 "Photo: Justin Maurer")
A recent study has shown that combinations of energy drinks and alcohol, such as the Red Bull and vodka beverage, can result in an increased risk of dangerous alcohol-related health consequences.
Mary Claire O'Brien, professor in the department of emergency medicine and public health sciences at Wake Forest University, said she works in the emergency room of the Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., and deals with college students who have consumed too much alcohol. She recently completed a study that examined the relationship between energy drinks and alcohol.
O'Brien said several college students told her that mixing energy drinks and alcohol is popular because the combination enables them to continue partying.
She said students often do not feel as drunk when they mix energy drinks and hard liquor and are able to drink longer.
"They can drink longer without passing out and without feeling so drunk," O'Brien said. "Even if they don't do it to drink to the point where they pass out, they want to have more drinks over a longer period of time."
She said 4,271 college students from universities around the nation were surveyed about the mixing of energy drinks and alcohol. From the data, she said she estimates that four out of five college students in the United States drink frequently and half of those students drink to excess.
College students have always consumed alcohol, but the culture is becoming increasingly supportive of excess and binge drinking, O'Brien said.
"It's not like kids didn't get loaded when I was in college," she said. "The few kids that did and got sick everywhere, that was not funny when I was in college."
In the study, one in four college drinkers admitted to mixing energy drinks and alcohol, she said. "Drinkers" were defined in the study as anyone who had consumed an alcoholic beverage in the 30 days prior to the study.
O'Brien said the study was broken into three parts - establishing the prevalence of drinking, the association of energy drinks and alcohol to high-risk drinking and the association with serious alcohol-related consequences. Serious alcohol-related consequences include drunken driving or riding with a drunken driver, taking advantage or being taken advantage of sexually or requiring medical treatment because of alcohol or alcohol-related injury.
She said students who mixed energy drinks and alcohol were twice as likely to ride with a drunken driver, twice as likely to be hurt or injured, twice as likely to require medical treatment, twice as likely to take advantage of someone sexually and almost twice as likely to be taken advantage of sexually than students who do not mix their alcohol with energy drinks.
"I'm not saying every one of those behaviors occur in everybody who does it, but those behaviors are twice as likely to occur," O'Brien said. "The odds ratio for those items listed as twice as likely were all over two."
The odds ratio for predicting the results of a coin flip is 1.00, or even odds, she said. The odds ratio of being taken advantage of sexually when from drunk from the mixture of an energy drink and alcohol is 1.77, or 77 percent higher than even odds.
O'Brien said college students today are manipulated by alcohol and energy drink producers because they market their products as "cool" or "in-style." Companies use smart marketing tactics to get young individuals to buy their products.
"They're not stupid, they're marketing specifically to you by naming stuff 'Cocaine' and 'Daredevil' and 'Whoop Ass' and 'Monster,' " she said.
Additionally, some companies give away free products at parties and bars where there is an environment where drinking is encouraged, O'Brien said.
She said her dissatisfaction is not with the companies themselves but with the way they market their products.
"Kids are being exposed to these things and the behavior that is actually dangerous is encouraged," O'Brien said.
The main concern is not necessarily with the energy drink, she said, but the alcohol mixed with it. The alcohol is still entering an individual's system and results in the individual getting drunk.
"Whether you have the energy drink or you don't, your motor coordination, your visual reaction and your breath alcohol are the same," she said. "If you're drunk, you're drunk, [it] doesn't matter if you have an energy drink."
Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said mixing chemicals that simultaneously affect the central nervous system is dangerous to the human body.
Benjamin said alcohol, a depressant, impairs neurological functioning and caffeine, a stimulant, stimulates the brain. When used in excess, the combination causes motor dysfunction.
"When you mix those two drugs together, it impairs a fair amount of your ability to perceive normally, inhibits motor skills and puts you at significant risk to do a complex task, including driving a car," he said.
One consequence of combining the two chemicals is making one drink more alcoholic than it should be because the effects of the energy drink might hide some of the effects of the alcohol, he said.
Benjamin said because this issue is so new, the APHA has yet to officially comment on the mixing of energy drinks and alcohol. APHA officials do oppose drunken driving, binge drinking and using any chemical, including caffeine, in excess, he said.
Patrice Radden, spokeswoman for Red Bull, a popular energy drink, stated in an e-mail message that the research confirms widely-understood information about the dangers of alcohol. Beverages mixed with alcohol are not the problem. The alcohol itself is the cause for concern, she said.
"This report tells us what everyone knows: the excessive and irresponsible consumption of alcohol can have adverse effects on human health and behavior," Radden said. "These are due to the alcoholic drink, not the mixer, be it cola, orange juice, tonic or whatever else is mixed with alcohol."
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