Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are composed mainly on caffeine. Caffeine is what gives you the long lasting rush of energy, but aside from caffeine there are a lot more chemicals and ingredients that go in the mixture to create the energy drink or shot. Different brands use different quantities of each product but the five most common ingredients found by researchers where the following: Vitamin B12, Vitamin B6, Caffeine, Vitamin B3, and Taurine. They are in order of largest percentage found per serving. According to a recent study, caffeine is the only ingredient that actually works by giving you energy, the other ingredients are more passive, meaning they still have an effect on your body but it is not as visible as the caffeine. Participants who drank only caffeinated water had the same brain activity and response times as those who consumed 5 Hour Energy, which adds also many of the above ingredients. As you can see above there are a lot of B vitamins, they are found naturally in the foods we eat and are the most widely used …show more content…
Taurine is an amino acid that is naturally produced by the body, but the version found in energy drinks is manmade, like manufactured in a factory, not naturally produced by your body. Why is taurine added to the mixture? Taurine helps regulate heartbeat, muscle contractions, and energy levels canceling out the side effects of the caffeine but still giving you a kick of energy. It is added to the mixture anyways even though your body already produces it because, it is thought that when your body is under stressful conditions it doesn’t produce enough of it, and many people take the energy drinks when they need to get something done urgent, which is normally under stress. Also Studies have shown that taurine can help lower cholesterol, increase the effectiveness of heart muscle contractions, and improve blood flow and oxygen supply to heart