Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Drink to Nothing

The rampant drinking of energy drinks may possibly be doing nothing to help the energy of the people who drink them. The studies and information in "Do Energy Drinks Improve Athletic Performance?" by Gretchen Reynolds show a connection between improvement of ability and the drinking of energy drinks may not exist. The amount of sugar in the drinks that I can feel while drinking an energy drink and the feeling after drinking the drinks seem to support this idea that energy drinks do not aid the person ingesting the fluid.

While reading the article and some comments, I started to wonder if the energy drinks act as a placebo for an energy starved and energy craving society. The studies in the article used varying amount of sugar in the drinks that showed different results that do not clearly show a different way to improve the reactions of the subjects. Reactions in one test came quicker with use of energy drinks but less accurate than the subjects who did not drink the beverages. The energy drink helped the people in the test but not in the correct areas. The drinking of energy drinks for the replacement of sleep do not help those injesting the caffiene.

The enhancement from energy drinks do not work to improve the performance of the drinkers. Drinking the highly caffinated drink act possibly act as a placebo for the cultures created that require the energy supposedly gained from drinking the energy drinks.