Many people focus on food when it comes to heart health, but drinks play a key role as well.
What you sip can come with sugar and other additives that may derail an otherwise healthy diet, raise the risk of cardiovascular disease and make heart problems worse if you already have them.
There’s one type of drink in particular that concerns Dr. James Stone, a cardiologist at the South Heart Clinic in Harlingen, Texas.
Heart health tip of the day: Avoid energy drinks
Energy drinks are a popular way to boost alertness, but Stone worries about the consequences of imbibing them.
“If you’re a heart patient, you need to avoid these at all costs,” Stone tells TODAY.com.
“But I tell everyone: Just try to avoid them.”
A typical 8.4-ounce energy drink contains 80 milligrams of caffeine, according to the American Beverage Association, the industry trade group.
The issue is not so much the caffeine, but consuming several stimulants all at once, he says.
Stone thinks caffeine is “great” as long as people don’t exceed the daily limit of 400 milligrams a day. But he’d rather they just drink black coffee, which comes with health benefits, instead of energy drinks.
Why it matters
Energy drinks typically contain caffeine, added sugars, other additives and legal stimulants such as taurine, guarana and L-carnitine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The stimulants can have a harmful effect on the nervous system, the agency notes.
“We’re mixing in multiple stimulants, and we’re stacking them all into one drink at one time,” Stone cautions.
“That leads to potential heart rhythm issues, which can be dangerous or catastrophic. If you’re a heart patient, that can tip you over in a bad way.”
Energy drinks have been safely consumed for decades, the American Beverage Association notes.
But they can potentially trigger life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias in patients with genetic heart disease, researchers cautioned.
The magnitude and combination of chemicals in energy drinks “can catch the vulnerable heart off guard and send it into a potentially lethal heart rhythm that leads to sudden cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death,” Dr. Michael J. Ackerman, one of the authors and a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said in a statement.
People who have heart failure or coronary artery disease often take medications like beta blockers to slow the heart rate down, but energy drinks speed it up so “you’re counteracting everything that we’re trying to do,” Stone tells patients.
Even healthy people may get jittery or experience a racing, pounding heart, he adds.
The cardiologist sees young people, athletes and night shift workers reporting palpitations after consuming energy drinks to stay awake or feel more alert.
“I have a lot of kids that come in and say, ‘I drink two a day, three a day — one in the morning, one around 10, one again around noon, and if I’m studying, I’ll drink two more,’ and I’m like, whoa,” Stone says.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that adolescents do not consume energy drinks.
How to get started
If you’re a heart patient, don’t drink energy drinks, the cardiologist advises.
Stone prefers everyone in general to skip them because he worries drinking one a day will lead to two a day or even more.
“It’s sweet, it tastes good. They’re borderline almost addicting, and they keep you up, and they give you a rush,” he says. “It’s this unnecessary evil we don’t need to get ourselves into.”
Drink black coffee instead, Stone advises.
When it comes to caffeine, up to five cups of coffee per day — which amounts to the recommended daily limit of 400 milligrams of caffeine — is safe for most adults and may be linked to cardiovascular health benefits, according to the American Heart Association.
TODAY’s Expert Tip of the Day series is all about simple strategies to make life a little easier. Every Monday through Friday, different qualified experts share their best advice on diet, fitness, heart health, mental wellness and more.
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