Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in the US looked at the medical data of 144 patients who had survived a cardiac arrest following emergency treatment. Results found that seven of them, aged between 20 and 42, had consumed an energy drink some time before the life-threatening event, with six requiring electrical shock treatment and one needing manual resuscitation.

Peter Schwartz, of the Centre for Cardiac Arrhythmias of Genetic Origin and Laboratory of Cardiovascular Genetics, in Milan, Italy, wrote in an accompanying editorial: “Critics might say of these findings, ‘it’s just an association by chance’.

“We, as well as the Mayo Clinic group, are perfectly aware that there is no clear and definitive evidence that energy drinks indeed cause life-threatening arrhythmias and that more data are necessary, but we would be remiss if we were not sounding the alarm.”

  • subignition@fedia.io
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    5 months ago

    Gonna guess that energy drinks and similar products just make it a lot easier to exceed safe limits as compared to lower concentration sources like tea and espresso coffee.

    • ChihuahuaOfDoom@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      A 16oz coffee has 150-300mg of caffeine depending on the variety; the eight o’clock coffee in my cupboard has 224mg in 16oz. The monster I just drank has 150mg in 16oz. Coffee is certainly not lower in concentration than an energy drink though tea is.

          • subignition@fedia.io
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            5 months ago

            Okay sure, but no one drinks espresso by the pint. Your typical Starbucks mocha/latte isn’t going to be more caffeinated than the same volume of drip coffee.

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                5 months ago

                I suppose I should correct myself as well, it’s almost no one who drinks espresso by the pint.

                There was a time a decade or so ago where a customer came in to the McDonald’s I was working at at the time and ordered 11 shots of espresso put in one cup. I think that number is correct; the guy had figured out previously that’s how much would fit in a large cup. It took an amusingly long time to make. They were in motorcycle gear, so I hope he was sipping on it on a long haul trip or something. Mercy to the man’s kidneys.