Today I want to talk about energy drinks arethey good or bad for us are they a goodsource of extra energy how do they work and mostimportantly are they safe for us in the longrun, right up hey I'm Dr. Ekberg I'm a holisticdoctor and a former Olympic decathlete andif you want to truly Master Health by understandinghow the body really works make sure you subscribeon hit that notification Bell so you don'tmiss anything energy drinks have been on themarket for a few years now and some of the more. 

popular brands or things like Red Bulland Monster Rockstar Eastroc Hi-tigerand then there's also some energy shots like5-hour Energy they pretty much have the Monopolyon that market but it's a huge industry theenergy drinks sell a total of 53 billion dollarsa year around the world and the energy shotsalone account for about twenty one and a halfsold almost 75 billion dollars of so-calledenergy drinks and energy shots but do theywork and how do they work is it really a differencebetween a soft .

drink or so um vs an energydrink soda can be caffeinated and then theyhave a sweetener and caffeine but in an energydrink they add more things so they do havethese things but in addition to that theyhave things like guarana taurine ginseng andB vitamins caffeine is the most popular drugin the world that's been used for a long timeand it is regarded as generally safe the wayit works is it does have some mechanisms toincrease energy metabolism in the brain butat the same time it causes .

vasoconstrictionso it reduces the blood flow to the brainso we're asking the brain to do more workbut we're giving it less energy with whichto do so so in small doses I think it's totallyfine but the more do you use it or if youoveruse it now you can start creating someimbalances and some damage caffeine is alsoa stress stimulator it increases norepinephrineor adrenaline which is a stress hormone itincreases arousal and attention and that'sof course why we use it in the first placeit's a .

stimulant we want to feel awake wewant to feel energized while it does thatit also increases anxiety and it interfereswith sleep so these are things that most peopleare aware of and they drink their coffee anywayand the majority of the world's populationare getting some caffeine everyday but howmuch caffeine are in these various drinksa regular can of Coca-Cola has 36 milligramsof caffeine in a can of Mountain Dew has 55a small can of Redbull which is an 8 oz canhas a team of just a little more .

than thesoft drink but keep in mind that's a smallcan a larger can of Monster a 16 oz can has160 mg of caffeine so it's got twice as muchas the Red Bull but it's twice the size a5-hour Energy Shot is only two ounces butit's packed with caffeine at 200 mg and thenthe 7-Eleven Energy Shot is pretty much thesame thing but it's a 230 ml mg and energydrink called Rockstar xdurance has 300 mgof caffeine and that's a larger can as wellbut a regular coffee from Starbucks a largecoffee mind you 16 oz .

actually has 330 mgif it was just about the caffeine then wemight just go for the coffee like we saidthough a lot of these energy drinks containother things in addition to caffeine let'stake a look at those who are Rania is a naturalplant that contains caffeine the Gwar on yourseed has between two and four and a half percentcaffeine compared to Coffee seed of coffeebean it's not actually a bean a seed whichhas one to 2% caffeine soda guarana is justanother plant source of natural caffeine .

whichis about twice as high so if they had caffeineand guarana then they're just really addingtwo different sources of caffeine and if theydon't declare the caffeine from the guaranathe thing that's added to a lot of them istaurine and taurine is an amino acid it isprevalent is high concentration in our centralnervous system but it's an amino acid thatwe can manufacture it's a natural componentof body tissue and 1/10 of 1% of your bodyweight are about 75 G to 3 oz is actuallytaurine so we have .

it already taurine is believedto be a stimulant but there is no proof tothat fax or they're just sort of adding itjust in case and ginseng root is a plant it'sa considered an herb that has been used forhundreds or thousands of years and it doesdefinitely have some health benefits not necessarilyas a stimulant but more as an adaptogen ithelps the body balance certain things thething though is high-quality ginseng is veryvery expensive so I'm sort of questioningthe quality that they added to .

these mostlysynthetic products that are they really usinga good quality ginseng and all these drinksof course have sweeteners and they're eithergoing to use sugar to a small can would startout at 25 grams they're typically much muchsweeter than soft drinks or soda a large canwould have as much as 70 grams of sugar percan and if they're low carb or if they'resugar-free now they just replace that sugarwith a synthetic chemical with an artificialsweetener like aspartame or sucralose saccharinor .

Acesulfame potassium and as I talked aboutin other videos these are neurotoxins they'rebased on pesticides and there is a tremendousrange of physiological health problems andneurological problems with these who courseit all depends on quantity when it comes tothese things but in my book sugar is one ofthe worst things in the world and if possiblethan these newer toxins are a little bit worseone more thing that they often add is B vitaminsbut the thing with vitamins is they will onlydo anything .

at all that only do somethingif you are already deficient if you have theB vitamins you need then they don't act asan additional energy source or as an additionalstimulant is kind of like if you going topaint a wall and all you need is one can ofpaint than having a thousand cans of paintisn't going to make that wall any better andbesides that all the vitamins that they'readding are synthetic they're made from cornstarchand sugar and coal tar so they're not thenutrient that the body is really .

looking forso how did these additional ingredients ontop of caffeine how do they work do they doanything well there isn't a lot of researchthey've done a lot of research on caffeinebut not so much on these additional thingsin energy drinks but they did a double blindstudy at the Centre College in Kentucky andthey compared a 5-hour energy shots to onegroup that got caffeine water and one groupthat got only water and it was double linebecause neither the subjects nor the researchleaders the study .

leaders knew who had gottenwhat they have them perform a visual reactiontest and then they measured brain waves tosee how they reacted and what they found wasthat they had better performance they havemore brain activity with the caffeine thanthe people who just got the water but otherthan that there was no difference okay there'sno difference between the 5-Hour drink andthe caffeine water they performed and measuredthe same what else are you getting for yourhard-earned money well you're getting .

somechemicals multiple dextrin to getting preservativesto getting artificial sweetener sucraloseAcesulfame potassium you getting natural andartificial flavors and you're getting rednumber 40 and blue number one that's whatyou're paying for so these are all calledenergy drinks but do they provide any actualenergy do they provide anything that you needwell actual energy in the body is called ATPadenosine triphosphate it's the energy currencyin the body and it's made in in the .

mitochondriamanufactures a teepee out of substrate outof fuel that have calories called fat glucoseand protein but in order to pull the energyout of these Foods you need vitamins and mineralsthey act as catalysts they're participatein the reactions they make enzymes and soforth and finally you need oxygen oxygen iswhat we use to burn the fuel to oxidize thefuel in the food so actual energy in the bodyis made but you can't do this at the samerate 24 hours a day because you will burnout your .

organs they need a little bit ofrecovery so you need to have some proper sleepyou need to have some rest.Or you will burn out another good source ofactual energy is inspiration being excitedabout something feeling good about somethingnow you're still going to need some recoverybut in a state of feeling good you will alwayshave more energy available then if you feelingbad about something you should board aboutsomething according to a website called caffeineInformer.Com the there's an official .

definition ofwhat energy drinks are so there's three requirementsone is that they have the intent to increaseenergy and there's a reason I put these inquotation marks number to there has to bemore than one ingredient known to increaseenergy so that's why the caffeine sodas don'tcount because they only have that one ingredientto increase energy and then we want to Definewhat energy is what are they looking to increasewill energy is a perceived in meaning notnecessarily a real but something that .

youperceive increase in mental stamina mentalefficiency and mental alertness and here'sthe kicker I love this one D purely physicalenergy boost do not qualify it has to be proceededif it actually gave you more energy then itwouldn't be an energy drink so what that meansis basically that energy drinks do not byany means provide energy but they bring youa perception of increased attention by thatdefinition that means that energy drinks arestimulants and a stimulant is also known asa drug is .

something that changes the mentalstate that changes the physiology of the bodythat overrides something so if you have anenergy drink with sugar now you're gettingthe Sugar Plus the stimulant and you're goingto have swings both from the stimulant butespecially from the blood sugar cuz now you'refeeling like you're getting some actual energyfrom the sugar because it is a fuel but itshort term because you spike your blood sugarand then it's going to crash if you get anenergy drink without sugar .

now you got thoseneurotoxins from the artificial sweetenersand then you're getting a stimulant on topof that so what is a stimulant what does itdo well I think of it as a cattle prod K itgets your attention it raises your alertnesstemporarily it could be a slap in the faceso this year could be your future tool insteadof an energy drink whenever you're startingto doze off then just bring out your palmyou could think of it as whipping the horsethe horses plowing the field of horses pullingthe .

cart and it's getting really really tiredand it doesn't want to go any further nowyou can pull out the Whip and you can makeit go a little further but I'm sure you wouldagree that it doesn't increase the chancesof that horse doing better work in the futurethat doesn't improve the health you can geta temporary a little boost out of that horsebut it's not going to do much better in thelong run but my favorite metaphor for energydrinks or stimulants is a credit card becausecredit card gives you .

the illusion of havingmoney just like an energy drink gives youthe illusion of having energy it's not actuallyadding any more energy at the time ask yourselfcan you use a credit card to create FinancialHealth can you get better finances so the more you use the credit card the harderit is going to be to repay and if it's notgiving you anything then you're borrowingif it's not giving you money then you're borrowingmoney if it's not giving you energy or healththen you're borrowing energy and .

health sokeep that in mind with energy drinks that'swhatever you're borrowing must be paid backand the more you use it the more you fallbehind the harder it is going to be to repaythat energy that are thinking you're thinkingwell I never noticed anything I've used thosedrinks for years well that's because we don'tunderstand what health is we don't understandprevention heart disease diabetes adrenalfatigue autoimmune disease dementia Alzheimer'sdisease take decades they don't happen tonightit's .

not like you have one drink and you getdementia then it would be easy then we wouldfigure this out in a heartbeat but the moreyou abused your body the more you use energydrinks and you borrow energy the more you'reburning your candle at both ends and we haveto start understanding once and for all thata lack of symptoms is not Health a lack ofsymptoms is just no symptoms yet so in a nutshellenergy drinks are basically really overpricedsoda soft drinks a soft drink a soda is abouta quarter $0.25 .

give or take depending onthe brand vs22 $4 for one of these glorifiedenergy drinks it is really really clever marketingand a lot of hype that's what it is they giveyou a little bit more caffeine and they giveyou some questionable chemicals / nutrientsnone of which actually gives you energy somy suggestion is to keep your stimulants aslow as possible for the times that you wanta little bit of stimulation go have a cupof coffee have one or two don't have 8 or12 and as far as energy drinks go I've .

neveractually had even one aren't you supposedto always try everything at least once noif you enjoy this video I'm sure that you'regoing to love that one .