Wassef B, Kohansieh M, Makaryus AN. Effects of energy drinks on the cardiovascular system. World J Cardiol 2017; 9(11): 796-806 [PMID: 29225735 DOI: 10.4330/wjc.v9.i11.796]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Amgad N Makaryus, MD, Associate Professor, Chairman, Department of Cardiology, Northwell Health/Nassau University Medical Center, 2201 Hempstead Turnpike, East Meadow, NY 11554, United States. amakaryu@numc.edu
Research Domain of This Article
Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Cardiol. Nov 26, 2017; 9(11): 796-806 Published online Nov 26, 2017. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v9.i11.796
Effects of energy drinks on the cardiovascular system
Bishoy Wassef, Michelle Kohansieh, Amgad N Makaryus
Bishoy Wassef, Department of Family Medicine, Eisenhower Medical Center, Rancho Mirage, CA 92270, United States
Michelle Kohansieh, Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10016, United States
Amgad N Makaryus, Department of Cardiology, Northwell Health/Nassau University Medical Center, East Meadow, NY 11554, United States
Amgad N Makaryus, Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine, Hempstead, NY 11549, United States
Author contributions: All of the authors contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflicts of interest exist for any of the authors with respect to the publication of this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Amgad N Makaryus, MD, Associate Professor, Chairman, Department of Cardiology, Northwell Health/Nassau University Medical Center, 2201 Hempstead Turnpike, East Meadow, NY 11554, United States. amakaryu@numc.edu
Telephone: +1-516-2964949
Received: April 21, 2017 Peer-review started: April 21, 2017 First decision: June 12, 2017 Revised: August 4, 2017 Accepted: August 15, 2017 Article in press: August 16, 2017 Published online: November 26, 2017
Abstract
Throughout the last decade, the use of energy drinks has been increasingly looked upon with caution as potentially dangerous due to their perceived strong concentration of caffeine aside from other substances such as taurine, guarana, and L-carnitine that are largely unknown to the general public. In addition, a large number of energy drink intoxications have been reported all over the world including cases of seizures and arrhythmias. In this paper, we focus on the effect of energy drinks on the cardiovascular system and whether the current ongoing call for the products’ sales and regulation of their contents should continue.
Core tip: The last decade has witnessed a great surge in the consumption of energy drinks which coincided with an increased rate of reported cases of intoxications resulting in cardiovascular adverse effects especially arrhythmias, although most of such cases were associated with alcohol, stimulants, or rapid consumption in a short period of time. In our paper, we summarized the research pertaining to the most common components of the energy drinks in an attempt to evaluate whether the call for control of the products is merited, some of which had surprising possible health benefits.
