You Kids Get Off My Lawn!!!
I read the news today, oh boy…
Red Bull drink lifts stroke risk: Australian study.
CANBERRA (Reuters) – Just one can of the popular stimulant energy drink Red Bull can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke, even in young people, Australian medical researchers said on Friday.
The caffeine-loaded beverage, popular with university students and adrenaline sport fans to give them “wings”, caused the blood to become sticky, a pre-cursor to cardiovascular problems such as stroke.
“One hour after they drank Red Bull, (their blood systems) were no longer normal. They were abnormal like we would expect in a patient with cardiovascular disease,” Scott Willoughby, lead researcher from the Cardiovascular Research Centre at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, told the Australian newspaper.
Red Bull again…I can’t figure out what it is about Red Bull that gets everyone’s knickers in a twist. There are other energy drinks I’d question…but Red Bull???
To put this into context: I work in the bodybuilding field, and analyze a lot of supplements. To be blunt, there’s absolutely nothing in Red Bull that isn’t also found in a ton of other products taken by gym rats all over the world. And – insofar as I know – there aren’t any stroke or MI epidemics currently raging among consumers of the vast array of workout boosters, “shooters,” or other, related “energy” supps containing the exact same ingredients: caffeine, glucuronolactone, taurine, B-vitamins and…yes, even that ol’ demon, sugar. In fact, I’d be prepared to argue that Red Bull, for all its bad reputation, is pretty wimpy stuff. It contains only 80 mg of caffeine – less than a cup of coffee. Both taurine and glucuoronolactone are naturally-occurring compounds in the body, and Red Bull just doesn’t contain very much of them (this analysis found 983 mg taurine and 56 mg glucuronolactone). It doesn’t have any more sugar than most soft drinks do.
So what’s the deal???
To find the answer, I went looking for the study…and ran straight into a brick wall. There was was no journal mentioned in the article, nor was there an abstract in PubMed. A Google search just turned up other, cookie-cutter news reports. Next, I headed over to the Cardiovascular Research Centre at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, to see if I could dig up any additional info about the study. I struck out there, too. I couldn’t find a general staff directory; a search for “Scott Willoughby” came up with zero results; and a look at the “Latest News” page – where I’d expect to find a press release – was also unenlightening…the last posting was on November 16, 2007!
Frankly, this strikes me as rather unprofessional. When you make statements to the public, then – in my humble opinion – your peer-reviewed, published data should be readily available through the usual channels, too. Information about controls (or lack thereof) and other test conditions is vitally important when it comes to assessing the actual risks. Would another sugar-and-caffeine drink (say – Mountain Dew) provoke a similar reaction?
As I often say, the devil lies in the details.
Personally, I think the fact that they went LOOKING for health problems associated with Red Bull is the more interesting story. This is hardly the first scary report published about it, after all. To understand why, all you have to do is look at the user demographics. Energy drinks like Red Bull are predominantly marketed to young men – a group that always provokes a lot of societal hand-wringing and anxiety.
New research suggests the drinks are associated with a health issue far more worrisome than the jittery effects of caffeine — risk taking.
In March, The Journal of American College Health published a report on the link between energy drinks, athletics and risky behavior. The study’s author, Kathleen Miller, an addiction researcher at the University of Buffalo, says it suggests that high consumption of energy drinks is associated with “toxic jock” behavior, a constellation of risky and aggressive behaviors including unprotected sex, substance abuse and violence.
“Toxic Jock” syndrome?
METHODS: The author conducted linear regression analyses of energy-drink consumption frequencies on sociodemographic characteristics, jock identity, masculine norms, and risk-taking behavior. RESULTS: Of participants, 39% consumed an energy drink in the past month, with more frequent use by men (2.49 d/month) than by women (1.22 d/month). Strength of jock identity was positively associated with frequency of energy-drink consumption; this relationship was mediated by both masculine norms and risk-taking behavior. CONCLUSIONS: Sport-related identity, masculinity, and risk taking are components of the emerging portrait of a toxic jock identity, which may signal an elevated risk for health-compromising behaviors. College undergraduates’ frequent consumption of Red Bull and comparable energy drinks should be recognized as a potential predictor of toxic jock identity.
Gee, I don’t know about y’all, but I indulged in a certain amount of “risk-taking behavior” when I wuz an undergrad. So did most of the guys I knew. It sorta went with the territory. And since Red Bull didn’t even exist back in my party daze, I have a hard time seeing the connection. “Kids these days” really aren’t much different than they used to be – I have two teenagers (18 and 15) myself, and am in daily contact with young, college-aged men through the “Bodybuilding Revealed” forum, so I’m not exactly out-of-the-loop here. The only real difference I can see is that they have cooler toys than I (and my “toxic jock” buds) did – damn them! 😉
The vague, menacing warnings surrounding Red Bull remind me of the ones that used to circulate about creatine – another product associated with all those risk-taking, young jocks. In other words, it’s less about what’s being taken, and more about who’s taking it. If the kids are doing it, it’s gotta be bad!
One of these days, I’d like to see a study done on the potential predictors of a toxic, “Grumpy Old Man” (or woman) identity…but something tells me it ain’t gonna happen. 😀
To return to the news report at the top: I’d be curious to see what the controls used for this study were. After all, elevated blood sugar – by itself – might be enough to cause transient “sticky blood” (i.e., platelet aggregation, potentially leading to abnormal blood clot formation and increased cardiovascular risk). I’d also be interested in seeing the “Discussion” section of the paper: after all, the weak link is the relationship between the acute event reported here and long-term disease risk. To take an analogy, my blood pressure is going to be transiently elevated every time I do a bench press or squat set. Elevated blood pressure is also associated with the risk of cardiovascular events, but does that mean that lifting weights is going to give me a stroke or heart attack? Not too damn likely.
Thus, I’m going to have to see some better info than this before I join the dogpile on Red Bull. It may not be the healthiest choice, but I have a hard time seeing how it’s any worse than a Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks.
