Apparently there are a lot of folks in the military who drink energy drinks and that supposedly prompted Dr. Emily Fletcher with the David Grant USAF Medical Center in California to investigate the link between energy drinks and the heart in order to find out if there is any cause for concern.
It's suggested that for nearly 15% of the American military personnel who were deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, reported that they had consumed three or more cans of energy drinks every day.
The study has been published in the Journal of the American Heart Association and it involved only 18 participants between the ages of 18 to 40,that got divided into two different groups. Those groups were required to drink a commercially-available energy drink, while the second group was given a control drink with lime juice, caffeine, and cherry syrup.
After almost a week, the participants then switched drinks.
The researchers were able to measure the electrical activity of the heart of the participants by using an electrocardiogram. The participants also had their blood pressure (both peripheral and central) measured at frequently intervals following the consumption of the energy drink.
They discovered that both the energy drink group and the caffeine group saw similar increases in their systolic blood pressure.
However, with the caffeine group those readings were seen to almost resort back to their original readings within 6 hours after consuming the caffeine drink. But the same can't be said for the energy drink crowd.
They were still found to have elevated blood pressure even 6 hours after they finished having the drink.
They say that their findings support the narrative that there might be some altering effects on blood pressure thanks to other ingredients besides just the caffeine. And based on this evidence, she suggests that folks with high blood pressure might want to try and stay away from a drink that might cause them to have even more trouble.
This study did have a small number of participants so they admit that further study is needed in order to confirm their results.
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All material on this post is provided for information purposes only and may not be construed as medical advice or instruction, diagnosis, or treatment. If an individual has a medical concern, no action or inaction should be taken based on the information provided in this post. He or she should always consult with their own appropriately-licensed physician or other health care specialist.
Sources:
http://www.consumerreports.org/health/new-worries-about-energy-drinks/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/energy-drinks-heart-1.4087058
http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/27/energy-drinks-are-way-more-dangerous-than-other-caffeine-heavy-drinks-research-finds-6600165/