If you must drink Red Bull do not drink a full can or bottle | Hacker News Reader

If you must drink Red Bull do not drink a full can or bottle

futurepundit.com

58 pointscwan40 comments

People drink Redbull to avoid feeling tired, not because it will cause them this awesome skill to press a keyboard key when a green thing flashes on their monitor. Also, Squirt doesn't have the color nor the taste of Redbull. What's the use of this if the test subjects probably could identify which was Redbull and which wasn't?

You beat me to it. There are a ton of different energy drinks that taste the same to me as Red Bull but it in no way has a lemon flavor. I don't even think Sprite has that much of a lemon flavor. It has always tasted more like grapefruit. Most people who have had Red Bull would know that they weren't drinking it.

Exactly. Lots of energy drinks taste similar. Redbull and Ciclon taste pretty equal (you have to really be looking to actually notice the difference). I find it retarded that they're using Squirt as a replacement when they should be looking for a way to imitate Redbull's flavor to perform such experiment. Also, I think the candidates should be within a 10 year range, people in their 20's react very different from people in their forties to big amounts of sugar. In any case, my past employer used to pay for one or two sixpacks of Redbull for when I had to do 3 or 4 day marathons to achieve a deadline (I loved those because once I hit the bed I slept for 24 hours straight and the company gave me a few days to a week off and bonus for my efforts. The good times.

For what it's worth, a can of Red Bull has 80mg of caffeine, while a double shot of espresso has 150 mg and a 12 oz drip coffee has more like 260mg.

Agreed. Red Bull is not "high caffeine." The active ingredient in Red Bull is taurine. The study was on caffeine but yet they didn't isolate the drug in question. The margin of error for this experiment is at least 1/√(80) or 11%.

This is science?

I'm sure there's lots of research out there on the effects of caffeine. A review of the literature on its short-term effects on tiredness, concentration and ability on various tasks would be pretty interesting, but a single result in isolation on some artificial test really isn't.

It depends on the size of the can. That's IIRC the 8 oz size. There are also 12 and 20 oz cans. (Yeesh.)

It is still less than the same size drip coffee.

Indeed. Espresso isn't necessarily higher in caffeine than coffee, either, once volume is factored in.

For that matter, a 100 mg caffeine pill may have less than a big mug of coffee. There's too much variation.

It doesn't say if they controlled for existing caffeine tolerances. Take someone who never drinks energy drinks and give them a full can of Red Bull and they'll be so hyped up they'll likely miss on tests like the one in the study.

I can attest to that. Before my final high school exams (oral - this is quite serious in our country) I drank a can of red bull - the first of my life. I was so hyped that despite knowing everything I had trouble concentrating - I passed but without the red bull I'd undoubtedly have passed with better grades.

Coffee still affects me strongly even though I now drink a cup a day. I also get a strong come-down effect so the net result is about even. Others I know drink coffee all day long and don't have a come down effect either.

You actually touched on another issue with memory and information retention with respect to the current chemical state of your mind. If you study with caffeine then you need to also take the test with caffeine. Basically you want to come as close as possible to recreating your study environment for the test.

Red Bull tastes nothing like Squirt.

I drink Red Bull just for the taste. It has zero effect on me, so does coffee. I can drink a cup of coffee and a can of Red Bull and go to sleep. This is the problem if for some reason I must stay up when I am getting sleepy—I just don't know any means to stay alert.

Agreed, I love the taste as well. It doesn't work as well as 5 hour energy.

You're drinking for taste and Red Bull is really your choice? At $2.79 a can? Let me introduce you to Dr. Pepper.

Cranberry juice, soda water, and simple syrup is even closer.

Do you have ADHD? Caffeine—being a stimulant—can make some people with ADHD sleepy (in addition to the calming effect it has on them). There's study, that you can find on Google Scholar, about caffeine effects on people with ADHD, though it's (sadly) behind a paywall.

Nope, no ADHD. Caffeine did affect me only at first when I started to drink coffee and the effect just disappeared with no apparent reason. And I drunk only moderate amount of rather weak coffee. Go figure.

Link to the actual release: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-12/apa-im120210....

I still don't get it. Why can't I drink a full can of Red Bull? The article doesn't say anything about drinking a full can versus a part of the contents.

True - important since there are other ingredients in Red Bull that could have factored into the result.

Often times just the feeling of being less tired and more stimulated is what is necessary, not actually being so

completely misleading since it can take up to 45 minutes for body to absorb caffeine. so what's the point making tests merely after 30 minutes.

and by the way, it's proven that caffeine decreases reaction time, improves memory and focused thought.

"up to 45 minutes" presumably means that at least some of the caffeine is absorbed within 30 minutes?

It's actually weird; I have heard that 45 minute thing before, and yet the effect of drinking a cup of coffee feels almost immediate.

It is immediate.

Your body is immediately flooded with a warm, familiar, acrid liquid, with a particular aroma. All of this is associated with the upcoming caffeine hit. There is also a certain amount of caffeine absorption from the mucous membranes of the mouth and throat, which goes straight to the bloodstream; it's not the full dose, but again, your body knows what's coming and can shift blood flow, glucose levels, and neurotransmitter balances to compensate.

That's why a year ago, when I was experimenting with the effects of caffeine on myself, I switched between regular coffee, decaff, and coffee with caffeine pills. And the acclimatization effects is why I used each for a full week before switching. It turns out that caffeine has no detectable effects on me at all; I already knew it didn't have much effect, that's why I used such an elaborate trial.

As far as I'm concerned, any amount of processed sugar should be avoided...

Sucrose is sucrose is sucrose.

No need to be a sugar racist man.

And lo, all sugars were created equal, except for HFCS, which is just pure evil.

There's more to unprocessed food than sucrose. Unprocessed food is really quite dirty from a chemical point of view.

Dirty? That's a fairly loaded wording. How about varied or heterogeneous?

Does sound too guarded. But I did cave in and specified `from a chemical point of view' already.

I would be interested in seeing a comparison between a reasonable amount of caffeine and a 15 minute nap.

For years now (High School, College, now work + grad school) a power nap followed by continued work has been a mainstay in my fight against the need to sleep regularly. (Although lately I've been trying for better time management... because I like sleeping regularly, and I suspect all-nighters are bad for the health).

I don't think caffeine has any benefit in terms of getting work done. It will make me 'feel' more alert, but it doesn't seem to improve my brain function at all. If I'm tired, my output is still just as bad as it was before the cup of coffee; I just will not fall asleep at the keyboard... (Akin to being a wide-awake drunk from mixing alcohol and caffeine). After the nap I might be able to pull off intelligent thought for a few more hours.

Be thankful. I've never been able to nap -power or otherwise. After an hour or so of lying there, I'm a bit more rested. If I try to sleep briefly at night, I wake up more tired than before. Alternatively, some well timed caffeine and some driving music makes a short stretch in the zone a lot more effective.

"Must"?

I'd rather go entirely without. It'll probably net-dehydrate you too, so even if you're given the choice in a desert between Red Bull and nothing, it'd be better to choose nothing.

Soda and caffeinated beverages won’t dehydrate you. That’s a misconception.

They just make you want to drink more because of the sugar.

The report (linked above) doesn't mention anything about the existing caffeine consumption habits of those in the experiment. I think that unless they controlled for that, it could possibly skew the experiment one way or another.

Also, one possibility regarding the lower reaction time in the high caffeine group is that they feel jumpier and attempt to compensate for the increased jitteriness by slowing down a bit. I know that this was suppose to be a blind test, but if they gave me this test... I could probably tell the difference.

Are you entirely unfamiliar with the turn of phrase, "If you must..."?

It reads, "Well, if I can't convince you not to do it", and not "If you are actually required to do it"

Not entirely, no.

But this is a caution intended for people who a) bought a (relatively small) can, and b) desire to drink it. How many do you think will heed this?

So I chose to take it literally.

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