(Press-News.org) Not only have energy drinks become increasingly popular among adolescents and young adults in recent years, so too has mixing and drinking them with alcohol. However, research on the subjective psychological, physiological, and behavioral risk-taking outcomes of alcohol/energy drinks has had mixed results. A first-of-its-kind study compares the outcomes of alcohol/energy drinks with alcohol-only drinks among members of the Australian public.
Results will be published in the November 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.
"The majority of previous research regarding energy drink and alcohol/energy drink consumption rates has been restricted to American, Canadian, and European regional college student or community samples," said Amy Peacock, a doctoral candidate in the school of psychology at the University of Tasmania as well as corresponding author for the study. "Yet a similar problem is evident in Australia. This is the first Australian research regarding the frequency of energy drink and alcohol/energy drink use in a community sample."
Prior to this study, explained Peacock, the primary source of data regarding the consumption of energy drinks and alcohol/energy drinks were sales figures. "The data suggest that the sales of energy drinks have increased exponentially in the last few years," she said. "However, while we can access data regarding caffeinated alcoholic beverage sales, the very nature of alcohol/energy drinks, the mixing of two separate beverages, makes sales estimates quite difficult, particularly in non-licensed venues."
Peacock and her colleagues collected data from 403 Australians (159 males, 244 females), 18 to 35 years of age, who completed a 10- to 30-minute online survey between May and June 2011. All participants had consumed alcohol/energy and alcohol-only drinks in the preceding six months, and retrospectively responded to questions regarding the occurrence of 17 physiological and 21 mood states as well as 26 risk behaviors in drinking sessions during the preceding six months when they had consumed alcohol/energy drinks versus alcohol only.
"Alcohol-energy drink consumers were less likely to experience several psychological and physiological sedation side-effects, such as speech and walking difficulties, nausea, slurred speech, confusion, and exhaustion, when drinking alcohol/energy drinks compared to alcohol," said Peacock. "However, they also had a greater chance in alcohol/energy drink sessions of experiencing several side-effects related to over-stimulation, including heart palpitations, increased speech speed, sleeping difficulties, agitation and tremors, jolt and crash episodes, and irritability and tension."
"The reported side-effects of energy drink/alcohol consumption are similar to those reported by consumers of caffeine," said Andrea Carr, associate lecturer in psychology at the University of Tasmania. "To avoid these, consumers of energy drinks alone or combined with alcohol should be aware of the caffeine content of their drinks and any additional caffeine that they may have consumed that will contribute to an exacerbation of these effects."
"While alcohol/energy drink consumers reported risk-taking during both alcohol and alcohol/energy drink sessions," noted Peacock, "they had lower odds of engaging in a range of risk behaviours such as driving while intoxicated, having casual sex, using illicit drugs, gambling, engaging in physical or verbal aggression, and being injured, losing consciousness, or requiring medical treatment when under the influence of alcohol/energy drinks." Both Peacock and Carr found this to be inconsistent with existing research.
"While this pattern of results was evident consistently across all 26 assessed risk behaviours," cautioned Peacock, "we would not encourage any hasty conclusions regarding the causal relationship between alcohol/energy drinks and risk-taking. Instead, we hope that the present results will encourage further research in this area, particularly experimental research involving the objective measurement of risk-taking post- alcohol/energy drink consumption."
"Findings also indicate that more than half of the energy drink/alcohol consumers surveyed reported exceeding the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council's recommended intake of alcohol, namely five or more standard alcoholic drinks in any given session," said Carr. "This pattern of behaviour is somewhat concerning."
Peacock agreed. "This finding raises serious concern regarding the general alcohol consumption habits of alcohol/energy drink consumers," she said. "In comparison, data from the 2010 Australian National Drug Strategy Household Survey revealed that approximately one-quarter or 28 percent of the Australian population aged 14 years or older were consuming alcohol at this level on at least a monthly basis."
Peacock added that it is important to consider energy drinks separate from their advertising. "Energy drinks are commonly associated with sport, masculinity, and risk-taking via marketing strategies," she said. "While energy drinks may potentially provide increased alertness and reduced fatigue, they do not offer additional protection from the negative outcomes of risk-taking."
###Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research (ACER) is the official journal of the Research Society on Alcoholism and the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism. Co-authors of the ACER paper, "The Subjective Physiological, Psychological, and Behavioural Risk-Taking Consequences of Alcohol and Energy Drink Co-Ingestion," were Raimondo Bruno of the School of Psychology at the University of Tasmania, and Frances H. Martin of the School of Psychology at The University of Newcastle, Australia. This release is supported by the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network at http://www.ATTCnetwork.org.
Examining alcohol + energy drink consumption among the Australian public
2012-08-16
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Exploring the 2-way linkages between binge drinking and unemployment
2012-08-16
Many studies have found that problem drinking is related to subsequent unemployment; however, the reverse association is unclear. Some studies have found that unemployment can increase total drinking, alcohol disorders, and/or problem drinking while others have found that unemployment can decrease drinking or have no effect at all. An analysis of binge drinking as either a predictor or outcome of unemployment has found that binge drinking among women seems to have a significant association with long-term unemployment.
Results will be published in the November 2012 ...
Study finds 1 treatment stands above others for adults with Langerhans cell histiocytosis
2012-08-16
HOUSTON – (Aug.15, 2012) – A study by a Baylor College of Medicine physician-researcher has shed light on the most effective treatment for adults with Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) in bones. LCH is a disease that can affect the skin, mouth, ears, bones, brain, gastrointestinal system, liver, spleen, or bone marrow.
In the study, appearing in the current issue of PLOS ONE, researchers reviewed health records for 58 adults with the disease and compared the effectiveness of three chemotherapy treatments – vinblastine/prednisone, 2-Chlorodeoxyadenosine, and cytosine ...
A pack of walnuts a day keeps the fertility specialist away?
2012-08-16
A paper published 15 August 2012 in Biology of Reproduction's Papers-in-Press reveals that eating 75 grams of walnuts a day improves the vitality, motility, and morphology of sperm in healthy men aged 21 to 35.
Approximately 70 million couples experience subfertility or infertility worldwide, with 30 to 50 percent of these cases attributable to the male partner. Some studies have suggested that human semen quality has declined in industrialized nations, possibly due to pollution, poor lifestyle habits, and/or an increasingly Western-style diet.
Dr. Wendie Robbins and ...
Study identifies potential new class of drug for treating ulcerative colitis
2012-08-16
An investigational drug currently under FDA review for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis has now shown positive results in patients with moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis, according to researchers at the University of California San Diego, School of Medicine. The study will appear in the August 16, 2012 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Results from the phase 2 clinical trial showed the drug Tofacitinib achieved clinical response and remission in certain patients suffering from ulcerative colitis – a chronic inflammatory disease of the colon ...
Scientists discover previously unknown cleaning system in brain
2012-08-16
A previously unrecognized system that drains waste from the brain at a rapid clip has been discovered by neuroscientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The findings were published online August 15 in Science Translational Medicine.
The highly organized system acts like a series of pipes that piggyback on the brain's blood vessels, sort of a shadow plumbing system that seems to serve much the same function in the brain as the lymph system does in the rest of the body – to drain away waste products.
"Waste clearance is of central importance to every organ, ...
Rating of ocean health shows 'room for improvement'
2012-08-16
CORVALLIS, Ore. – An international group of more than 30 researchers today gave a score to every coastal nation on their contribution to the health of the world's oceans, which showed the United States as being slightly above average, and identified food provision, tourism and recreation as leading concerns.
The analysis, published in the journal Nature, scored each nation on a 0-100 scale in 10 separate categories such as clean water, biodiversity, food provision, carbon storage, coastal protection, coastal economies and others.
In this "Ocean Health Index," the world ...
BPA link to narrowing of the arteries
2012-08-16
A research team from the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD), University of Exeter, and University of Cambridge has for the first time established a link between high levels of urinary Bisphenol-A (BPA) and severe coronary artery stenosis (narrowing of the arteries).
The study is published in PLoS ONE today, 15th August 2012.
The team analysed data from 591 patients who participated in the Metabonomics and Genomics Coronary Artery Disease (MaGiCAD) study in Cambridgeshire, UK. They compared urinary BPA with grades of severity of coronary artery disease ...
Beetle mating requires strong grip as defensive behavior
2012-08-16
Sexual selection in the Forked Fungus Beetle favors larger body and horn size, and a new study investigates the relationship between these traits and the beetles' grip strength, which is crucial for the male to hold on to the female and shield her from other males in an elaborate courtship ritual. The full results are reported on Aug. 15 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.
During the courtship ritual, male beetles grab onto the female, sometime for several hours, which would seem to favor males with stronger grip. A video of this behavior is included with the published ...
Spiteful behavior is 'extreme', according to study
2012-08-16
Given the option to commit spiteful acts, reducing the money payoffs of others at no cost to themselves, many people avoid acting spitefully, but those that do, consistently impose the maximum harm, according to research reported on Aug. 15 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.
The authors, Erik Kimbrough of Simon Fraser University in Canada and Philipp Reiss of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, created an artificial auction market scenario, with participants "bidding" for objects and having the opportunity to raise the price paid by others, to test the frequency ...
Amish gut study shows specific bacteria correlated to metabolic syndrome
2012-08-16
Specific gut bacteria may be associated with metabolic syndrome traits, as determined by a study of Pennsylvania's Old Order Amish population. The full results are reported on Aug. 15 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.
The researchers, led by Claire M. Fraser of the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, chose the Amish as subjects for their study due to their close genetic relationships, similar lifestyles, and low prescription drug usage, among other factors, all of which reduced the number of confounders in the study and helped ...