Student's Research: Energy Drinks are Bunk

(CBS)  The energy drink industry generated more than $6 billion in sales in the United States last year. But how much energy do the beverages actually generate?

CBS News correspondent Russ Mitchell reports on the young researcher who spared no energy to find out:

It's a safe bet that of all the speakers at the annual meeting of emergency physicians in Boston, only one needed his dad's help setting up - 12-year-old. Brendan O'Neil, the youngest ever to present at the conference.

"Many people use energy drinks like Monster to enhance their performance in sports - at least they think it will. So, I just wanted to test to see if these energy drinks really did what they were advertised to do," O'Neil said.

It started as a science project at Everest Academy in Clarkston, Mich. Brendan occasionally drank a Monster energy drink before a football game and wondered if it really gave him more energy.

So his project pitted the caffeinated Monster against decaffeinated Sprite in a series of tests - his conclusion?

Energy drinks compared to soda had no significant effect on your exercise performance. The results for Sprite and Monster were pretty much the same.

Brendan's dad Brian, an emergency room physician himself, was shocked by the results. At the very least, he expected the energy drinks would raise an athlete's blood pressure or heart rate, but that didn't happen. He thought the project was so well researched that he submitted it to the Annals of Emergency Medicine - anonymously, as are all entries to the prestigious medical journal.

"So when I submitted it, it got accepted," Brian O'Neil said. "I called them and said, 'You know he's 12 years old. Are there any rules against 12-year-olds?' And they said 'No, we don't have any.'"

Brian O'Neil knows what you're thinking - there's no way a kid did all this work himself.

"Every father helps their kid with their science project," he said.

But, he says, Brendan did most of it - the charts, the graphs. Brendan defended the research to the journal. And it's clear the kid was the one who thought of using a video game as part of the experiment, as a way to test reaction times after each drink.

Brendan says despite the results, he still occasionally drinks Monster, though not as much as he used to. As for the future and what he's going to be when he grows up?

"Probably an emergency room physician," he said. "Like my dad."

[chewsnooze]

It is very sad to see an MD allowing his son to drink something containing Sucralose (Splenda) which is known to cause headache and migraine, calcify kidneys, shrink the thymus gland, and is in fact a chlorinated hydrocarbon. A much safer energy drink is herbalYODA's sportZtea which we brew and give to all our soccer players.

[Sloughfoot]

Brewers have been making and selling snake-oil since ......? It took researchers to rediscover this .....? Kind of like bottled water ......? Ever wonder about those third world nations where the water is unfit to drink and they sell bottled water without a consumer protection agency oversite-just like the good ol' U.S.A.

[Paul_Barkley]

I was always more under the impression that energy drinks helped you stay awake longer, not actually gave you more energy when you are already awake and functioning well.

[cydne35150]

Apparently some people are confusing spell-checkers with grammar checkers. A spell-checker only notifies you about misspelled words. It does not check for incorrectly used ones.

[missme4]

They forgot to mention how energy drinks do more damage to your liver than alcohol. Young kids who drink large amounts of these energy drinks are suffering serious liver damage. But hey, gotta look cool.

[Lawyers-Guns-n-Money-01]

by Former_Marine_Sgt October 19, 2009 3:54 AM EDT
When did anything that's actually good for you become a trendy and popular food or drink item?
==================================================================

Answer: Beer!

Well, almost. Think about it -- Barley, malt, hops. If it weren't for the alcohol, it'd be a health food.

[2tired2]

Nor do they have someone proofread...budget cuts.

[spiritwalk]

the youngest ever to present at the conerence....

Brendan's dad brain, an emergency room physician himself....


Doesn't CBS have spellcheck?

[Former_Marine_Sgt]

Before you call it bad science - read the report and look at the data.

I too wonder about the lack of heartrate increase, but you'd think the folks that the medical journal would have fully vetted the data before allowing it to be published.

And there isn't necessarily a correlation between your experience with high heart rate and the average power drink - many variables could have affected your experinece - i.e.: Did you have other caffeine in your system at the time, did you drink on the 'megasized' ones or a standard 8 to 12 ounce, etc.

The idea that these energy drinks don't do the miraculous things attributed to them actually makes sense. When did anything that's actually good for you become a trendy and popular food or drink item?

[tmittelstaed]

John_Merritt and legacyabq, what is your problem? The study researched whether the drinks gave you more energy - NOT whether they raised your heartrate. These drinks aren't advertised as giving you a higher heartrate - they are advertised as giving you more energy, particularly more energy than regular soda pop. What Brendan showed in the study was that just dosing someone with a lot of caffeine, whether or not it raised their heartrate, didn't give them any more ability than if they had no caffeine at all.

Sure, you might THINK you have more "energy" if you have 400 mg of caffeine. But have you ever hit the weight machine at the gym and seen if you actually did?

I would like to see more of these studies, although the one that Brendan did pretty much shows the way - because after enough of them are done, the FDA can institute lawsuits against these drink manufacturers for false advertising.

This kind of study doesn't normally appear in a journal concerning energency medicine because it doesn't really have anything to do with emergency medicine - but obviously the journal doesn't have that narrow a standard to submit work, and the editors probably saw that study come in and figured that it was very original so they were going to get the scoop on the other journals. You can bet that a lot of food researchers out there are going to be ticked at themselves that they didn't think of such an obvious and easy to do study.

This is really a great piece of work by Brendan because it blew apart an assumption that is made by nearly everyone - that increased heart rate, shakes, and whatever other symptoms associated by mild "uppers" like caffine automatically translate to increased physical strength and stamina. We've all read stories about wack jobs high on PCP and what they have accomplished, we just automatically assume that if too much of some drug makes the guy strong enough to throw off 5 cops lying on him, that a smaller dose of that drug will make the guy only strong enough to throw off 2 cops. Brendan's work shows that this is a crock of baloney and I would guess the "sports drink" companies are probably scared to death that Brendan's survey is going to be the tip of the iceberg that blows their snake oil out of the water.