Are Energy Drinks Bad for You? To Be Honest, It Depends

Are Energy Drinks Bad for You? To Be Honest, It Depends

The Clear and Present Danger of Drinking Garbage

We started VISO Energy because yes, most - if not all other energy drinks are bad for you - very bad - and we wanted to provide an energy rush in a nutritious way that’s not only delicious, but truly healthy.

We’re all about trusting our instincts, and as it turns out, our suspicions were correct about those other “big energy” drinks. You know the ones: Instantly recognizable from their in-your-face marketing campaigns, designed to steer our attention away from their long lists of toxic ingredients and health concerns you’re also ingesting with every sip. 

In this guide, we’ll cover the reasons why most energy drinks are bad for you, and explain all the things we’ve done here at VISO to ensure none of those aspects are ever in our clean, natural energy drinks.

Included in This Guide

01

Harmful Ingredients

Ever noticed how all the big-name energy drinks have a nearly identical flavor? There's good reason behind it… This fake, tutti-frutti flavoring is one of the only palatable things manufacturers could find to mask the massive list of foul-tasting, toxic stimulants in their drinks.

There’s a bunch of harmful additives like taurine and niacin, chemicals, and straight-up nasties in most energy drinks - but you’ll never find any of this in VISO. That’s just one more reason why VISO Energy actually tastes like real fruit… We’ve got nothing to hide.

To top it off, the heat based pasteurization bottling process “big energy” drink corporations absolutely destroys any trace of nutrition that may have been present from the ingredients they boast about.

At VISO, we only use high-pressure processing (HPP) that keeps the food chemistry, taste, and nutrition intact.

Excess Sugar & Artificial Sweeteners

All the major energy drinks are known for their hyper-sounding names, but that excitable feeling you get doesn’t just come from their branding on the can: It also offers a serious hint about what’s inside. Believe it or not, a vast majority of energy drinks are marketed as healthy living supplements, but are packed with more added sugar per ounce than your average soda pop.

Hello weight gain, blood sugar spikes, and the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, just as you would with other sugar sweetened beverages.

To get around this, many manufacturers offer Low-Carb or Sugarfree versions of their most popular drinks, but the artificial sweeteners they use in place of real sugar come with its own set of risks. Compounds like aspartame, sucralose and acesulfame K are added to remove some calories, but have been correlated with insulin resistance and neurological side effects. That’ll be a no thanks.

No Nasties Here: The VISO Energy Difference

Who ever decided energy drinks should be made from toxic sludge? Here at VISO, we’ve flipped everything you know about getting an energy boost on its head.

You’ll never see any fake ingredients that you can’t pronounce on our bottles. Each VISO starts with organic cold-pressed juices, then doubles down with our proprietary blend of plant-based essential vitamins, minerals, electrolytes and adaptogens.

Next up, we add 300mg of the purest natural caffeine, extracted from organic coffee beans through a unique spring water soak and evaporation method. Every VISO is Non-GMO Verified, plus gluten & preservative free, bringing you a truly unadulterated energy boost that feels as good as it tastes. 

DYNAMO 

Concord grapes & grapefruits

Cold pressed, never heated

300mg of pure, natural caffeine

Non-GMO verified, no artificial ingredients

SHOP DYNAMO

02

Negative Health Impacts

Energy drinks have gotten a bad rap over the last few years, but their long list of harmful ingredients is not the only thing to blame. Turns out, many of the adverse health effects are actually related to how people are consuming these drinks, not just what’s in them.

Naturally, it’s up to us to make informed choices about our dietary supplements, but drinking energy drinks or energy shots in excess goes against everything we believe in. Over-consumption or misuse of energy drink products is a real issue, and here at VISO we’re dedicated to helping you find the healthy alternatives to increase energy and level up your life without sacrificing your health. 

Here’s some of the most sinister risks of consuming energy drinks incorrectly or in excess to watch out for: 

When Mixed with Alcohol

First and foremost, let’s stress the fact that you should never mix energy drinks with alcoholic beverages. In this case, they’re not just detrimental to your overall health; they could also be life-threatening.

According to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, caffeine and other stimulants found in popular energy drinks can dramatically mask the effects of alcohol. 

This alarming effect can make you feel less intoxicated than you actually are, leading to dangerous binge drinking, drunk driving, and alcohol related injuries. The bottom line is, mixing energy drinks with alcohol is a bad idea, period. 

Heart Problems

Although high concentrations of caffeine in energy drinks can lead to a variety of heart problems and cardiovascular incidents, the real danger lies in when toxic ingredients are mixed in with the caffeine - most notably when people consume multiple energy drinks within a short timespan.

Caffeine is a powerful stimulant to increase energy, boost physical performance and increase mental alertness, but in doses higher than 400mg per day can alter our heart rate, blood pressure and important markers of blood vessel function. These cardiovascular changes can cause serious side effects ranging from an irregular heartbeat to high blood pressure, heart palpitations and even complete heart failure in extreme cases.

As most energy drinks contain between 100-300mg of caffeine per serving, it can be tough to keep track of exactly how much caffeine you’re ingesting, especially if the package contains more than one serving, or you drink more than one can.

Furthermore, the actual caffeine content advertised on labels is often underestimated by energy drink manufacturers, particularly if they don’t factor in additional caffeine found in guarana and other additives. 

To avoid placing excessive demands on the heart and causing increased blood pressure or emergency room visits, it’s critical to stay below our daily recommended 400mg of caffeine. 

To top it off, most other energy drinks hold less than 200mg caffeine which means it wears off fast and you gotta drink another just to stay awake - which puts you well over the daily limit of 400 mg.

All VISO Energy drinks pack 300mg of caffeine from organic coffee beans so one bottle will last you all day and keep you under the recommended maximum daily amount.

Limes, lemons, and strawberries

Cold pressed, never heated

300mg of pure, natural caffeine

Non-GMO verified, no artificial ingredients

SHOP VIGOR

Mental Health

One of the lesser-known negative health effects of energy drink use is an impact on mental health, particularly in young adults. Because giant energy drink corporations pack a punch in the caffeine stakes and provide elevating but short-lived bursts of energy, they tend to encourage overconsumption in order to achieve the same effect over and over.

Buckle up for a rollercoaster ride of peaks, crashes, psychological dependence and withdrawal symptoms if you come to rely on energy drinks too heavily to boost energy.

Highly caffeinated beverages enhance mental alertness, but this can also go hand-in-hand with anxiety and sleep disturbances if consumed in high concentrations or too late in the day. 

Excessive consumption of energy drinks may affect your important sleeping habits, and if you’ve ever been sleep deprived you’ll know irritability and low mood can strike.

Don’t forget, what goes up must come down, and energy drink use from companies that make low quality beverages is no different!

This is another point where VISO shines; all of this is prevented completely.

The fact that one bottle lasts all day prevents the urge for overconsumption while the organic, natural ingredients provide a rush of energy with a stable come up and gentle comedown.

No pre- or post-drink anxiety, jitters, or insomnia - the secret’s in the not-so-secret all-natural NON-GMO ingredients.

Tooth Damage

Love your pearly whites? Better steer clear of big-name energy drinks, as they’re notorious for causing cavities, enamel decay, staining and discoloration of your teeth. Why? Well, aside from their high sugar content, popular energy drink products are extremely acidic on the pH scale, far worse than most traditional sodas or sports drinks. 

Damage to your smile occurs after repeated exposure to highly acidic energy drinks, which can etch the protective enamel layer on your teeth. As the acidic liquid eats away at your enamel over time, your teeth become vulnerable to bacteria, sugar and other acids that create cavities and grab stains. Unfortunately, in many energy drink related dental cases, tiny cavities will have scattered across all the teeth, requiring sudden and extensive dental treatment to save the patient’s smile.

The culprit here is obvious - sugar. Although we couldn’t possibly make zero-sugar VISO due to the foundation of cold-pressed juices from organic fruits, the amount of added sugar is a fraction of those “big energy” creeps.

While they all have at least 50+ grams of sugar in each can, every bottle of VISO Energy has no more than 15 grams of sugar, with a third of it being juice sugars from the fruits.

Risks for Teens 

Energy drinks typically don’t mix well with teens, for a variety of reasons. The American Academy of Pediatrics cautions against letting children or adolescents consume energy drinks at all, considering their nervous systems can handle no more than 100mg of caffeine intake per day.

In 2011 alone, almost 1,500 kids and teens aged 12-17 ended up in the emergency room due to an “energy drink related emergency”, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among the reported incidents were heart failure and extreme dehydration, due to too much caffeine.

Mixing alcohol with energy drinks is another big risk for young adults, highlighted in a survey performed by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

According to this report, around 25% of college students consume alcohol with energy drinks - an alarming statistic now we know that mixing alcohol with energy drinks leads to heavier binge drinking and risky behavior.

Another study revealed that drinking alcohol with energy drinks made young adults six times more likely to suffer from heart palpitations than if they just drank alcohol on its own. 

Is 1 Energy Drink a Day Bad?

It depends what you drink - while regularly drinking one cheap “big energy” drink from a mega-corporation is of course beyond toxic, there’s nothing wrong with choosing a clean, natural energy drink like VISO; a perfectly formulated beverage that supports your energy needs as well as your health.

03

Benefits of Healthy Energy Drinks Like VISO

By choosing an all-natural, NON-GMO, organic energy drink like VISO, your health will flourish and not diminish as it would with other sludge-in-a-can options.

☑ Clean Rush, No Crash

Each bottle of VISO contains 300mg of this pure, organic, undiluted caffeine sourced from organic coffee beans that are rinsed off with and soaked in spring water.

This water is then collected, the solution is evaporated, and what remains is completely natural, totally organic caffeine responsible for the unmistakable thrill of a rush without the anxiety, jitters, or crash.

☑ No Artificial Ingredients

Artificial ingredients may be easier and cheaper to source, but that’s not what we’re about.

Our ethos is to provide legitimately nutritious energy drinks with a refreshing taste and kickass rush, and an energy drink that includes artificial ingredients simply can’t be nutritious, delicious, and have an ambitious rush.

This can only be accomplished with organic, all-natural, NON-GMO ingredients and HPP bottling process that we use. You can call us crazy, but we believe the less artificial trash people ingest, the better. 

☑ Nutrition

The reason why every bottle of VISO tastes like the labeled ingredients and not the color of the bottle (looking at your orange flavored sodas) is because all flavors are made from cold-pressed juices from organic fruits; these delicious juices are what give that subtle sweetness and undiluted taste.

☑ One Bottle = All Day Energy

Easy there, tiger! With VISO, you’ll get the pep in your step you’re looking for in one glorious bottle. Say goodbye to chugging regular energy drinks that saturate your system with chemicals, junk and excess sugar.

When you crack open a VISO, you’re holding the key to all-day energy right in your hand. The high-quality, concentrated goodness of VISO doesn’t just pack a punch in the nutrient and flavor stakes; you’ll also get a clean, long-lasting energy boost that keeps you powered up all day without a crash. 

Specially formulated to satisfy your taste buds, nutrient requirements and energy boost as a daily pick-me-up, these concentrated drinks also pack a punch in the nutrient and flavor departments.

04

FAQs

What Happens if You Drink Energy Drinks Everyday?

Honestly, it depends on the type of energy drink and whether you follow the guidelines. If you choose a clean, nutrient-packed option like VISO, you’ll unlock incredible energy and vitality every day thanks to its spectrum of essential vitamins and minerals, and energy-boosting B Vitamins.

Studies even suggest that 285-380mg of caffeine per day can provide substantial antioxidant and anticancer benefits - and VISO contains the ideal dose of 300mg! Of course, we always caution people to be wary of highly processed products as part of their healthy eating lifestyle, and energy drinks are no exception. To be sure, stick to VISO so you won’t have to watch out for excessive sugar intake and other nasties.

Are Energy Drinks Safe? 

In general, for healthy adults, yes. But only provided that you don’t suffer from any health conditions that could be exacerbated by energy drink consumption, follow the recommended daily intake guidelines as advised by your doctor or other qualified health provider, and stay within a caffeine content under 400mg per day. 

Keep an eye on those extra additives, too. Too many energy drinks rely on the addition of healthy-sounding “natural” supplements to trick people into thinking they’re better for you. They can be heavy-handed on ingredients you might not think are dangerous, but in particular cases or high doses can cause toxicity, health risks or adverse reactions.

 Lots of well-known energy drinks contain added taurine, niacin, guarana, yerba mate, glucuronolactone, ginseng & gingko biloba. Never disregard professional medical advice about these additives, and if you’re taking medication, be sure to check the label for potential medicine interactions with herbal supplements.

TLDR: Anything can be bad for you if it’s made of complete garbage.

A baked potato with ghee is a great source of fiber and potassium, but french fries from a fast food drive thru are the antithesis of health; a smoothie blended up from organic fruits and cacao powder is loaded with magnesium and vitamin C, but a to-go smoothie joint that adds 30+ grams of added sugar to every cup isn’t exactly healthy; pick up what I’m puttin’ down?

So yes, there are many energy drinks that are bad for you, and that’s why we made VISO; we’re here to give you a rush that beats out anyone else on the market with an undeniably delicious energy drink that’s actually good for you.

Welcome to the energy revolution.

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