The dangers of energy drinks for your body.
Energy drinks have become very popular nowadays as a way to boost energy levels, wake you up and improve exercise performance. However, these drinks only give an artificial boost of energy by stimulating your adrenal glands. This is not healthy long term and can cause some major damage to your health.
In this article, we will share with you the 12 dangers of energy drinks and how to reverse the damage in a healthy way.
1. Blood Pressure: Energy drinks contain high amounts of caffeine and sugar which act as stimulants to the body. These give you a quick boost as they stimulate your adrenal glands to pump out more adrenaline and cortisol. Although this makes you feel very awake and alert for a short time, it is actually causing damage to your nervous system.
2. Heart Attack: Over time the high caffeine and sugar in energy drinks causes a hardening of the arteries, which means they become stiff and less flexible. They then become clogged with calcium and cholesterol which can lead to a heart attack, as the blood can no longer flow freely.
3. Stroke: Studies show that energy drinks also increase a person’s risk of stroke by 500% percent. The stimulants within the drink deplete your potassium reserves. This is an important electrolyte which helps to recharge your cells and keep the heartbeat in a regular rhythm. Energy drinks can cause irregular heartbeat which leads to stroke.
4. Addiction: The high sugar in energy drinks spikes the blood sugar leading to a quick burst in energy. This is dangerous for the body as the blood should only contain less than a teaspoon of sugar. The body releases insulin from the pancreas to quickly remove the sugar from the blood, which then causes you to feel tired again, with mood swings and low mood. This also depletes your B1 levels making you feel like you need another energy drink. This causes a cycle of addiction.
5. Muscle Weakness: Many people believe that energy drinks will improve their exercise performance and restore glycogen and sugar to the muscles. However, most energy drinks are loaded with high fructose corn syrup, dextrose and fructose. These types of sugar go directly to the liver through the portal vein and do not refuel the muscles like regular sugar. In fact, these sugars are the main cause of belly fat and fatty liver disease. Energy drinks also deplete magnesium, a key electrolyte which is needed to produce energy in the mitochondria for exercise.
6. Diabetes: After consuming too much sugar from energy drinks and carbs the cells start to reject sugar and insulin. This leads to insulin resistance and rapidly heightens your risk of diabetes, weight gain, obesity, arthritis, eye disorders, heart attacks, strokes, and poor overall health.
7. Tiredness: As the body becomes insulin resistant from consuming energy drinks, important nutrients can no longer get inside the cells. This causes waves of tiredness when you have ‘come down’ from the stimulants of the drink. You will lose concentration, have poor memory, mood swings, tiredness and brain fog.
8. Insomnia: Drinking high amounts of caffeine are well known for causing insomnia and preventing you from falling asleep at night. This is because the nervous system has become imbalanced and the brain is overloaded with neurotransmitters. The adrenals will be producing too much cortisol, keeping you feel stressed and tense at night. This causes you to drink more energy drinks the following day, leading to an endless cycle.
9. Heart Palpitations Energy drinks cause dehydration, a boost in stress hormones and a deficiency in potassium. All of these lead to poor heart rhythm and you may experience palpitations. This is where you feel that your heart is beating out of your chest and can be very frightening. You can also feel this in your neck, ear and throat when laying down.
10. Headaches: You will experience lots of headaches or migraines when you come down off energy drinks. These are withdrawal symptoms triggered mainly by the caffeine but also the high amount of sugar. 11. Anxiety Studies have shown that some people contain a genetic variation in the adenosine receptors. These people are more prone to anxiety disorder when consuming caffeine and energy drinks. Large doses of caffeine can also cause panic attacks in some individuals.
12. Drug Interaction: Some of the ingredients in energy drinks can cause problems by interacting with medications prescribed by a doctor. If you are taking medication for depression be sure to cut the drinks out immediately. As you can see there are many dangers of drinking energy drinks.
We recommend avoiding these at all costs and improving your energy levels naturally instead. Here are some replacements of energy drinks.
1. You can purchase electrolyte powders which contain no sugar or caffeine. Electrolytes are electrically charged minerals which energise the muscle and nerve cells in the body.
2. Magnesium is one of the main electrolytes which feed the mitochondria. These are the powerhouses or energy factories of the cells. Magnesium triggers cellular respiration and will give you endurance, strength, mental focus and energy.
3. Potassium is another important electrolyte which regulates the heartbeat, helps the muscles to contract and relax, and works with magnesium to keep the cells at full energy capacity. You can get your magnesium and potassium easily by consuming large salads with leafy green cruciferous vegetables. These will also detox your liver and help the mitochondria to make pure cellular energy.
4. To fix your addiction to energy drinks you can take nutritional yeast, a natural source of the B vitamin complex. This helps to restore your nervous system and restore your sleep patterns. The natural B vitamins in nutritional yeast will also help your mitochondria to produce energy.
5. Taking a shot of wheatgrass juice powder daily will supply lots of vitamin C and chlorophyll for higher oxygen levels in the blood and improving the mood and energy.
Intermittent fasting can be used to balance your hormones and insulin. Simply eat all of your meals within an 8-hour window during the day, and allow the rest of the day for your body to rest and digest. This will rapidly boost your energy levels and you will have no need to take stimulants and power drinks. Intermittent fasting also triggers a process called mitophagy in the body. The body starts to recycle old damaged mitochondria and make new healthy ones. These energy factories then begin pumping out more energy for your muscles and nervous system.