Doctor discusses impact of energy drinks on heart health

Welcome back. A new report from the FDA is raising concerns about energy drinks and heart problems in young adults. Our favorite doctor, Dr. Victoria Dooley, here with some important advice. Dr. Dooley, I heard the volume was on when you were in the green room and you heard my admission. I heard your admission. I did. Dr. Dooley is my doctor. I am drinking the energy drinks. Probably four times a week, if not five times a week. Better than four or five times a day. I thought you were going to start off. No, at least one a day, though, probably. All right. Well, what we're learning is that there is an association between energy drinks and adverse heart events, including heart attacks. I'm going to go ahead and Yeah. Palpitations, even death. So association doesn't mean cause, right? So how I explain this is usually 100% of people who die drink water. That doesn't mean water causes death. So we can't prove that the association is a cause, but what it does prove is that we need more research. What we do know about caffeine is that it increases your heart rate, it increases your blood pressure. What we also know is a lot of young people are stacking stimulants. Yes. They're doing like a pre-workout, then they're doing an energy drink. Both of those, or maybe they're on Adderall or some stimulant medication, and so they're stacking things which should really be unhealthy. And what we're finding is that between people ages 18 and 34, there is an increased association With heart attacks and cardiac arrest when they are using stimulant. Okay, so what do you recommend that people do? Because, I mean, there are so many different kinds and flavors. I mean, it's like a delicious little breakfast treat at this point. You get their sweet and their caffeinated. Yes. Well, I recommend if you ever have any symptoms after drinking caffeine, symptoms might be palpitations, dizziness, fainting, that you don't drink any more caffeine until you get a thorough workup by a doctor. I'm one of those people. I can't help it. I can't tolerate caffeine. I had one iced tea at Cracker Barrel one day, almost died. It went into palpitations. No. Just like boom, boom, boom. So some people are extra sensitive, but if you don't know you're sensitive, you don't know you're sensitive. But once you do know you're sensitive, you have to cut it out. You also want to look at the milligrams of caffeine. I would avoid anything over 200 milligrams, and that should be per hour. So if you've had one energy drink that was 200 milligrams in an hour, I would not do a second one, wait for at least another hour to pass. Are you better off, oh this is a terrible question to ask you, let me think of another way, because I don't drink coffee. So if I'm trying to not do the energy drinks, do I just go for the can of Coke? You know, you want to look at the milligrams of caffeine. So instead of having 200 milligrams of caffeine, maybe you have a drink that only has 50 milligrams of caffeine. Another really good drink thing you can do for your energy is to get good sleep, right? Get good sleep in the first place, and then maybe you don't need so much caffeine. Now, I don't know why that did not occur to me. Sleep is difficult. Folks have all kinds of stress and things happening. So, you know, we come to work, we might be a little tired and for the people who can do the coffee, so how are they faring in this, is coffee, Coffee, like I said, if you can tolerate it, you can tolerate it. But if you ever have any symptoms that maybe this is bothering you, dizziness, weakness, almost feeling like you're going to faint, you have to get a workup from a heart doctor. So these young people who are having these heart events, they don't have any underlying heart issues that we know about, right? So you don't know what you don't know. So if you ever have any symptoms on caffeine, if you don't feel right, you should avoid it until you get a medical workup. You answered it pretty clearly. Are we talking if you have even just one... You know, the heart palpitation, I'm feeling dizzy, like one event, go to the doctor immediately. Don't think it was just a hit. Because palpitations can be abnormal heart rhythm, something like AFib can cause a heart attack or a stroke. So if you ever have an abnormal heart rhythm or feel like your heart is beating irregularly or too fast on caffeine, you should absolutely avoid it until you get worked up. 101 percent. Why does it seem like so many young people are falling victim to this? Well, again, we don't have good sleep hygiene. We're up on our phones all night. I'm guilty of it. And so, yeah, we're sleep deprived. We go to work. Kids have to go to school way too early. And children under 18 should never have caffeine or energy drinks. But we go to work in school way too early. And so then. But you have to remember, caffeine is a drug. It's a drug. It's a stimulant. Don't think of it that way. Right there in the cafe back there. Dr. Dooley, where can we find you? At drdooleymd.com. Very good. We'll take a quick break. We'll be right back.