Is one Monster energy drink per day a bad problem?
A couple of months ago I went on an awesome 5 day backpacking trip with a couple of friends. We got delayed getting back to my truck by several hours due to a rockslide on a train track. I didn’t want to miss my wife and kids for one more night so I grabbed a couple monsters and drove all night. I wouldn’t say I loved them, but it was somewhere between that and really liking them! Since then I’ve pounded on a day, with maybe a day off here and there. I don’t drink soda unless we go to the movies and even then my wife and I share one. I’ve gone from the green can (240 calories) to the low carb (25) calories. I’m smart enough to know they aren’t good for me, but I don’t think they are any worse for me than beer, which I drink plenty of ( at least during the summer).
So now I’m debating whether I should just quit drinking Monsters or enjoy one here and there instead of daily.
I think you’d really only have a problem if you were drinking multiple Monsters per day or, god forbid, drinking what my husband’s teenage/college age coworkers call “Monster Bombs”. A Monster Bomb, according to them, is where you buy a Monster and a 5 Hour Energy shot, drink enough of the Monster so that you can dump the 5 Hour shot into the can, shake them together and then chug it.
Sounds kinda dangerous, if you ask me, and I’ve told my husband if I EVER get wind of him doing such a crazy thing, if the Monster Bomb doesn’t kill him then I most certainly will. LOL
You SHOULD be worried about the entirely unregulated, added ‘Herbal’ ingredients, of unspecified/undetermined dosages that ‘enhance’ the effect of the caffeine.
If you really do care to learn fully about this product, I would suggest you consult your doctor. I’m pretty sure they will clear up any confusion you have about the effect this product could be having on your health. Now, and in future.
I was drinking 4-5 rockstars per day for about two years. I was concerned so I asked my Doc. He said as long as I was able to sleep at night, I wasn’t experiencing any of a list of symptoms and my blood pressure stayed low it wasn’t bad for me so survive working two jobs and going to night school.
You are doing the same thing I was going for the lowest calorie drink to at least head off the weight gain for drinking 2000-3000 empty calories per day. It was funny though even the local head of red bull told me he though I was drinking a lot despite giving me a case every couple of months.
Why? If the FDA doesn’t think they’re worth bothering to regulate, I can’t imagine they’re all that bad. Unless you have some information about the harmful health effects of these ingredients that the rest of us don’t, in which case please share.
I find it droll that saying such and such is “unregulated” is supposed to be a scary buzzword for the fearmongers these days. Generally it’s the stuff that is regulated that is potentially harmful to health - that’s why they made the regulations in the first place.
I’m not discounting the possibility that at some point in the future science may uncover harmful effects of things we don’t know about yet, and I’m sure at that point regulations will happen. But until such time I’m not going to worry myself over a few silly herbs.
I wouldn’t say it is useful to worry, especially if you aren’t planning to break the habit. But I’m not going to pat you on the back and tell you that you’ll be alright either. Because none of us really know that.
I have a caffeine habit. Specifically, caffeine pills. It serves me well in my life, which is why I’m not going to be weaning myself off of it anytime soon. But I know it probably isn’t the most healthy thing, and it does have some negative trade-offs. Because I know it isn’t the most healthy thing, I limit my intake to the lowest effective dose. I don’t take a full pill–I take a quarter. Maybe a half, if I’m really sluggish. But I stay away from a whole pill because that is excessive for me.
So if you really care about your health, you should probably experiment with the “dose” so you can figure out what’s the minimum amount your bodies requires to have a “feel good” sensation. And then try to stick to that amount.
Google the definition of “paranoid fearmongering”? By the way, fen-phen was a manufactured pharmaceutical. We’re talking about naturally occurring herbs like ginseng, guarana, and gum arabic and biological acids like taurine*. People have been using these for hundreds of years (at least), and they’ve also been studied in laboratory settings and found to have no adverse effects. Actually, not much of an effect at all really - it’s mostly all just marketing. From my cite:
The only actual health incidents I’ve ever read about regarding energy drinks were people who were predisposed to be sensitive to the adverse effects of caffeine, and usually after drinking massive amounts of the stuff. And we already know quite a lot about caffeine. I do actually think it’s strange that the quantity of caffeine is not required on nutrition labels, and you have to look it up externally if you want to know. I agree that that is something that should be included in the label. And sugar I’m totally against - I always get the sugarfree versions of energy drinks (which use artificial sweeteners that as someone else in this thread noted, have generally been found to be pretty safe and are found in all kinds of stuff).
So what is it you’re actually worried about?
*Actual ingredients, as read from a Monster can I happened to have.
In all reality I think I’m OK drinking a few Monsters a week. I should probably be more concerned about the artificial ingredients in the processed foods that make up a good portion of my diet than I am about caffeine, which I am not sensitive to, or natural herbs.
And where’s the vodka? Sixteen ounces of Monster/5 hour, drink three ounces, then add three ounces of 80 proof vodka. Half hour later, have another. Then repeat all night using some non-caffeinated drink plus vodka because you’ve had enough caffeine.
It’s not the FDA that thinks they’re not worth regulating; CONGRESS made that decision (after an extensive lobbying campaign by the makers of dietary supplements).
Under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, the FDA is specifically forbidden from regulating herbal supplements, and other dietary supplements, until and unless those supplements are proven to be unsafe. It’s exactly the opposite with drugs: the drug manufacturers have to prove they’re safe, first, and then that they are effective. No such rules apply to supplements, and the FDA can’t impose any requirement that they be proven either safe or effective before they’re put on the market.
The FDA is also not given much in the way of budget or resources to investigate reports of adverse affects, or even whether a given supplement actually contains what its label says it contains, and there’s no legal requirement for manufacturers to report all adverse events (deaths, injuries, etc.) to the FDA. Moreover, they have a high legal bar to meet: it took the FDA ten years to remove ephedra-containing weight loss products from the market even though dozens if not hundreds of deaths were linked to the products, because of the very lengthy and convoluted court battles to prove the products posed not merely a risk but a “significant or unreasonable risk.”
The FDA was trying to impose regulations on the supplement industry back in the 1980s and early 1990s–that’s precisely why the industry mounted a lobbying campaign focused on the proposed “Health Freedom Act,” which eventually morphed into the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. The researchers and regulators have been saying for more than 30 years that regulations are needed because those “silly herbs” can be deadly, but Congress has imposed its superior scientific judgment. [/sarcasm off]
I drink 2 a day. Haven’t died yet. The main problem is it’s hard to quit - quit for more than 24 hours, and you get a nasty headache. It’s fairly easy to cut back to 1 a day, but going below that is difficult.
