Red Bull, etc... How bad is it for you, exactly??

Answer 1

not bad but if u keep drinking it, it is bad. u see it brings ur body to a high and when u get off that high do not drink another because when u come down off the second one the low will be worse. this is what happend to me........... i was working 2 jobs. went to bed at 2am had to get up for 8am. had to do a 9 to 5 in 1 job and 5 to 12 in the other. so i drank a red bull, was buzzing for a while, at lunch i felt tierd so i drank another, then a 3rd one. close to 5 i collapsed. i had no energy left to stand. i missed my 2nd job and lost out on money

Answer 2

first off, i love red bull, more than any other edible thing in the world. but i used to be so addicted to them that i would drink 10 or 11 cans a day, i got a bleeding ulcer from it, i was pooping blood, lots of it. i had to go to the doctor, i was told i cold never drink it again, so slowly i started drinking them again, but i limit myself to 2 a day.

Answer 3

I just found this for you. Hope it helps. Cheers,

Science vs. the Bull
One of us takes our caffeine way too seriously.
Kjell Wooding | 2005-03-22

(Yes, loyal readers. This was, in fact, a blog posting that got out of control.)

For the longest time, Red Bull wasn’t for sale in Canada. This used to drive me nuts. Originally, it was a caffeine issue. You didn’t used to be allowed to add caffeine to non-colas for sale in this fine country. When that little issue got resolved, it became a taurine issue: taurine is not an approved food additive in this country. Finally, the Red Bull folks managed to lobby their way around that one, and, last November, Red Bull went on sale, just in time to get me through my qualifying exams.

A while ago, this little piece showed up in my inbox. It may be summarized as follows:

“Pseudo-scientific drivel.”

Seriously, you can’t claim simultaneously “Red Bull is bad, because there isn’t any science to say it isn’t” And then claim “Red bull is bad because of Science.”

Here’s a start.

In fact, because Red Bull has so much caffeine – it can actually dehydrate the drinker. That means if you’re physically exerting yourself and drink just a Red Bull, the lack of hydration could strain your heart.

Well, that’s a load of scientific crap. Caffeine doesn’t dehydrate you. Of course, it doesn’t hydrate you either, but that should be obvious from the tiny little 250ml can.

80 mg of caffeine (more than three times the caffeine that’s in the same amount of Coke)

Now wait a damn minute here. Doesn’t anybody check their facts anymore?

80mg / 250 ml = 320 mg/l
Coke has 45mg / 355ml = 126 mg/l
320/126 = 2.5 times the caffeine content of Coke(by volume). Obviously, that’s not more than three times. More importantly, it’s not even that unusal. Lets compare with something a little more conventional: coffee—specifically, Starbucks coffee.

In a 2003 University of Florida Study, a 16oz serving of Breakfast Blend contained (over a period of 6 days), 564 milligrams, 498 milligrams, 259 milligrams, 303 milligrams, 300 milligrams and 307 milligrams respectively. That’s an average of 371 mg per 473 ml. Let’s do some math.

Strongest (Starbucks): 564/473 = 1192 mg/l (9.4 times that of Coke)
Espresso (Starbucks): 185mg/170ml = 1088 mg/l (8.6 times that of Coke)
Avg (Starbucks): 371mg / 473 ml = 784 mg/l (6.2 times that of Coke)
Weakest (Starbucks) 259mg / 473 ml = 548 mg/l (4.3 times that of Coke)
Sock Soup (Dunkin Donuts): 143mg/473 ml = 302 mg/l (2.4 times that of Coke)
In other words, the amount caffeine content here isn’t the issue. But anybody who has tried it already knows that. It’s true. There is something in the elixer that makes Red Bull work better than coffee. Based on the ingredients, I would have to guess it is the taurine. And speaking of taurine:

The French health committee canned the sale of Red Bull, partly because a study found that rats fed taurine exhibited bizarre behaviour. That behaviour, says Vanrullen, included: “anxiety, irritability, a high sensitivity to noise—sudden jumps in their cages—and most of all, self-mutilations.”

I think these guys need to read their source material a little more carefully. From my read of the available literature, taurine actually suppresses self-mutilation in nerve-damaged rats.

Finally, there’s the whole “mixing with booze” nonsense. Someone, somewhere has claimed that mixing Red Bull with alcohol is bad. (Tell that to your average rum and coke, or irish coffee drinker.) This, because one girl who drank a Red Bull died once. (I’m sure the E had nothing to do with it.)

The bars aren’t helping. They lie, too:

“We are very careful,” Mandell adds. “We don’t give someone the whole can. They would have to do four vodka Red Bulls in order to go through one can.”

Really? You serve a 44ml shot with a mere 75ml of Red Bull? I friggin doubt it. The picture alone gives that one away.

So here it is—a plea to the our bretheren in the dinosaur blog business. If you’re going to write about science, please start applying some yourselves. If 10 minutes with Google is too much fact-checking for you, you might just be in the wrong business.

Kjell Wooding

Answer 4

No idea....I refuse to even try the stuff after reading a Dave Barry column where he described it as tasting "like Limp Bizkit sounds"....

Answer 5

You might look into the Advanced Cell Therapy drink. You can get information at http://www.drinkact.com/pktull

If I can be of further assistance, let me know.

[e-mail]
http://www.geocities.com/pktull

Answer 6

My opinion: Its as bad as coffee. Its full of caffeine and is bad for your heart