Talk:Energy drink

Addiction

Actually, I'd say that physical addiction is possible, as I've been there, done that. Then again, you need to consume a lot of caffeine very often to become addicted to it. Like me, last spring. When I finally decided I had a "caffeine problem", I quit cold turkey and had horrible withdrawal for a week. --DylanL 11:51, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

RESPONSE:

I have had a bit of an addiction as well, but it was just a bit of headache when I quit drinking caffeine. --Ice Cream Reaver 23:44, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Caffeine addiction I've found that a gentler way to step down from caffeine addiction is by using chocolate milk. It contains a relatively small amount of caffeine, and I suspect that the theobromine also helps in some way. But of course, if you are able to quit cold turkey, that's better. (And that was me, a few minutes ago --Peter Knutsen 10:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC))

Question : Is ther a possibility of addiction to the other energy deriving chemicals such as taurine, guarana, and carnitine? For example if you had repeated extreme use like over use of the drinks or is it only the caffine?

i was too addicted. i couldnt handle not having caffine. i would go psyco and then get caffine and be fine... weird

Energy drinks vs. sports drinks

Can someone explain how energy drinks are different from sports drinks? Is there even a difference? --Lowellian 00:36, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, question answered. See Talk:Sports drink. --Lowellian 17:00, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

XS points to the XS disambiguation page, which does not list XS the energy drink. It should point a page for XS the energy drink and the disambigiuation page should be updated.

Although this question is answered in the Sports drinks and Energy Drinks articles, I am not convinced. Lucozade was marketed as an Energy Drink when it was re-positioned in the 1980s. Caffeine and Taurine don't give energy as much as glucose, so the distinction is a strange one. Similarly I am not convinced there is a need for a list of energy drinks, if a definition is given. There are always new products coming on the market, and it's impossible to list all products in all markets. Perhaps it should be deleted. User:DavidFarmbrough 13:41 BST 3 June 05

I believe I've heard that caffeine increases your blood sugar levels. Something along the lines of it causing the liver to break down some of the stored glycogen and releasing it into the blood stream as glucose. --Peter Knutsen 10:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

No offense Lowellian, but that seems like an ignorant question. What's an example of a sports drink? Gatorade. Gatorade is caffeine-free. An example of an energy drink is Red Bull. Red Bull is not caffeine-free. Most energy drinks will probably say, "Energy Drink" on the label, but you should probably be able to tell right away. 68.38.242.66 03:46, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Health Risks?

I have no confidence in my knowledge of the subject, which is why I only bring up that I think a topic about the health risks of energy drinks might be a nice addition to the page. And yeah, I could just google it.  ;)

There's mention about concern over caffine and taurine overdoes, but nothing about the effects of long term Vitamin B overdose like nerve damage. --gwc 23:58, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Energy drink table

I made the list a table to hopefully make it a bit more useful. It looks a bit long right now (although this isn't a new problem with the table), not sure if it should be simplified slightly, or at least if non-existant articles should be removed to keep it a reasonable length.

Correct me if I am wrong, but this looks like a table of drinks available on the US market. It is pretty long now indeed so there is no point for me adding info from other markets. I would vote for limiting this list to, let's say, 20 with the greatest worldwide sales (although I haven't got such data at the moment). Cezary Okupski 20:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, I guess more columns could be added in the future for other relevant content, like taurine and ginseng. Unsure of a specific column for guarana though; isn't that just caffeine? A column for calorie amounts would also be very useful when using this table as a reference to find low-sugar energy drinks.

Also, of course feel free to add more caffeine data as well, but I'd like this data to be attributed (see the section introduction to the table), so we don't end up with lots of data we don't know where it's from. I noticed there's some data in the various Wikipedia articles, so I guess that will only need to be collectively attributed as "Wikipedia articles for respective drinks" or something like that. -- Jugalator 11:20, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Since you seem to be the head of this, I guess I should point out the newly added Crunk!! energy drink. It doesn't have a page on wikipedia and thought that you would be interested in making one. Good luck. --Damien Vryce 17:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The table shows the caffeine content in "mg/oz." Does this mean milligrams per ounce? (Milligrams of caffeine per ounce of beverage?) Or maybe some of the numbers are milligrams and some are ounces? In either case, it's not only confusing, it's mixing SI and non-SI units. Dyfsunctional 20:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Assuming "mg/oz" means milligrams per ounce, I've converted the numbers to ppm which I think is more universal. (Exceedingly easy: divide the number by 28349.523125 [the number of mg in an ounce] and move decimal points accordingly.) Dyfsunctional 15:52, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, an even easier way: Multiply mg/oz by 35.273962. Dyfsunctional 16:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

ppm is used for trace amounts. More than trace caffeine is in drinks. Conversion factor was OK, but a ppm value makes it difficult to rapidly evaluate how much caffeine is in a cup or other serving size usually given in ounces (the average mortal doesn't know the SI). You could give two columns. One in ml/oz (an aberration popularized by the US FDA) and the other in per mil. Jclerman 19:07, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I do not know much about it but there was an energy drink made my the same company as Jolt a little over 10 years ago called Kick. It was a moderately popular Mountain Dew rip off with more caffeine.It should probably be added.

Need to add "Unbound" to the energy drink table. Not sure where to gather caffeine, etc. data though. Or if it's made by another company as a spinoff. --Lskkat 09:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

'Relentless' (manufactured by the Coca Cola company and sold in the UK) should be added as well; it contains 32mg/100ml of caffeine but the can size is 500ml, providing 160mg per serving, which is unusual as the cans are usually 250ml or 330ml. [no user account]

I just skimmed through the article and the table, but noticed one of my favorite drinks is missing. NOS is a pretty powerful energy drink and shouldn't be left out. Just my opinion. Kojax 15:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

MDX and its Diet counterpart had levels almost twice as high as listed on the site the reportedly came from. Someone should consider doing a more thorough inspection to see if there are any other errors like this. Speedemon86 14:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Redline

Today i saw some people drinking a drink called Red Line, which is only sold to people over 18. Does anyone have info on it if so we can add it to the table :) - bownasterm

Not an energy drink. VPX RedLine burns fat through the shivering response in the body. By shivering the body burns huge amounts of stored bodyfat for energy in an effort to keep the body warm. That's not all! In addition to shivering, you'll also be sweating up a thermogenic storm. The combined mechanisms of these two processes results in unparalleled fat loss! (from the manufacturer's blurb) Jclerman 21:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Whatever you want to call it, it works. If you drink one, you won't stop until you're asleep. Slicedoranges 03:57, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

The guy sounds like a spokesperson for Red Line. You're only supposed to start out with half of the bottle. The drink is insanely crazy. Anybody have any idea how much caffeine is in that stuff? (Probably as much as cocaine.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mechasam (talk • contribs) 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

In Beverage Spectrum's 2006 Energy Drink Guide, Redline is one of the listed products. Its distributors refer to it as an energy drink (see Bevnet.com), and so does the manufacturer (I talked with them at length at a trade show). I know a dozen people who drink it regularly and they all understand it to be an energy drink, competing with Red Bull and Rockstar. As for the unparalled fat loss, none of the people I know have experienced this effect or use it for that reason. They all use it because it has more caffeine per ounce than most energy drinks, at 250mg per 8oz, more than 3 times Red Bull. Redline also fits into the category of "smart" energy drinks, using both 5HTP (a Serotonin precursor) and L-Tyrosine (a Catecholamine precursor, which enhance the user experience of the caffeine. Teloscientist

Links

I think the external links section should probably be sorted out; there is perhaps no shortage of energy drink reviews. Should these be included? I have also removed the pubmed note; any topic vaguely medical will retrive dozens or hundreds of articles. We should either read, cite and discuss them, or leave off the link. The removed link is

• Click and enter within quotation marks: "energy drink." It retrieves about 11 references with abstracts.

Thoughts? (With awareness of the irony of my username) --TeaDrinker 18:30, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

There should be some method to sorting the external links section. I believe the reviews are relevant information that make sense for inclusion since many people looking up these drinks on wiki are looking for information on specific drinks or a recommendation. While wikipedia is not there to recommend it should provide relevant information on where they should look.

While I agree that the external links section was getting a bit unwieldy, I do not feel that it is helpful to anyone to delete all of the links to personal energy drink collection and reviews pages. My personal collection site contains no advertisements and a heck of a lot of useful info not found on the wikipedia page (such as taste descriptions and pictures of all drinks). I went to an incredible amount of work to put my site together, and would like for interested people to be able to access the information I provide. I honestly feel that my site is far more relevant than say, bevnet, which is loaded with advertising and little content. Could whoever keeps deleting the link to my site please stop, or at least discuss the issue? Thanks. - www.enaajia.com

In general, links should not be added by people who are affiliated with a site, see WP:EL#Links_normally_to_be_avoided #3. However, I am happy to discuss the matter. The issue is the phrase "Energy drink reviews" brings up about 12000 pages in google. What makes enaajia stand out? What encyclopedic information could be obtained from your site, which could not be included in the article? Thanks, --TeaDrinker 15:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, from the perspective of someone who has searched the web quite a bit to locate other energy drink collectors, I can tell you that of your 12000 hits, very few sites have particularly large sets of reviews (fewer than 10 that I've found). Of those, even fewer have large sets of photographs of the drinks themselves (about 5 with both photos and reviews). Of those that contain both, fewer still were created with any care (e.g., 40ozbeer.com has the largest collection I've seen online, but many of his reviews are along the lines of "This one tasted like shit."). Beyond that, enaajia has a large number of foreign drinks featured, including more than a few from the Far East, which is not true of any other review/collection site. Finally, enaajia has photos of every drink (including most of those listed in the Wikipedia drink table, plus quite a few more). Much of this could be included in a wiki page, but who would go to that amount of work? Personally, I concentrate my efforts on my own site. The fact is, my site contains huge amounts of content not contained in the wiki page, and this content should be available to people (as you've noted, google returns huge amounts of spam when a search is done, making it hard to find my site, or other relevant results, by such means). Aside from your quoted rule, what reasons do you offer for deleting useful links? For the past 9 months, an average of 30 people/day found it worth their time to click through from this page to my site; I think that this alone shows I have been providing a useful service, one which you are now denying to viewers of the wiki page. -enaajia.com 8/9/06

-

First, just for reference, you can sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~). I am extremely uncomforable with a site owner deciding what site is best to link to. That guidline I cited in WP:EL is there for a reason. Plunging ahead anyway, your site provides only your own opinion about the drink, which is not a very broad base. The inclusion of reviews in general is not overly important, since it is essentially a specific point of view (not what people expect from an encyclopedia). I also dislike the framed layout of the page and navigation by linked pictures (particularly hard to read pictures). Additional information is the key to what, in my view, goes into an external link, as opposed to someone's reviews of it. I am not compelled by your arguement about the number of click throughs to your site, since that would be true of most sites linked. The description of the link also reads like advertising fluff (using superlatives, top placement). Let me put it this way, are there any other sites you think have comparable information, and why select your site over those alternatives? I have removed the link. --TeaDrinker 19:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll address each of your thoughts in turn: The guideline - I generally agree with this also. However, it is a guideline, and not a gestapo directive, relying on it alone adds little of substantive value to this discussion. "It is there for a reason." Care to elaborate? Personally, I think the reason it is there is to prevent abuse through a collective action methodology - something that is not occurring when Teadrinker makes the unilateral decision of what links to include. Beyond that, I'll be happy to encourage others to add the link to my site, but I doubt that will make you feel better, or stop you from deleting the link at this point. The issue is further confounded because this is the internet, and none of us has any idea who anyone else is. You may well be the owner of bevnet.com - you certainly appear to have some personal stake here judging by your level of interest.

Layout: Teadrinker doesn't like the layout of my site. That's too bad, I think it's pretty. Irrelevant.

Reviews: the reviews are not my opinion alone. Some are written by guest authors, and all contain a comments script that allows viewers to add their own comments. The reviews also contain plenty of information (both factual and opinion) not located on wikipedia (ex. descriptions of energy drinks not listed anywhere on wikipedia, pictures of all drinks mentioned).

Number of click throughs: In general, I agree. I largely added that for illustrative purposes - people have been using the link long enough that one would imagine someone else would have deleted the link if they felt as you do. They haven't, again pointing to the unilateralism of you decision.

Advertising fluff: Irrelevant. The issue here is whether the link should be included, not how it's labeled. I have no problem changing the labeling. I don't usually use superlatives, but in this case I've done significant research, and am quite sure that the use is justified (i.e., there's a reason I don't say World's largest - mine is not - there are however no other sites with the international variety offered by mine).

Other sites: There are certainly other sites I think should be linked to here. Specifically, I think this page should link to banddesigns.com, myenergydrinks.com, energydrinkreviews.com, and, of course, enaajia.com.

I have added links to all of these. - enaajia 8/10/06

PS - stop using the history to revert things, last time you also erased the typo I fixed (i.e. it's bilboa not biloba).

I appreciate you continuing the discussion here, and your through response. I don't think the solution is to add more links, so that yours can be included. The reason for the WP:EL guideline is given in the text of the guidline: "neutrality and point-of-view concerns." I can assure you that I have no vested interest in any of the links or content of any of the articles I edit. When, as you note you have, spent lots of time working on a site, editors are likely to see their own sites are more valuable than other editors see them. In the same way judges recuse themselves from decisions in which they have a stake in the outcome, or repuable journalists don't do stories on companies they are personally invested in, editors should idealy have no interest in editing than writing a good encyclopedia.

As far as site layout goes, I simply disagree. The ability of users to access the information is paramount. Framed sites are generally inaccessible from text based browsers, and pictured links mean looking at dozens of images to find the drink about which the user is seeking information. See accessible web design for more information.

A second concern in these discussions: you may take my criticism of your website personally. That is perfectly reasonable, you spent a lot of time working on your site. But it is another reason to leave discussion of editing to neutral editors.

I tend, when looking at review sites, to look primarily at the amount of information added rather than the reviews. I find little encyclopedic value in one person's point of view on something as varied as beverage taste. I have no trouble not linking to any review sites at all. What I find more valuable is the information content: price, availability, history, etc. In WP:EL, "professional reviews" should only be linked to "occasionally."

The point of my question about other links was to try to get us on the same page. If you could include only one of the sites you mentioned, which would it be and why? I don't think any of them need to be included, so I tend to think we should leave them all out.

Finally, I appreciate your work on typos. I think the original was actually correct: see this site.

It appears another editor has already removed the links, so I have not. Best wishes, --TeaDrinker 17:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Equation or something?

Anyone know what '9+9+9++998+9+8+98+9' was about? I figured it was gibberish so i got rid of it. Jive Monk 09:31, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

It was a very smart user that confused addiction with addition=sum. Jclerman 13:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Important, new health hazard section

I feel that such a section is crucial to this article, and that it goes in parallel to the "Addiction" section. Thus I made a top level "Criticism" section and added a new Health Hazard + moved the "Addiction" sections to it as subcategories.

However, I have no clue about what I wrote nor the references I quoted. I just made a quick google search. These are research page, but there are better ones for sure, and perhaps if you guys read them you can post some more conclusive info within this article.

I felt the need to warn you guys of this so that you may look at my section with scepticism and modify it as fitting. Beltz 19:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Most of these "drinks" are marketed to kids and they have an absurdly high content of caffiene and sugar. These companies use marketing to try to get children to not realize that coffee and tea are healthy substitutes for caffiene and are much cheaper. Also they put all these unnecessary vitamins and minerals into them to make kids think that the putrid liquid they're drinking is actually good from them. This article needs a health hazard section most defintely.207.6.113.119 23:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Name

Should the title of the article be "energy drink"? Doesn't all food and drink contain energy, thus making it "energy food" or "energy drink". It appears as though the term "energy drink" is a marketing term by the companies that make these drinks. Thus, wouldn't it be an infraction of a neutral point of view? I suggest that we change the name. Gold Stur 12:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

People searching for information relating to energy drinks are going to use that term. If you change it, you would limit visitors' access to this page. Arinna 14:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Arinna

is there a chemical in all energy drinks that includes bull sperm?

my friend told me, this true? -Dragong4

Howdy and welcome to Wikipedia! What your friend was probably thinking of was Taurine, which was first extracted from ox bile (not sperm). It is an ingredient in many energy drinks. I don't know the source of Taurine used for the drinks, although my guess is that it is botanical, since growing plants is usually cheaper than raising cattle. That is just a guess though. A better bet for asking questions on wikipedia is to go to Wikipedia:Where to ask a question. For this type of question, the reference desk might be helpful. You can also sign your name (this is a good idea on talk pages) by adding four tildes (~~~~), and your name (or IP address in your case) and date will appear automatically. Cheers, --TeaDrinker 07:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Taurine is a conditionally essential amino acid and, like all amino acids, vitamins etc nowadays it is made synthetically. The Bulls testicles/sperm whatever rumor you've heard is false, and probably came from Taurine --> Taurus (the bull). - Glen 17:33, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Which ingredients (besides caffeine) are stimulants?

Most energy drinks list a whole bunch of "medical" ingredients other than caffine. Are any of them stimulants, or do they mearly imply it?

They are all usually the chemical names for common vitamins and minerals (for example vitamin B6, wont be listed as B6, it will be pyridoxamine) It is a marketing gimmick so the drink sounds "high tech". As for the stimulants, well they use 3. Caffeine, caffeine and caffeine. But from different sources, some use synthetic pure caffeine hydrochloride, some guarana, some kola nut, some green tea extract... its all the same stuff. Hope this helps - Glen 17:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

For the stimulant effects of energy drinks with caffeine, taurine, glucuronolactone, see PMID 11897259. Jclerman 18:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. What the should have done is also had a third group that had the caffeine alone - the results would have been the same as the non-control group. Glucurolactone and taurine have no stimulatory properties at all. - Glen 20:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

While I essentially agree that caffeine is the central/primary/dominant stimulant in energy drinks, and that Taurine and Glocuronlactone are not (which is the big joke of the energy drink category), some drinks contain mild stimulant's such as ginseng, whose adaptogenic and hence stimulant properties are reasonably well established, the D and L forms of Phenylalanine, which are precursors to phenylethylalanine and the catecholamines, and L-Tyrosine, also a precursor to the catecholamines. Again, caffeine does all the heavy lifting, but these particular ingredients should be noted both as mild stimulants, and for their ability to affect the central "energy" neurotransmitters that caffeine potentiates, the catecholamines.Teloscientist 03:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Some of them, like Sobe Essential Energy, contain Yerba Mate, which is a non-caffeinated stimulant. Arinna 15:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Arinna

Unfortunately Arinna, it is a myth that Yerba Mate is non-caffeinated. Its active stimulant ingredient is caffeine - just like coffee, tea, and guarana. Teloscientist 02:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Pretty nice study, "Hey, guess what! Caffeine helps you stay awake when you don't get enough sleep!" Like I don't see thirty-eight freshmen carrying large cups of Dunkin' Donuts with their shaky hands every morning. Ah well, America runs on Dunkin'.

Jolt Cola

Not an energy drink. The manufacturer states: "Jolt contains the maximum permissible level of caffeine. It is regarded as a caffeine-enhanced beverage, which is a segment different than isotonics and energy drinks." Jclerman 03:36, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Jolt Cola was released in the 1980s. It was not an energy drink but a high-caffeine, high-sugar brand of cola.

Rather moot point now, but you suggested this over two months ago, so I don't know if it was you who caused the change.

A few things...

1) How come BURN energy drink (and its variants) are listed in yellow? Also, why is it at the top with the more popular drinks (the orange area)? It's even listed twice. I've noticed all of it's entries have links (to the same site), whereas Coca-Cola and Red Bull don't even have a non-wiki link. I never heard of BURN. I'm calling link-spam on this one. Change it back if I'm wrong but please tell me why.

2) I don't think alcoholic drinks should be listed, even if they're "energy" drinks too. They're a different thing all together. Since this is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Soft drinks, I think they should be removed. What do you guys think?

3) Is "Adrenaline Rush" and "SoBe Adrenaline Rush" one and the same?

- Rocket000 05:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Taste

Does anybody know why all energy drinks tast like Smarties?

Taste is in the mouth of the drinker. I havent tasted any that taste like smarties. Also I assume that there may be different tastes in drinks depending on where they sell them...just a thought

Remove the table

It seems to me that the table, while dominating the article, does not substantially contribute much to the article. The Category:Energy drinks allows browsing by drink, and the additional information about caffeine can be part of the individual drink articles. Thoughts? --TeaDrinker 22:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Well in favour; it's just bloat. Steevm 00:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)