Can Energy Drinks Damage Your Health?

Energy drinks are on the rage in recent years. It seems that everyone, particularly young people in ages of 20 to 30 years, has one on their hand.

They're highly touted to boost your energy, increase your metabolism, keep you alert and focused. Some even markets to help you lose weight.

There's always new brand, new marketing spin popping up every week.

 Here’s how it’s done.

1. Give your can of sugar water a hip-sounding name, like Monster, Rockstar, or Amp.

2. Promise that the product will do something exciting to your body, like boosting your energy and alertness, so you, too, can be a rock star—or at least stay up as late as one.

3. Make your product sound slightly dangerous. Anything will sound cooler when grown-ups hate it: Dr. Oz calls energy drinks “addictive” and “unhealthy.” Other experts point to thousands of caffeine overdoses among young people 19 and under.

But all the hoopla surrounding energy drinks is just hysteria, right? Sure, drinking them by the six-pack isn’t a good idea, but in moderation, a single can of cold, tangy, eyeball-popping energy fuel can’t be bad for you . .

Or can it?

Well, the truth is that while you can call a product RockStar, a more accurate name for some of their drinks might be Fat Roadie. Because while massive doses of energy drinks are obviously dangerous, adding even a single can a day of some of them to your liquid intake could cause more than 29 pounds of weight gain in a year! Below, I’ve outlined some of the worst energy drinks, and some much saner alternatives. Making these simple swaps could be the difference between Lady Gaga, and Lady Gargantua.

WORST MORNING JOLT

5-Hour Energy (1.93-oz bottle)
4 calories
0 g sugars
Caffeine: 135 mg

Drink This Instead!
Black Coffee (12-oz cup)
0 calories
0 g sugars
Caffeine: 95-200 mg

What’s really in 5-Hour Energy? Wouldn’t you like to know! The company claims the product is packed with a variety of vitamins and other compounds that promote energy, but when Consumer Reports recently requested a copy of the supporting research, the company balked. Here’s a golden rule of food and drink: If the company selling the product won’t put its money where its mouth is, don’t put their product where your mouth is.

Bottom line: The only proven ingredient in this bottle is caffeine, and one bottle contains about as much as a cup of coffee. You know what costs much less, contains loads of natural antioxidants, and also has as much caffeine as a cup of coffee? You guessed it, a cup of coffee. No energy drink on the planet is more reliable.

What Is HCG Diet? Does It Really Work to Lose Weight?

HCG Diet is another recent hot diet, highly touted by many celebrity physicians on TV shows and in books. So what is it?

HCG, abbreviation of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, is a hormone produced during pregnancy. "HCG Diet involves daily self-administered shots of HCG and a 500-calorie-a-day diet," said Dr. Louis Aronne, an obesity expert at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

So does HCG diet work to help lose weight? "The short answer is no," said Dr. Aronne. "HCG works by releasing stored fat - which your body typically uses only when you're pregnant or in starvation mode - into the bloodstream for use as energy."

However, it's a very expense placebo. A 23-day supply costs about $500. FDA has deemed HCG diet fraudulent and illegal.

Every study done on HCG has shown no it's effect on weight. It may help you lose a few pounds due to strictly low calorie intake. It's not sustainable for the long term. You're gain the weight back plus more.