
MB: It’s astonishing. It was started by Red Bull maybe a decade ago, which I believe is now a four- I think Red Bull is now a four billion dollar company alone, and then the energy shot market, which is just the little two ounce bottles, is close to nine hundred million, almost a billion dollars just in energy shots alone.
RM: Goodness.
MB: And now they’re spawning the reverse type product, which is also now the beginning of we’re seeing some sedative or sleep inducing or relaxing type-
RM: Okay.
MB: anti-energy drinks, if you will, because for the people that are feeling too maxed out-
RM: Right.
MB: -or too stressed out or maybe too nervous and jittery or looking for a way to calm down, so they’re marketing to the other side of the spectrum, so to speak.
RM: Okay.
MB: In the energy drink and energy shot domain, there’s three or four basic ingredients. One of them is going to be caffeine and/or caffeine containing herbs; caffeine containing herbs would be green tea, yerba mate from Argentina, cola, which is what makes Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola so famous, that originally it was cola, which is a west African herb that contains caffeine,-
RM: Okay.
MB: -and other herbs that would also contain caffeine in them, or the extracts of them.
RM: All right.
MB: Then also B vitamins and other vitamins, particularly a lot of your B vitamins are commonly found in many of these energy drinks and energy shots. In addition, you’ll find a number of amino acids, particularly l-carnitine and taurine,-
RM: Taurine.
MB: -which are very ubiquitous materials found in almost every one of these things. And then there’s a bunch of different specialty ingredients that don’t necessarily show up in every one of these things, but they could include them, like ginseng extract, usually Asian ginseng extract-
RM: All right.
MB: -of whatever undefined strength or concentration, they usually don’t say; sometimes they’ll put ginkgo biloba in there,-
RM: All right.
MB: -and other herbs as well.
RM: That’s pretty packed.
MB: Pretty packed. And I’ve left out a bunch of these, because different companies have different formulations, of course, trying to show that they’re unique; however, there seems to be a basic skeleton, if you will, of the B vitamins, the amino acids like taurine and carnitine, the caffeine, which is almost always the primary or most universal ingredient in these drinks, and then other specialty ingredients.
RM: How do these stimulants affect the central nervous system?
MB: The way the stimulants affect the central nervous system is they stimulate the central nervous system; that’s basically one of the primary ways these things work, they’re stimulants by definition, particularly the caffeine, I mean, many of these things have anhydrous or crystalline caffeine, which is a synthetic caffeine often aided and/or supplemented with naturally occurring caffeine found in the concentrated herbal extracts that they’ll add, like the yerba mate or the green tea extract and/or a little bit of theobromine from chocolate perhaps or other forms of caffeine from plant sources. So these are basically- like the shots and these drinks can contain up to a hundred milligrams, two hundred milligrams, and in some cases, a few cases you’ll see about three hundred milligrams of caffeine in one of these drinks or shots. Now just for comparison to this, your average cup of coffee will contain anywhere from eighty to one hundred and twenty milligrams of caffeine, depending on the quality of the coffee, how it’s brewed, how long it’s brewed, et cetera. So a hundred milligrams of caffeine is equivalent to more or less a cup of coffee, depending on the quality of the coffee and brewing style. It’s also equal to a NoDoz, which is a-
RM: Right.
MB: -synthetic caffeine drugstore stimulant product. So if you get two hundred milligrams of caffeine, that’s like two or three cups of coffee, depending on the level of the caffeine of the coffee, so it’s a pretty good little jolt.
RM: It is, isn’t it?
MB: It does. It gives you a jolt, and it lasts for about four, five hours, depending- one of the biggest products on the market uses the five hour in the trademark, that’s the trademark of the product, and these things keep people energized, focused, whatever, for a significant amount of time. There are some concerns among health professionals and some athletic coaches-
RM: Yes.
MB: -about the use of these energy drinks for young children and/or adolescents, particularly in the domain of athletic performance.
RM: Okay.
MB: Concerns have been raised about the impact or the affect of this much caffeine for young children and adolescents taking one hundred, two hundred milligrams or more of caffeine at a short period of time or even throughout the day.
RM: Okay.
MB: It’s a lot.
RM: It is.
MB: And some of the proposed potential adverse effects of these energy drinks usually pertain or correlate directly with the kinds of adverse effects associated with high amounts of caffeine, nervousness, irritability, insomnia, et cetera.
RM: Yes.
MB: So basically, the adverse effects that most of the people are concerned about, especially in younger people, are consistent with the high use of caffeine.
RM: And that would be the detriment right there.
MB: The potential detriment. I mean, caffeine is a ubiquitous-
RM: Yes, it is.
MB: -ingredient in our culture; we see caffeine in cola drinks and caffeinated beverages.
RM: That’s true.
MB: They’re sold in schools, sold in every office building, they’re sold in government office buildings, on military reservations, convenient stores; you can’t go anywhere without seeing caffeine- or coffee stores, coffee shops like Starbucks, or whatever,-
RM: Right.
MB: -not to give anybody a plug, and we are a culture that is almost virtually addicted to caffeine. It’s a very well tolerated addiction, if you will, in our culture. I mean, I have a hobby of collecting cartoons, as many people know, regarding health issues, and almost every week or every month in the funny papers we see cartoon characters making fun, or the cartoonist through their cartoon characters-
RM: Right.
MB: -making fun of the fact that the cartoon characters can’t get their day going without a cup- stiff cup of coffee, sometimes the big cup of coffee. “Reduce my coffee habit down to one cup,” of course the cup is the size of five cups of coffee, that’s the joke,-
RM: Right.
MB: -or other forms of making fun of the fact that so many people are so- if I use the word addicted, I’m probably not being erroneous of my description. It might sound a little harsh,-
RM: Right.
MB: -but there is a strong caffeine addiction which is somewhat tolerated in this culture because it’s productivity orientated, whereas we do not tolerate addiction to alcohol or other kinds of substances that actually inhibit or impede productivity.
RM: That makes sense.
MB: It’s a cultural thing.
RM: It’s a cultural thing, and it’s commerce too.
MB: Yeah. I’m not condoning one way or the other,-
RM: Right.
MB: -I’m just describing a phenomenon, and this is a phenomenal explosion in interest in this area. It’s not just the caffeine, however, that gives people the energy;-
RM: Right.
MB: -there are other ingredients in these caffeine beverages that have also increased energy, increased ATP production in the cells.
RM: All right.
MB: Adenosine triphosphate, which is a chemical in the mitochondria of the cells, every cell in our body has the mitochondria we inherit from our mother, and that’s like the battery or the cellular energy mechanism in each cell that powers the cellular processes, and what happens with some of these ingredients in these energy drinks and energy shots is that actually increases ATP production, which is actually how to increase actual cellular metabolism, how to increase cellular energy.
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