What Happens 24 Hours After Drinking an Energy Drink

This is an interesting take on an old subject, courtesy of http://www.personalise.co.uk. 

I used to drink things like this, but I don't anymore. A lot of people thrive on these, but I have to wonder if this is a good idea? Only their body knows for sure.

 

1. During the first 10 minutes of drinking an energy drink the caffeine starts to be absorbed into your bloodstream,  your body responds by increasing your heart rate and blood pressure.

2. At some point during the first 15-45 minutes depending how fast you drink it the levels of caffeine will peak, you'll feel alert and find your concentration is improved, this is due to caffeine being a stimulant drug. This is when it's recommended to drink one if you are driving and feel you need to be more alert.

3. 30-50 minutes after you finish your drink and your body has now fully absorbed the caffeine, your liver will often then react by absorbing more sugar. It's during this time that your body has also absorbed most of the sugar initially in the drink as well.

4. An hour in and you'll likely be getting the dreaded 'sugar crash', this often is a mix of the sugar levels in your bloodstream dropping as well as the effects of the caffeine dying down.

5. Roughly 5-6 hours is the half life of caffeine, this means that it takes this many hours for your body to reduce the caffeine content in your bloodstream by 50%. For women who take an oral contraceptive this time is doubled.

6. 12 hours after finishing your energy drink for most people all the caffeine will have been removed from your bloodstream, the exact speed or time will vary from person to person.  

7.  For regular drinkers you'll find that between 12 and 24 hours is the time for when you'll start to feel withdrawal symptoms i.e. the urge for some caffeine, other affects of this include headaches, irritability and constipation.

8.  7-12 days, studies have shown that this is the time frame that your body will become tolerant of your daily caffeine dosage, one study found those who took a caffeine pill while others had a placebo, showed identical moods, alert levels and energy after 18 days, those who had the high dosage of caffeine had got used to the caffeine fix.

So should you have energy drinks?

 

Most things in moderation and as part of a healthy balanced diet are fine and this goes for energy drinks, be careful though as there are often large amounts of sugar in many of the drinks.

Guidelines for caffeine are 400mg per day and so having a can of this every day shouldn't pass this, yet the sugars and addiction that can be produced from doing this is something you should consider.

There has been research all over the world into the effects of energy drinks, in America, admissions to emergency departments which were energy drink related doubled from 2007-2014 according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Dawn Report.

Energy drink companies often compare their drinks to coffee with many coffee shops offering high caffeine drinks, take a Starbucks Venti Caffe Americano which contains 300 mg of caffeine which is nearly 4 times that of a 250ml can of Redbull.