Comment · Tue, April 23, 2013 · Ceretropic
The effect of energy drinks on the cognitive performance of adolescents.
What they were answering
Dylas · 7 points
No evidence was found for positive effects of energy drinks on the cognitive performance of young people.
That's a big claim and in contradiction with a lot of other studies done in this area.
[This] (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11140366) argues that the "findings clearly indicate that the mixture of three key ingredients of Red Bull Energy Drink used in the study (caffeine, taurine, glucuronolactone) have positive effects upon human mental performance and mood".
[This] (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15526987) found that "EDs (mainly caffeine) were found to improve and/or maintain mood and performance during fatiguing and cognitively demanding tasks relative to placebo".
[This] (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18470842) argued that "not only did focused and sustained attention improve significantly but so did reaction speed in all sorts of reaction-time tasks. Memory improved too".
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
You have to keep in mind that even though the ingredients have been shown to be effective, that the amounts they are found in certain energy drinks may not be sufficient to warrant the sugar and caffeine. Then you have sugar free ones that introduce artificial sweeteners that alter certain metabolic processes as well.
I'd say most energy drinks would not show a statistically significant increase in mental performance.