Labels on Monster Energy drinks says they are not recommended for children under 12 or for people sensitive to caffeine. A 2011 review of the literature on caffeine showed that it is nearly impossible to pinpoint consistent disease factors that link large doses of caffeine to arrhythmia in the general population. Conditions like obesity and diabetes, which we do not normally associate with arrhythmia, can weaken the heart and open the door for caffeine to cause dangerous palpitations.īut caffeine sensitivity is also a highly individual trait, points out Jeff Goldberger, a cardioelectrophysiologist at Northwestern University in Chicago. Just about anything that makes the heart muscle weaker can increase the sensitivity to caffeine’s cardiovascular impacts, says Rita Redberg, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco.
What other conditions could make someone vulnerable to caffeine? Since caffeine dilates blood vessels, Fournier’s underlying condition could have made her much more sensitive to the effects of caffeine.
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Fournier suffered from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes loose skin and joints, and easily damaged blood vessels. Since the amount of caffeine in a can of Monster Energy would, at worst, probably only cause a case of the jitters in most healthy adults, the deaths are likely due to pre-existing medical conditions, or because the drink was combined with something else. So what could have caused the five reported deaths? But at least 44 per cent of these ER visits were due to mixing energy drinks and another substance, such as alcohol. Between 20, ER visits related to energy drinks went up tenfold in the US. The big question is how much of the blame for going to hospital can be attributed to energy drinks alone.
However, non-fatal emergency-room visits are on the rise. Only a handful of cases pop up in the scientific literature, although it is possible that such deaths are under-reported. Part of the reason it is easy to avoid death by caffeine is because the symptoms that come with the early stages of caffeine toxicity – light-headedness, nausea and headache – are quite unpleasant, says Sarah Kerrigan, a forensic toxicologist at Sam Houston State University in Texas.įor children and for the elderly, the dose that causes serious effects may be significantly lower than 5 grams, but the amount has not been firmly established.
The lethal dose of caffeine is about 5 grams for adults, so it would take over 25 cups of coffee to reach that point.
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