Mixing energy drinks, booze boosts injury risk
Acute intoxication leads to accidents and violent incidents, research shows
Mixing alcohol with high-caffeine energy drinks may lead to a 20fold increase in the risk of injury, according to data collected from emergency rooms in Vancouver and Victoria.
Because high doses of caffeine mask the sedating effects of alcohol, people party longer, stay out later, consume more alcohol and as a result engage in riskier behaviour.
“People underestimate how intoxicated they are,” said lead researcher Audra Roe mer, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Victoria. Drinking alcohol has a fairly predictable effect on the risk of injury — after six drinks, the risk of injury is roughly six times higher — but energy drinks cause a “surge in response,” she said.
“When we talked to people about whether they had been combining energy drinks and alcohol, we found quite a few had and ended up in the hospital because of it,” she said. The acute intoxication that results from mixing stimulants with booze led to violence and accidents among other unpleasant outcomes. The ER data will be included in a future publication.
The practice of mixing high doses of caffeine with heavy drinking is particularly popular with collegeaged men and women, who want to stay out later and party longer, said Roemer. For Brian G. Rice, energy drinks were often used to party through until morning during a period of heavy drinking in his 20s and early 30s.
“I would say it was part of an overall self-destructive pattern of behaviour,” said Rice, who is now in recovery after being diagnosed with diabetes at 34. “There were normal getting drunk nights, and then, every now and again, there were alcoholic-level binge drinking getting drunk nights.”
In a review of previous research published this week, Roemer found that 10 of 13 studies support the notion that the combination of highcaffeine and alcoholic beverages puts drinkers at increased risk of both intentional and accidental harm, compared with drinking alcohol alone.
“The stimulant effects of caffeine mask the sedative effects of alcohol,” said Roemer. “Usually when you’re drinking alcohol, you eventually get tired and you go home.”
If not, look out. The mix can lead to fighting, suicide and dangerously excessive drinking, not to mention falls and car wrecks, she said.