People need help quitting energy drinks, which is a worry

My partner has a dirty little secret he tries to hide from me, the evidence of which is literally littered around his car. He tries to hide it under the seats, in bags and in the recycling bin.

But those shiny, empty cans are hard to miss.

Energy drinks: not as innocuous as we think.Credit:Getty

He is among those contributing to the steady growth of the energy drink market and to Red Bull’s position as the most popular energy drink in Australia.

He says they give him a "buzz" and, when I suggest a fresh veggie juice could give him an energy boost without the junk, he looks at me with the same expression as our daughter when I try to play off yoghurt for ice-cream.

Despite gently pressing him, in a not-so-gentle way, to promise not to drink the sugar-filled, stimulant-laden drinks, which I’m not convinced help his health or his tendency toward heart palpitations, he just gets sneakier about his consumption.

In our study, some people were reporting up to 20 a day.

New research suggests quitting might not be so easy and regular consumers of energy drinks might need help to kick the habit.

“Consumption of energy drinks has continued to rise,” said Professor of Psychology Eva Kemps, of Flinders University.

“It’s like a lot of substances, if you only have it in moderation, it’s not a problem. You can have the odd drink … in our study, some people were reporting up to 20 a day.”

And, she adds, they do contain substances that “can make them addictive”.

One can contains about four times the caffeine as a cup of coffee along with the equivalent of 20-odd spoonfuls of sugar (or artificial sweetener, if that’s considered any better), stimulants like guarana or ginseng and other often unpronounceable “ingredients”.

One can contains about four times the caffeine as a cup of coffee along with the equivalent of 20-odd spoonfuls of sugar.

Energy drinks are a soft drink, a sport’s drink or speed in a can – a comparison some energy drink marketers leverage off, with one new energy drink, currently banned in Australia, called Cocaine. Packaged as palatable carbonated beverages, they are easy to drink.

“And because they’re so easy to drink, you don’t realise how much of those stimulants you’re getting into your system at a rapid pace,” Kemps says.

This can result in headaches or not being able to sleep well, irritability or anxiety.

“Other people experience much more adverse effects, having the shakes or heart palpitations,” Kemps says. “There have been cases where people have experienced a seizure or kidney failure.

“And there was a review done not long ago that linked energy drinks to experiencing mental health problems – anxiety, depression and stress.”

If people are addicted to energy drinks, just telling someone to “stop” doesn’t really work, Kemps adds.

“They may have already developed symptoms of addiction – the tolerance, the symptoms of withdrawal if they try to stop,” she says. “It might be useful if they try to cut back and develop a technique to use to help them while they’re doing that to do it gradually.”

One technique is the computer-based training program Kemps and her colleagues used to help 200 Australians who said they used the drinks for an energy boost, to relieve fatigue, improve sporting or academic performance, or as a party mixer with alcohol.

As the participants demonstrated cognitive biases towards the drinks — a characteristic of addiction people also show towards alcohol, tobacco, drugs and chocolate — the computer program was designed to target these biases.

For example, games helped participants to modify attention-bias, which is when we are more “attuned” to anything that looks like that product we are addicted to, and approach-bias, which is essentially the urge to reach for the product once our attention has been captured.

The “next step” is to explore whether the training has an effect on people’s everyday consumption of energy drinks, Kemps says, though the same program has been demonstrated to help people make healthier food choices, to reduce or quit smoking, drinking or taking drugs.

That grown adults need help in the first place to come off these drinks is telling, but it does make me wonder what that means for the teenagers who are among their targeted demographic?

Body Language is our wellbeing column, examining trending issues in diet, health and fitness.

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