Consuming lots of energy drinks may raise heart disease and stroke risk, say doctors

Key Highlights

• On questioning, he said he drank an average of eight energy drinks a day. The case, reported in the medical journal BMJ Case Reports, also prompted doctors to call for tighter regulation of sales and advertising of energy drinks. On admission to hospital, the patient’s blood pressure was 254/150mmHg, which doctors said was extremely high.
• He was given drugs to lower his blood pressure. But once back home, his blood pressure rose again and remained persistently high, despite the ramping up of his drug treatment. On further investigation, doctors discovered the extent of his use of energy drinks, totalling 1,200mg of caffeine a day.
• The recommended maximum intake is 400mg. He was asked to give up his daily habit, after which his blood pressure returned to normal.
• Blood pressure lowering drugs were no longer needed.“It was therefore thought to be likely that the patient’s consumption of highly potent energy drinks was, at least in part, a contributive factor to his secondary hypertension (high blood pressure) and in turn his stroke,” the doctors wrote in BMJ Case Reports. However, he did not fully recover.
• Speaking anonymously, he said: “I obviously wasn’t aware of the dangers drinking energy drinks were causing to myself.