Effects Of Energy Drinks On Your Kidneys And Health

A lot of people drink different types of energy drinks without having a single knowledge of the side effects on their Kidney and overall health.

In this article, I will be discussing how too much intake of energy drinks can affect one’s Kidney and general health. An average man or woman on the street tends to not have a clue either way.

Let’s take a look at the evidence behind the safety of energy drinks and whether they have any specific damaging effect on the kidneys.

Nowadays, Energy drinks are sold almost in every shop on the street and sales have increased due to brand commercials on Television. It only takes a quick visit to the neighborhood supermarket to figure out how popular they are.

Their use has dramatically increased across most age groups. Which, obviously raises questions about these energy drinks’ health effects.

Ingredients
In order to understand the effects, it’s best to take a quick look at the common ingredients that most energy drinks have. Here are some common “energy” ingredients:1

Caffeine
Taurine
Sugar
Guarana
Ginseng

Caffeine
Caffeine is perhaps the most well-known of the above. For all the bad rap that teenagers and young adults get about consuming large amounts of energy drinks, it has been found that they consumed one-third the amount of caffeine as adults or about 100 mg per day.2 Only a small portion of this caffeine actually came from energy drinks.

Taurine
Taurine is an amino acid found naturally in protein sources including milk, meat, and fish. It is a common ingredient in sports supplements and is believed to enhance athletic ability.

However, high levels of taurine in the blood can have damaging consequences and this is especially likely to happen in people with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

It is debatable, however, if ingesting taurine found in a typical single serving of most energy drinks is enough to cause serious harm to most people with normal kidneys.

Sugar
Many energy drinks, like sodas, contain a notoriously high amount of empty calories that come from their sugar content. We are well aware of the downsides of excessive sugar consumption.

Effects on the Kidneys

Besides the harmful effects reported from taurine accumulation with excess intake, data exist which have associated varying effects ranging from acute renal failure from excessive Energy drink consumption, increase in systolic and diastolic blood pressure as well as heart rate, and even reduced blood supply to the brain.6

Health is wealth. Be careful of what you eat and drink.

Kindly share this article with your family and friends as this information could save a life.