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Stroll through the beer aisle at your local grocery store, and you’ll see large, colorful cans that could be energy drinks or oversized Mountain Dews. The beverage, called Four Loko, has recently become very popular with college students and other young people. Why? One can has as much alcohol four beers, with an added punch of caffeine, as well as other vitamins usually found in energy drinks.
The rise in popularity of these beer-energy drinks and combinations like vodka and Red Bull has become troubling in the eyes of doctors and other university health officials. Four Loko, and beverages like it, have been pointed to as the culprit in a recent increase in drinking-related hospitalization amongst college students in New Jersey and Washington. Sure, these alcohol-caffeine combos might be fun, keeping drinkers more alert and less likely to fall into a drowsy state, but these positive side effects can actually be more harmful than helpful.
A 2006 study about Red Bull and vodka combinations published in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research had results that warned of these current problems. In the study, a group of healthy, young men ingested either vodka, Red Bull, or a vodka-Red Bull combination, and the results were observed. The caffeine and vitamins of the Red Bull did what they were supposed to do, making drinkers feel more alert and coordinated, with less signs of drunkenness, such as headache and dry mouth.
However, when the researchers did objective measurements of the Red Bull-vodka drinkers coordination and visual reaction time, they were just as slow as those who had been drinking vodka alone. So, while adding a little Red Bull to your mixed drink might make you feel like you have wings, you’re just fooling yourself. Even if you swear you’re more coordinated and feeling better, you’re just as drunk as the guy sitting next to you.
This feeling-great sensation provided by the energy drink can become dangerous, because it robs drinkers of the usual warning signs that tell them if they’ve had enough for tonight. Drinkers who don’t feel tired or badly coordinated are tempted to assume they’re doing fine. Like the college students mentioned above, they have another drink; by the time they realize it, they’ve gone way past the point of safety and need to be taken to the hospital.
The popularity of Four Loko and other energy drink and alcohol combos has caught the eyes of the Food and Drug Administration, who are currently looking into the safety and legality of the product. While the physical effects of caffeine and alcohol are part of their concerns, the FDA is also worried that the products are being marketed to underage drinkers, with their colorful packaging and the popularity of energy drinks amongst teens.
The FDA’s legal basis for questioning these “energy beers” lies in the laws about putting additives into food. Under the FDA, only additives that they specifically sanction are allowed to be added to beverages. Currently, they only allow caffeine in soda at certain concentrations, and there is no explicit law allowing it to be added to alcohol.
Chris Hunter, co-founder of the company that makes Four Loko, denied intentions to lure underage drinkers and defended his product to the New York Times.
“Alcohol misuse and abuse and under-age drinking are issues the industry faces and all of us would like to address,” he said. “The singling out or banning of one product or category is not going to solve that. Consumer education is what’s going to do it.”
This post was originally hosted on An Apple A Day, a health and nutrition blog.
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Sign in nowI think us flatlanders from Florida may be more susceptible! Or at least that’s what I told myself after my first trip to Denver – only 5000 feet – and acted like an angry drunk after going right to work setting up a trade show booth after getting off the plane.
Thanks for the tips!
I agree with you completely that we need to reexamine food and our relationship with food as Americans. Food is more than “fuel.” Eating should be an experience, a way in which to feed our minds, our emotions and our bodies. You make an interesting point when you say that good food habits should be taught in schools. As a public school teacher at a low income school, I constantly reinforce the importance of healthy and mindful eating. Low-income groups are most at risk for chronic diseases as a result of poor nutrition. In my classroom, I become a snack-Nazi, running around between the desks in the fourth grade and confiscating anything crunchy that comes in a bag (besides baby carrots, of course). I make the kids check the labels for high-fructose, Yellow 5, and words they can’t pronounce. What I find, however, is that families continue to send food to school that is anything but food. To be honest, sometimes I simply pretend like I don’t see the kids cramming hot Cheetos in their mouths under their desks before I can get to them. While I can lecture and explain and reinforce, what needs to happen in our country is access to good food for poor people.
Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
Excellent post – and of course WHO’s ‘emergency committee’ is claiming that the pandemic threat is “not yet over!” because that’s the message that Big Pharma is paying for.
The WHO guidelines were pepared in collaboration with a group called the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza (ESWI). But what this committee did not disclose is that ESWI is funded entirely by the drug company Roche and other influenza drug and flu vaccine manufacturers.
The H1N1 scare was very good for business last year. J.P. Morgan reported that the pharmaceutical companies did very nicely during this health scare, profiting to the tune of $7 billion from the sale of vaccines alone.
While WHO may have not disclosed the entire committee’s identities, the British Medical Journal investigation revealed that two of the identified “experts” (René Snacken and Daniel Lavanchy) were not only on Big Pharma payrolls, but had actually participated in Roche marketing events.
Why would WHO even consider touching these guys with a 10-foot pole – never mind accepting credible scientific counsel from them?
More at “Did Big Pharma Fund The Swine Flu Panic?” at: THE ETHICAL NAG: MARKETING ETHICS FOR THE EASILY SWAYED – http://www.ethicalnag.org/2010/06/21/h1n1-flu-panic/
Good information here – and yet it should come as no surprise given what we already know about the devastating psychological effects of any disaster on human beings. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has been widely studied and linked with virtually every catastrophic life event on us.
PTSD is a debilitating emotional illness that can develop when you experience or even witness a dangerous, terrifying, or possibly life-threatening stressful event – an event that is outside the range of what’s considered to be a normal human experience. About 7-8% of the general population will develop PTSD, but for military veterans, rape victims and heart attack survivors, this number can go up to an astonishing 30%.
As your article reminds us, PTSD can also strike both survivors and relief workers at natural or terrorist disasters, as well as anyone who has either experienced or witnessed this kind of trauma.
New York City’s World Trade Center Health Registry reported that 20% of New Yorkers who lived below Canal Street (close to the World Trade Center) were estimated to suffer from PTSD following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, compared to 11% of all New York City residents. About 5% of trained relief workers were diagnosed with PTSD as a result of just listening to stories from survivors of the attacks.
Hardest hit among 9/11 relief workers were those who were pulled off their regular jobs to perform tasks they were not prepared for – like the city’s sanitation workers who were assigned to help with search and rescue, or relief workers who spent more than 90 days at Ground Zero. Most relief workers showed no further symptoms six months later, but Twin Tower survivors themselves reported suffering PTSD symptoms up to five years after the attacks.
A Harvard Medical School study of survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans found ‘delayed onset’ PTSD symptoms that actually increased over the first two years following. The worst-affected Katrina survivors were both close to the epicentre of the tragedy as well as abandoned on their own without help for far too long – both extremely dangerous PTSD risk factors.
“Abandoned on their own without help for far too long” sounds like an apt description of those impacted by the horrific events in the Gulf day after day, week after week while the oil continued to spew.
More on PTSD after a catastrophic life event at: “Not Just For Soldiers Anymore: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder After A Heart Attack” — http://www.myheartsisters.org/2009/08/25/ptsd/
Dengue is a Killer. My close friend’s mother pass away due to Dengue Fever.
nice article, keep the posts coming
Good show. Interesting info too about anaphylaxis.
I just signed up to your blogs rss feed. Will you post more on this subject?
Very good post. Anticipating the next one.
One can’t help but wonder if disasters like this are the cause of cancer and other illnesses. After all, we all become affected by the contaminated water & dust eventually.
Thanks for a wonderful and informative post. As a vegetarian traveler, I know how difficult it can be to find meals in some countries! I had no idea about Trinidad & Tobago – I will have to add that to my travel list.
I didn’t realize people of mixed heritage had a more difficult time finding bone marrow donors.
I can’t wait to try finding basic recipes for some of these dishes and “veganizing” them! Great post.
I’ve heard that vegetarianism is unknown in Japan. If you say you are a vegetarian there, for example, they will just give you more vegetables with your meals (along with meat).
Haha, love that the clip has Spanish subtitles.
Sometimes I’m not sure what to think when pain is involved in anything. Medical experts say to expect pain in certain situations, but for the most part, I thought pain was indicator that something is wrong in your body.
Does sitting on a bouncy ball help at all?