Recommended Posts

They have sugar for energy and caffeine for stimulation. If I want a short-term burst of energy and awakeness I'll drink them. They're obviously ill-advised for a developing child but I see no harm in consuming them every now and again when you need a buzz.

@E-Berlin.org : You do know that cocaine is a brand of energy drink?

I'm glad they weren't around when I was younger, they'd probably have killed me. Heh. Now that I'm older I drink one just about every day. Drink the sugar free variety though because I'm in it for the caffeine, not the sugar. People seem to have a bizarre idea of how much caffeine is in energy drinks as well, it's not that much.

Of course stupid people are going to "abuse" them for their own entertainment, but for some people that can't stand the taste of coffee and need a bit of a boost while working long hours or whatever they're a damn lifesaver.

Recently, she saw a 15-year-old boy with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder who came into the hospital with a seizure after having drunk two 24-ounce bottles of Mountain Dew, a soft drink that contains caffeine.

The boy was already taking stimulant ADHD medication, and the extra caffeine in principle might have pushed him over the edge, according to Benjamin.

"You just never know," she said. "It's definitely a concern."

Earlier this year, Pediatrics published another review of the literature on energy drinks.

In it, Florida pediatricians described cases of seizures, delusions, heart problems and kidney or liver damage in people who had drunk one or more non-alcoholic energy drinks -- including brands like Red Bull, Spike Shooter and Redline.

While they acknowledged that such cases are very rare, and can't be conclusively linked to the drinks, they urged caution, especially in kids with medical conditions (see Reuters story of February 14, 2011).

Relevant portions bolded. Personally I blame the parents. And misleading article title is misleading if anything the doctors advise developing children and children with medical conditions to stay away from energy drinks. I recall a couple years back they concluded that it took 8 cans of Redbull to have a noticeable impact on the functions of the heart. IMO anybody that drinks 8 energy drinks at once deserves whatever they get. :laugh:

Yeah, like you ever had something more than a joint, kiddo

cocaine-drink.jpg

Not a massive fan of energy drinks they keep you awake more than illegal drugs, it's easier to sleep after a night on the white stuff than some energy drinks, even the mild stuff like red bull... If you ever come across something called 'Go Fast' give it a try you'll be up for days, very unhealthy feels like your heart is going to burst out of your chest.

Go_Fast_Energy_Drinks-20090417-124037.jpg

Go Fast isn't even in the caffeine big leagues :p

(per serving)

Coke: 45-50 mg

Instant coffee: 40-60 mg (8 oz cup)

Red Bull: 80 mg

Filtered coffee: 60-100 mg (8 oz cup)

Go Fast: 120 mg

357 Super Magnum: 250 mg

All City NRG: 300 mg

SPIKE Shooter: 300 mg

SPIKE Shotgun: 350 mg

Boo-Koo: 360 mg

Fixx Extreme: 400 mg

Starbucks coffee: 500 mg (16 oz glass)

Go Fast isn't even in the caffeine big leagues :p

(per serving)

Coke: 45-50 mg

Instant coffee: 40-60 mg (8 oz cup)

Red Bull: 80 mg

Filtered coffee: 60-100 mg (8 oz cup)

Go Fast: 120 mg

357 Super Magnum: 250 mg

All City NRG: 300 mg

SPIKE Shooter: 300 mg

SPIKE Shotgun: 350 mg

Boo-Koo: 360 mg

Fixx Extreme: 400 mg

Starbucks coffee: 500 mg (16 oz glass)

As far as i know it's Taurine we should be looking out for?

I need it now. Exams and all.

I need one to get through the day. Another to get through the night of assignment. I'm aware is not ideal (which is problem with kids) and will cut back once I have less stress of endless lab reports while having tests to study for. But the way I'm going, I simply cannot be productive without a coffee or a red bull (or V, energy drink we have here in NZ which I don't think is too world wide). Sometimes I can get by by drinking litres of water but yes, I do have the craving as much as the need to stay awake sometimes. Is an addiction, but is a temporary thing.

But not coffee. I can't lay off a cup of GOOD coffee (I won't have a coffee and 2 Red Bulls obviously).

It shouldn't be a daily dose. It can be however for the need to replenish yourself in the midst of physical or mental exhaustion. As in, don't drink because you are going to need it, drink when you need it. Thing is with these drinks, once the effect is worn off you are far worse than what you are before.

It's just basic common sense anyway...

They should start taking actions ASAP about that instead of just talking.

My college removed them from sale and in result, you rarely see any student with them.

If you really need them for some reasons, there few Energy Drinks that worth it and are much safer, just like Guru.

In peer-reviewed studies Taurine has not been shown to have a stimulant effect.

Although I read recently it can cure hangovers and reverse some minor liver damage from 'the night before'. Probably not in the tiny amounts in energy drinks, mind.

They should start taking actions ASAP about that instead of just talking.

My college removed them from sale and in result, you rarely see any student with them.

Or you could just let people drink what they want - unless somehow this has some detrimental effect to your well-being?

Although I read recently it can cure hangovers and reverse some minor liver damage from 'the night before'. Probably not in the tiny amounts in energy drinks, mind.

Taurine is often used by the body as a conjugate in metabolism, priming it for excretion. A 250mL Red Bull contains 1000mg of the stuff, which is no small amount mind you. A lot of damage from various abuse comes from the fact your body actually ran out of supplies in molecules that is needed to clear stuff from your body. When it runs out, the body either leaves it as a potentially toxic substance floating around or undergo other reactions that cause it to become a toxic metabolite. Taurine may be used in quenching them. As for what it does in terms of stimulant or even blood pressure, there are many claims but personally the truest thing is that it makes you pee.

As for the claim it can cure hangovers, no. What is likely is the actual sugar contents.

Some of those things taste as "sugary" as koolaid... :x

To be fair, Kool-Aid is only as "sugary" as you choose to make it. I make it with about half the sugar that the recipe on the pack calls for, and it tastes fine. In fact, it gives certain flavors a little extra sour twist that I happen to like.

@E-Berlin.org : You do know that cocaine is a brand of energy drink?

Hey, I've never heard of that brand either, so don't give him a hard time. I'm sure there are lots of brands out there that are available in one part of the world that aren't sold in other places. Do you REALLY expect everyone here to know of every single brand out there? What's really weird is that it is supposedly (according to the Wikipedia article on it) available where I live, but I've never once seen it in a store here.

  • 2 months later...
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • The laptop in the bedroom is an Acer with i7-10510U CPU. Acer's website states they will not be upgrading it so I had little choice other than disable secure boot. I know next to nothing on these matters so hopefully it will be fine.
    • GitHub removes manual model selection from Copilot free and student plans by Karthik Mudaliar GitHub is removing the ability to manually select an AI model from its Copilot Free and Student plans, making its automatic routing system the default and only way to choose a model. This means users on these tiers will no longer be able to deliberately select a particular OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or Microsoft model for a task. In its announcement, GitHub said Copilot Auto will dynamically choose what it considers the best model for each request. Free and Student accounts will retain access to models from multiple families, although the available selection will continue to depend on the restrictions attached to each plan. GitHub did not identify a fixed pool of models that Auto will always use, and its documentation warns that model availability can change over time. GitHub describes Auto as more than a random fallback system. On supported surfaces, its task-optimization technology evaluates the complexity of a request alongside real-time information about model health and availability. Straightforward prompts can be routed to faster and less expensive models, while more demanding coding tasks may be sent to higher-cost reasoning models. The company says this approach should reduce rate limiting, latency, and failed requests. Auto generally selects one model along natural prompt-caching boundaries rather than repeatedly switching models during a session, as GitHub found that mid-session changes increased costs without producing sufficient improvements in output quality. Users can still check which model generated a response. In Copilot Chat, the information appears when hovering over an answer, while Copilot CLI and the Copilot cloud agent display the selected model alongside their output. Auto is available in Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, and the cloud agent, with the exact implementation and release status varying between supported development environments. The latest restriction follows several months of adjustments to Copilot’s individual plans. GitHub temporarily halted new Pro, Pro+, and Student subscriptions in April as it sought to manage demand and service reliability. It later introduced token-based billing and began gradually reopening individual-plan registrations on June 17. Alongside the picker change, GitHub is retiring the “Preview” label from Microsoft-developed models. It argues that the label is no longer necessary because Auto handles model routing and models are continuously updated behind the scenes.
    • Look up 'inflation' kid. Ask an AI for the numbers between both games.
    • Google reportedly set to lose two key Gemini and DeepMind researchers to Anthropic by Karthik Mudaliar Google is reportedly preparing to lose two more prominent artificial intelligence researchers, with Gemini contributors Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel planning to join rival AI developer Anthropic. According to a report from Bloomberg, both researchers are viewed internally as important contributors to Google’s flagship Gemini model family. Adler worked on Google’s AI coding efforts, while Pritzel was involved in the process used to train AI systems. Neither company has publicly confirmed the moves. The report also does not say when the researchers will formally leave Google or what positions they will hold at Anthropic. Training a large AI model requires decisions covering its architecture, data preparation, distributed computing infrastructure, and post-training methods that shape how the finished system behaves. Researchers with experience operating at the scale of Gemini are consequently difficult to replace quickly. Both Adler and Pritzel have previously contributed to Google DeepMind’s scientific research as well. They are listed among the authors of the company’s work on expanding AlphaFold protein-structure predictions across entire proteomes, alongside AlphaFold researchers including John Jumper. The reported departures arrive shortly after another important change within Google’s Gemini organization. Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer is leaving Google for OpenAI, after returning to the search company in 2024 through its deal with Character.AI. Shazeer is particularly well known as one of the authors of the Transformer paper, whose architecture became the foundation for most modern large language models. Anthropic, meanwhile, has been recruiting recognizable figures from other leading laboratories. OpenAI co-founder and former Tesla AI director Andrej Karpathy joined Anthropic’s pre-training team in May. His move, followed by the reported recruitment of several Google researchers, suggests Anthropic is strengthening the research teams responsible for the core capabilities of future Claude models rather than concentrating solely on product and enterprise sales. The competition is complicated by the companies’ extensive commercial relationships. Anthropic competes directly with Google’s Gemini models, but it also relies on Google as an infrastructure partner. In April, Anthropic announced an expanded agreement with Google and Broadcom covering multiple gigawatts of next-generation Tensor Processing Unit capacity. TPUs are Google-designed accelerators used to train and run large AI models. via Bloomberg
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Year In
      Philsl earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • First Post
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      First Post
    • One Month Later
      D0nn13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Rookie
      +ChiefOfNeo went up a rank
      Rookie
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      461
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      177
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      124
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      79
    5. 5
      Xenon
      76
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!