The Truth On Energy Drinks: A Caffeine-Induced Report

So as many have heard, energy drinks are coming under fire after a number of people have died consuming several energy drinks at a time. However, is this the fault of the energy drink companies? Or do people today just think they can handle something so small like a couple of 5-Hour Energy bottles when they can't? And where does caffeine fit into all this? Could there really be a way to overdose on caffeine?

In 2010, the Phusion Projects group came under fire after one of their products, Four Loko, led to many deaths in different areas of the country. Four Loko is an alcoholic energy drink, meaning that it contains ingredients commonly found in energy drinks, but also has alcohol in it, and in 2010, there was a lot of alcohol in it, enough to where if a person drank too much too quickly, they got alcohol poisoning. Phusion changed Four Loko's components as a result.

However, other energy have recently had troubles with the same problem, except without any alcohol. Customers becoming very sick and even dying from drinking too much of the energy drinks for their bodies to handle. It has become so bad, that energy drink companies need to do commercials about how safe their product is. But is there a marketing flaw in some energy drinks involving caffeine. Last month, Consumer Reports released a report, a link to which will be left at the bottom of this article, reporting how much caffeine is in different energy drinks. Of the 27 energy drinks tested, seven had more than 200 milligrams of caffiene per can or bottle. But one thing caught my eye about this chart, and it brought a whole new thought into my mind. Could this be just a mistake made in the stores by the customers? Let me explain, let's a customer buys three bottles of 5-Hour Energy Decaf a day. One bottle of 5-Hour Energy Decaf has 1.9 fluid ounces, 4 calories, and costs two dollars. But let's say our customer walks into a store and the store has no 5-Hour Energy Decaf. However, there are lots of bottles of regular 5-Hour Energy, which is pretty close to the same thing. A bottle of regular 5-Hour Energy has 1.9 fluid ounces, 4 calories, and costs two dollars. Seeing all this the customer buys three bottles of regular 5-Hour Energy, and drinks them during the day. Later on, he doesn't feel so well. He begins to get sick, and has to go to the hospital, but why? Well, it's because of those 5-Hour Energy drinks, because while a Decaf 5-Hour Energy has just 6 milligrams of caffeine, a regular 5-Hour Energy has 215 milligrams, so drinking three would see our customer drinking 645 milligrams of caffeine in one day, plus any other caffeine he had during the day. So has our customer overdosed on caffeine?

Well, that's hard to say. There's no official mark of how much caffeine can cause someone to overdose, but just from past experience I can say that the number is very high, at least over 400 milligrams. Whatever we find that number to be though, overdosing on energy drinks than it may seem. If you drink energy drink, and the store doesn't have yours, don't just substitute it out for another. Only you know how much caffeine you can take, so make sure to know the product you are drinking. Also, don't drink too much. Any more than two energy drinks a day is normally too much, so stop at two.

Consumer Reports Link: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/12/the-buzz-on-energy-drink-caffeine/index.htm

A Welcome And What To Expect

To everyone who has found this site one way or another, welcome to the first of many posts on the Operation Reform Intelligence Blog. This site will basically be a look at the current events of the world in all categories. Whether it is sports, politics, economics, education, or anything else, it will probably be here at some point. The amount of posts a day is unknown at this time, but expect a post every few days or so.

Posts on this site will be in the form of a quick paragraph or two about a topic, and my two cents on it, but before we get too far into this, allow me to go even further into this discussion, with some of what you can expect me to say. I am not affiliated with any company or political party. I've been blogging for a few years on another blog, but this is my first political blog. I try to be as neutral as I can be when writing my articles, but with this blog it will be more an opinion with facts to back it. Still, with no clear side in most topics, I work to find the research if I do not have common knowledge of a subject.

All this being said, I hope my readers become as excited about this as I am, and expect to see more content added tomorrow.