Dr Can­di­da Khan

I’ve heard many of my clients say that they drink en­er­gy drinks when they feel tired, have a long day ahead or work late. Why? They use it as a tool to keep them awake!

En­er­gy drinks are heav­i­ly mar­ket­ed prod­ucts that con­tain so much caf­feine, sug­ar and oth­er stim­u­lants that they can in­crease alert­ness, heart rate, and give the il­lu­sion of en­er­gy. Over­all, the im­pact can be detri­men­tal be­cause we are not cor­rect­ing the cause of the fa­tigue that we feel.

The nu­tri­tion­al com­po­si­tion varies, but our main mis­take is that we con­sume the en­tire can, think­ing that is one serv­ing when a serv­ing can ac­tu­al­ly be half or even less of the can. From my gro­cery shop­ping tour ex­pe­ri­ences, I no­ticed that we on­ly scan the front of the prod­uct and not look at the back, which con­tains the in­gre­di­ents and nu­tri­tion facts la­bel.

The is­sue is that con­sum­ing more caf­feine, sug­ar and calo­ries over­all can im­pact your risk for lifestyle dis­eases. Con­sum­ing en­er­gy drinks dai­ly can in­flu­ence hy­per­ten­sion, type 2 di­a­betes, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease and obe­si­ty!

You are what you drink as much as you are what you eat.

I’ve heard sto­ries where some­one was load­ing up on en­er­gy drinks dai­ly, which led to a heart at­tack. We are not re­al­is­ing the im­pact these drinks have on our health.

1) Hy­per­ten­sion and car­dio­vas­cu­lar health are di­rect­ly im­pact­ed by caf­feine and oth­er stim­u­lants. Many meta-analy­ses of ran­domised tri­als found that en­er­gy drinks can in­crease sys­tolic and di­as­tolic blood pres­sure in healthy adults.

2) Type 2 di­a­betes can be im­pact­ed by these drinks be­cause of the added sug­ar. Ex­cess calo­ries and added sug­ar can con­tribute to weight gain and poor di­ets over­all.

3) Weight gain and obe­si­ty can be af­fect­ed by these sweet­ened bev­er­ages, which have emp­ty calo­ries. Con­sum­ing more en­er­gy than the body needs can lead to weight gain.

4) Sleep dis­rup­tion can cause lifestyle dis­eases. When you con­sume caf­feine and it leads to in­ad­e­quate sleep, the cy­cle starts: poor sleep leads to fa­tigue, then drink­ing en­er­gy drinks for TEM­PO­RARY alert­ness, less sleep and more fa­tigue, which leads to an­oth­er drink. The un­der­ly­ing is­sue is in­suf­fi­cient sleep. When sleep suf­fers, healthy habits, me­tab­o­lism, and over­all qual­i­ty of life suf­fer.

What would I rec­om­mend that you drink in­stead? Fo­cus on wa­ter; in­clude fresh fruit-in­fused wa­ter, unsweet­ened herbal tea for ex­am­ple, chamomile tea, and bal­anced snacks and meals would pro­vide sus­tained en­er­gy. The best “en­er­gy drink” can in­clude a good night’s sleep, bet­ter qual­i­ty meals, ad­e­quate hy­dra­tion and good-qual­i­ty snacks.

Be­fore you drink an en­er­gy drink, ask your­self if you re­al­ly need it be­cause the truth is that you don’t. This is a tem­po­rary feel­ing of alert­ness, but a sub­sti­tute for a healthy lifestyle. Al­ways check the la­bel of the prod­uct you are con­sum­ing and aim for 5-10 per cent dai­ly val­ue per serv­ing for sug­ar.

I re­mem­ber work­ing with a client who was drink­ing en­er­gy drinks to get more en­er­gy dur­ing the week, but as we cor­rect­ed wa­ter, tim­ing, bal­anced eat­ing, pri­ori­tis­ing food groups and sleep, his en­er­gy ac­tu­al­ly im­proved with­out the en­er­gy drinks. He stopped skip­ping meals, los­ing sleep and re­ly­ing heav­i­ly on caf­feine, and his life im­proved ten-fold.

It’s time to stop fa­tigue by work­ing on your eat­ing habits and lifestyle. Your body de­serves more than an­oth­er en­er­gy drink. As Dr Di­di, PhD in nu­tri­tion and di­et ther­a­py, I would rec­om­mend that we work to­geth­er to give the body what it needs and work on strate­gies to fit your rou­tine.

Dis­claimer: This ar­ti­cle is for gen­er­al nu­tri­tion and ed­u­ca­tion­al pur­pos­es on­ly.

Dr Can­di­da Khan, al­so known as Di­di, is a Reg­is­tered Di­etit­ian and Nu­tri­tion­ist and holds a PhD Nu­tri­tion and Di­et Ther­a­py, MSc. RD and is a Chron­ic Dis­ease Spe­cial­ist.

Con­tact her at didis­nu­tri­tion­con­sul­tan­cy.com