E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
5-Hour Energy
Beware, energy shot devotees.
For many of us who march in the sleep-starved army that is the American workforce, it’s as critical to our survival as air, food, and bad reality TV: Caffeine. Beloved, energizing, career-preserving caffeine.
But here's a word of caution to you true overachievers: the slightly sweaty/foot-tapping/takenobreathsbetweenwords caffeine junkies. For you, coffee was the gateway drug -- to energy drinks and, later, to energy shots. Too much of a good thing may help shrink that massive work stack before the 5 p.m. whistle, but it also may kill you -- or just land you in the hospital.
Case in point: The 22-year-old woman who arrived at an emergency room complaining of upper abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and a slight fever, according to the June 22 edition of the Journal of Medical Case Reports. A scan of her midsection was normal. She was sent home. She returned, however, even sicker, and bathed in a yellowish tint -- jaundice -- meaning her liver was failing. Doctors diagnosed the woman with acute hepatitis.
The staff checked her for viruses, alcohol and drugs. Nothing. Then the woman revealed a key part of her diet over the previous two weeks: 10 bottles of 5-Hour Energy per day.
Math time, lady: If the product indeed provides a five-hour boost, that two-week binge totaled 700 hours of “energy.” There are only 336 hours in two weeks. Must have been one hell of a deadline.
Doctors believe the woman overdosed on one ingredient: niacin -- also called vitamin B3 -- which can damage the liver when ingested in high amounts. She was successfully treated and discharged after her symptoms vanished.
Makers of 5-Hour Energy print recommendations on their labels: “Do not exceed two bottles” per day. The shots “contain caffeine comparable to a cup of … coffee,” they add. The drink’s sales pitch: “Zero sugar. Four calories. No waiting. No hassles.”
“Energy drinks are propped up by all sorts of sexy marketing, but they’re not as magical as the ads would have you think,” says TODAY nutritionist Joy Bauer. “The ‘lift’ they give you comes from caffeine -- nothing fancy there. … The high doses of B vitamins and amino acids they dump in are purely for glitz and glam -- they don’t actually help you instantly perk up.
“Energy shots offer a very concentrated dose of caffeine, which makes it difficult to stop when you feel like you’ve had too much, unlike if you’re slowly sipping a cup of coffee.”
But even coffee has its human limits, according to the website energyfiend.com -- which offers a macabre calculator to reveal the fatal dose of nearly any caffeinated beverage, based on body weight.
A 130-pound person, for example, would “be pushing up daises” after guzzling 151.67 cans of Mountain Dew, the site estimates. And for a 200-pound person, the site warns, “Gulp down 143.68 cups of Starbucks Tall Cafe Mocha and you’re history.”
In that case, hold the whipped cream.
Bill Briggs is a frequent contributor to msnbc.com and author of “The Third Miracle.”
Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.
Leave a Comment:
What happened to the natural cure for exhaustion -- some extra hours of sleep??
nahhhhhhhh too simple ;)
Slave food!
sheesh guys lol... caffeine (i.e., coffeeand its cohorts) are the sleep interrupters. Cure is... quit drinking coffee, coca cola, pepsi and all the rest of the laden caffeine foods...
Or be content with no more than one caffeine drink a day fer gosh sakes. LOL Guarantee you will get more hours of sleep. (a warm milk beverage before bedtime is a folk lore treatment to replace things like zolpidan (generic for Ambien) and similar aids. Try less coffee and that bedtime cup of warm milk... It will work for most of us)
Very duh!
Then how am I going to finish all these Jager Bombs. JAAGGAAAA BOOMMMBBBB!
No time. It is the modern age.
Geez, I hope she learned 2 valueable lessons that many Americans have yet to learn: You can't cheat your body, there are no easy shortcuts.
If you want to have energy; get 8 hours of sleep, eat healthy and get some exercise. Anything else has negative side effects. By the way I'm fed up with products like these, who needs all that energy anways? Have we de-evolved as a species to the point where we need being able help staying active and alert just for 5 hours?
Sorry but a 22 year old doesn't need an energy drink. Typical brain washed consumption society monkey. Try being 40, running a business and raising 3 and 4 year old boys and coaching little league.
I drink one of these a week. I have one Monday morning when I get up at 4:00 am and drive 4 hours to get to work. The things really work for me. They don't make me sick, they don't make me jittery. Without one I have to stop at every rest stop on the freeway to sleep for a little while which means I would have to get up even earlier. The typical energy drinks don't work well for me. They make me jittery and make me feel like I want to throw up.
On my drive home Friday night, I use the old stand by and drink a Coke and maybe a candy bar.
I doubt caffeine is the culprit. I have drank 3 quarts of coffee a day for forty years (55 now). Not for a "buzz", just can't take the constant thirst created by soda or any sweetened drink. No trouble sleeping, and checkups are always good.
What the hell are you driving 4 hours to work for fool! You must be rich. I could not afford the gas to drive 4 hours away for a job. And @!$%# that, I need my beauty sleep anyway. Im switchin to the 10 five hour energy drinks a day. I need something to end life sooner, Thanks a million. I wonder if my family could still get the insurance money..Hmmm. Oh well @!$%# it!!!
As the article says, it was not caffeine, it was the niacin which poisoned her liver. I typically drink a pot of coffee every day, the last cup just before bed. I've been doing it for 63 years. I sleep like a baby. Not everyone has my caffeine tolerance of course.
@ I smoke rocks - I am not rich. Sometimes the job site I have to work at is located away from my house. Luckily, the company gives me a car to drive so it costs me nothing out of pocket. I will probably have to work on this job another year and then it will be finished and hopefully I can spend some time in the office afterward. I do a 10% increase in pay plus per diem to work out of state so loosing that kind of hurts, but I would like some time at home. :)
Those energy drinks are not good for you.
People need to be more skeptical of the advertisements for these things.
SecondSight1 - the article is not about the woman trying to sleep. It's about the fact that she was drinking 10 bottles of energy drink per day to stay awake and "energized". Any fool knows to reduce caffeine consumption hours before bedtime in order to fall asleep more easily and quickly.
@ Gneisenau. Okay, then I understand. I have been there and done that. It does get old. And everyone needs time at home. Good luck to you in getting that job completed!
But...but...that's too practical, scientifically-proven and relaxing.
IT GOES AGAINST WHAT LIFE IN AMERICA IS ALL ABOUT, DAMN IT!!!!
I have severe insomnia, and the most caffeine I get is from chocolate (which is not often) I dont dare have a cofffee.
About half of you didn't make it beyond the first paragraph. In the end, the main culprit of her illness was Vitamin B3 (Niacin) overdose. 10 x 5-hour energies per day is absolutely ridiculous (and expensive).
What_the_81: your advice is sound, however there is nothing wrong with 5-hour energy, or most other caffeinated products, in moderation. In fact, studies are finding benefits to moderate caffeine use, such as helping to prevent Alzheimer's.
I usually have one-half of a 5-hour energy (1oz) every morning to get me going, and a cup of white or green tea after lunch if necessary. Keeps me going, no negative side effects, no trouble sleeping at night.
Ken-848629
I doubt caffeine is the culprit. I have drank 3 quarts of coffee a day for forty years (55 now). Not for a "buzz", just can't take the constant thirst created by soda or any sweetened drink. No trouble sleeping, and checkups are always good.
... Umm.. Coffee is a diuretic... drinking coffee doesn't rehydrate you, it makes you urinate more, which makes you thirstier. If you're dry, you should try water. Water is the only real thing that can rehydrate you.
5 hour energy drinks, ugggg i hate those things. Nothing but caffeine and sugar and taste like backwash. They dont even work for me.
Headlines like these make me laugh.
5 Hour energy drink may have harmed someone...
Meanwhile the mass media IGNORE the hundreds of thousands of people who die each year from FDA approved drugs that were NEVER safe to begin with but passed by buying off the wonderful terrorists at the Fear and Death Administration. When they are not busy taking bribes from big pharma they are ignoring federal laws and passing GMO foods to further contaminate the food supply and make people sicker so their buddies at big pharma can make more deadly drugs. What a marriage made in hell.
Hey MSNBC, how about reporting the real story about health and the joke our health system really is.
Patrick 1112710, I really like the commerical of the depression medicine that can make you suicidal!
It's funny as hell. Big Pharma is crazy and they are forcing their crap on us via their pimp, the FDA.
She is 22, she should be full of life and energy and not need aid to stay awake. When I was 22 I could pull all nighters on consecutive days and certainly on weekends without even drinking coffee. This chick is dumb.
At 22 I lived large almost every night and still made it to work on time every morning.
Well, I made it to work, anyway...
Unless she is a 22 year old mom like myself, then she definitely needs it. I don't ever have energy!
I'm 21 and I can pull off all the consecutive all-nighters you want. I can sleep 4 out of 48 hours and still function, if I'm studying. But I can't handle a week's worth of 9-to-5 workdays, sitting in front of a screen with Excel or Word on it. There's a causality problem here. People don't feel more and more tired as they get older just because they get older, but also because their workloads increase. I'm sure that when I was 16 or 17 I couldn't have possibly handled college-level workload.
However, keep in mind, folks that even at the younger ages there is a wide range of metabolic rates. Plus, not everyone's nervous systems work the same way; some people get nervously exhausted by paper work.
when i was 22, i had a 2 yr old daughter and worked full time. most nights i got between 3 - 5 hrs of sleep. my daughter, work, my relationship, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, running errands, i just kept going and going - without caffeine. i have too high of a sensitivity to drink it...unfortunately, now at 30, i have lots of days where i feel tired and drained. days that make me sometimes wish i could drink a coffee drink or an energy drink or a caffeinated soda and suddenly have energy
im curious if this lady had an actual reasoning behind drinking all those drinks or was just trying to test her own limits
Even my 9 yo knows "Monster" when he sees it at Costco, and then begs me to buy it! He sees the emblem on almost every truck that whizzes by us on the freeway.
I explain to him that it is an energy drink loaded with sugar for those people who need a lift during the day. Believe me sweetie, when I tell you, you don't need a lift!
Personally, I think it's just a fad in that woman's age-group. They think it's sexy or "in" to drink this nonsense. But there's a market niche for it, so they are going to make profit off of it, even if it kills someone!
Exactly.
Sometimes there is just not enough time. One of the disadvantages of dealing with the government. They want it all, now and delivered..lol
There have been occasions when I've been without enough sleep and grew tired during the day. I struggled during those occasions.
Then when those occasions where upon me, I tried that 5-Hour Energy stuff and it works. Only on occasion and then only one bottle around 11am'ish. I was good to go.
However, ya just can't over do anything at all. As they say, "Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing."
My confidence in the human race is exhausted. People are idiots... lawsuit to soon follow.
And when she does sue, they'll point to the "2 bottles per day" on the label, case closed... But you're right, people think they know better, then when they're wrong they will want to blame someone else...
i dont know, i mean a lady did sue mcdonalds for their coffee being hot
imjusd -
You obviously dont know anything about the case where the lady sued Mcdonalds because she got 3rd degree burns from the coffee.
Sorry world
dumb sh*t. a friend of mine son died drinking 3 red bulls and 3 beers. this kind of stuff is deadly
During college I would have one every now and then, when I really needed to stay awake. That stuff worked, really well. It was definitely not coffee. Drinking 10 a day though is so stupid that it almost sounds made up. Two a day was intense enough. How this woman managed to down ten a day for two weeks straight, without having her eyeballs pop out of her head is beyond me. What a dumb idea.
I've posted this on NV threads, but I'll add it here. My alma mater gave out Welcome/Survival Kits to freshmen in the fall and then again in the spring. They typically had a few essentials that you could also find the campus market like travel-sized acetaminophen, band aids, etc. They also included packets of No-Doz tablets. IIRC, it was usually 2 packets, w/ 2 tablets each. I gave mine away to a relative who wanted them before I found out how big a deal they were. In the fall, the kits were only around during orientation weekend, not so for the spring semester. Students raided the kits to get the the No-Doz packets and left everything else. Some of the dining hall staff said it was hell when the boxes and bags of kits were brought in because students just crowded around that spot with kids grabbing as many as they could and then returning the kits minus the No-Doz. Just imagine how much fun that was for the next round of students trying the same thing. Sadly, I don't know if the college stopped doing the kits because of the mess and waste, or because they realized they were basically pushers at best.
Yeah, I have never seen anything like that. Energy drink companies set up stuff from time to time though and hand out free drinks. Usually the real sugary drinks like red bull or monster, stuff like that. No no-doz though. I've had it before and it made me so jittery I couldn't keep my hands from shaking. Too intense and uncomfortable for me. Didn't really see that one used at college too much though. It seems like most universities have pretty healthy black markets for study aids now.
a place i worked at in the early 2000s regularly had guys who were doing red bull promotions come in. they wore silver, insulated giant back packs with the red bull logo and would pass out free cans of red bull. no-doz, i tried back in high school, back when i could actually handle having caffeine. and i remember certain people who decided that swallowing a couple no-doz wasnt enough - they would chop them up and snort them.
Another examply of how some of today's kids aren't paying attention in school, primarily MATH!
math? more like ignorant of reading the instructions. people think its a drink just chug it, nothing will happen.
It's pretty much the same for people who think that if setting off one bug bomb in your house is good, setting off a dozen should be a lot better. Which is probably right - right up until the moment it blows your home into another time zone.
really? what did you think would happen when you had too much? chances are it's not going to be a good sight. oh, now we all know. thanks for being the guinea pig.
This woman is a moron and got what she deserved.
Dumb broad.
People have been hitting hospital ORs for a few years due to energy drinks overload. Why is this a story now?
5 Hour Energy doesn't do SQUAT for me and tastes NASTY as he11 too!
Give me ONE RockStar and I'm good to go!
... but I wouldn't drink 5 a day!
I actually find Rockstar, Monster and all those to taste disgusting, and I actually like 5 hour energy. It's the only one I think tastes good.
But, again, like you, I wouldn't drink more than one.
Personally, though, there's nothing quite like slowly sipping a hot cup of regular brewed coffee.
I've reached the age where one gets the same buzz from coffee, only now if doesn't feel good. I don't care to find out what even one 5-hour energy could do.
A former co-worker, his wife, in her late 20's, she had issues with her liver because she drank so many energy drinks (over a period of time, maybe not TEN PER DAY!). She ended up in the hospital...this was a year or so back.
I can't drink those without feeling too-shaky. I prefer my double-shot mochas! ;)
I dont get where the hepatitis dx came in.Just because you are jaundice doent mean hepatitis.She just
did something dumb.Cant imagine work would need much accuracy,10 bottles could definitely get one amped up and jittery. There out there,hows that for 15 min of fame. Hope mines better.
I can't take energy shots due to the Vitamin B, if it doesn't help keep you awake, it shouldn't be in it. It makes me very aggressive and I have to avoid energy drinks that have vitamin B in it because of that. Not many people I know are affected this way and they are always pressuring women to take more vitamin B, but you don't need it unless you're defficient.
This lady is clearly a moron, but so is the "expert" who claims that the only ingredient in Five-Hour Energy that makes you alert is caffeine. I am 31 and know how I feel after a cup of coffee, and coffee does not keep me comfortably alert for five hours as this drink does. At most, the buzz from a cup of coffee lasts an hour for me. I can even eat a bunch of dark chocolate and chase it with 20 oz. of Mountain Dew and be asleep in 15 minutes. In other words, I have enough caffeine tolerance that if it were only the relatively small amount of caffeine in Five-Hour Energy that was doing the job, it would be a total waste of money for me. And no, it is not just some placebo effect. There have been nights when I was dead tired from days and days of little sleep when I took Five-Hour Energy and was able to keep going for yes, exactly five more hours. I have tried other energy drinks which are loaded with caffeine and sugar, but they make me feel really weird and usually end with a sugar crash. I seriously doubt that anyone has conducted a real study of Five-Hour Energy's unique effects, positive or otherwise. For instance, I am only aware of a few people online discussing its mood-altering potential. I routinely experience a shift in mood (usually a kind of giddiness tinged with melancholy) when I take it. This shift is not overwhelming but it is a noticeable sensation specific to the times when I ingest the drink. I don't know, but I would suspect that this is related to the vitamin B, which is a known mood booster.
It was the niacin that made her sick. Caffeine is the only "energy" (read: stimulant) part of "5 Hour Energy," and only one cup of coffee's worth. I drink six plus cups of coffee a day, and as long as I quit by nine PM, I'm asleep by eleven.
Wonder what she weighs in at???
Just curious;)
Well actually these ones do work compared to monster or red bull but shes dumb for drinking so many of them. i'll only drink one at about 3 aclock and it helps for the rest of the day better then a cup of coffee or a soda
Sounds like an episode of House
I just wonder how many the writers drank to think up the ending of the most recent season finale. If you saw it, you know what I mean...
In House's own words: They're Idiots!
something wrong w story. says she was diagnosed with acute hepititis. hepatitis is a virus that attacks the liver. something she probably had for years. would make her extremely tired all the time which is probably why she drank so much 5-hour energy. while probably not good for her 5-hour wasn't the cause of her liver problem
Niacin, when taken in large doses, can do a lot of damage to the liver. People have been ending up in ER's from taking too much of it thinking it will help them pass drug tests. This has nothing to do with the caffeine and you're right, if she had hepatitis was and taking this product because of what it was doing to her, it's no surprise she ended up in the hospital. Hepatitis isn't exactly a virus, it's inflammation that can be caused by viruses, infections and toxins.
volunteer - Always the armchair doctors making statements that are not true. According to WebMD:
"Hepatitis is acute when it lasts less than six months and chronic when it persists longer. A group of viruses known as the hepatitis viruses cause most cases of hepatitis worldwide, but it can also be due to toxins (notably alcohol, certain medications, some industrial organic solvents and plants), other infections and autoimmune diseases."
Check your facts before making false statements. Too many people will believe anything written by anyone that they read on-line.
5-hour energy does nothing to me. My body requires alot more for energy since I have been taking energy supplements for so long (because of my chronic fatigue diagnosed 10 years ago..there's no medication for it, so I've been told). I take supplements with yohimbe in them. I used to take ephedrine just fine, but our big brother government decided that since some morons were o.d.'ing on it or using it wrong, then all ephedrine users must be morons, so banned it (which makes one wonder why alcohol doesn't get prohibted again, then?) Some years ago, I did o.d. on some energy supplements (no ephedrine...it was illegal by then), and yes, I think it was because of the niacin. I had nearly the same symptoms. I was hot, sweaty, weak, shaky, nauseus, the whole bit...I didn't go to the hospital...the symptoms passed over-night. But I learned from that mistake and now obey the directions to a "t" and also respect the warnings on the labels. But what kind of idiot drinks 10 5-hour energy shots in one day anyways? Why would anyone have to do that?
It said she was diagnosed with it, not that she actually had it. Her liver was failing due to an overdose of niacin!
They diagnosed her with Hepatitis based on her symptoms, which is why they ran the drug tests. It wasn't until after this that she told them about the obscene amount of 5 hour energy's she had drank, which is when they were able to correctly diagnose and treat her for a Niacin overdose. She doesn't actually have hepatitis.
It's called an "addictive personality"...
10 a day? Really?
My Scale: 1- ok if you need it 2- you might try getting some sleep 3 -you have issues 4 or more - you are intentionally trying to poison yourself