Energy drinks have received much publicity worldwide due to concerns of adverse effects
on health to consumers [
[1]
] The reporting of adverse effects (including cardiac symptoms) related to consumption
has increased [
[3]
] along with their popularity [
].Concerns that these drinks may unmask a life threatening ventricular arrhythmia have
been raised [
[4]
] due to reports of ventricular arrhythmias [
[5]
] and death [
[6]
] while consuming energy drinks. Given the potential adverse effects of energy drink
consumption we conducted a survey to determine the impact of these drinks on emergency
department presentations in otherwise healthy young adults. See Table 1, Table 2.
Table 1Baseline characteristics.
| Non consumer n = 18 | Consumer n = 42 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline characteristics (mean + SEM) | Significance | ||
| Age (years) | 31.56 [6.5] | 26.29 [6.8] | p > 0.01 |
| Blood pressure (mm Hg) | |||
| Systolic | 132.17 [17.8] | 127.15 [11.4] | NS |
| Diastolic | 73.8 [1.4] | 81.5 [3.3] | p > 0.037 |
| Heart rate (beats per minute) | 91.3 [24.4] | 80 [29] | NS |
Table 2Presenting symptoms and cardiac history.
| Non-consumer | Consumer | |
|---|---|---|
| Presenting symptom (n = 60) | n = 18 | n = 42 |
| Palpitations | 18 | 42 |
| Chest pain | 4 | 13 |
| Shortness of breath | 0 | 1 |
| Syncope | 1 | 1 |
| ECG recording | ||
| Normal sinus rhythm | 7 | 26 |
| Sinus tachycardia | 2 | 5 |
| Supraventricular tachycardia/atrial tachycardia | 5 | 3 |
| Premature ventricular contractions | 2 | 2 |
| Pre-existing cardiac disease | ||
| Arrhythmia (atrial) | 4 | 1 |
| Valvular heart disease | 0 | 3 |
| Other | 1 | |
| Family history of cardiac disease | ||
| Arrhythmia (atrial) | 3 | 2 |
| Ischemic heart disease | 7 | 6 |
| Other | 2 | 3 |
Keywords
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References
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 19, 2015
Accepted:
November 16,
2015
Received:
November 12,
2015
Footnotes
☆The authors take responsibility for all aspects of the reliability and freedom from bias of the data presented and their discussed interpretation.
☆☆This study is unfunded.
★No author has a conflict of interest with this work.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
