If you drink Red Bull, beware! Just one can of the popular carbonated energy drink that is marketed to give you "wings", can up your risk of a heart attack or stroke – even if you're young. That's the word from Australian medical researchers, who have determined the caffeine-loaded beverage that is popular with college students and sport fans, causes blood to become sticky, a precursor to cardiovascular problems, reports Reuters.
The study: Led by Scott Willoughby from the Cardiovascular Research Centre at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the team tested the cardiovascular systems of 30 young adults one hour before and one hour after each consumed one 250-millileter can of sugar-free Red Bull.
The results: "One hour after they drank Red Bull, (their blood systems) were no longer normal. They were abnormal like we would expect in a patient with cardiovascular disease," Willoughby told The Australian. He said the study shows that "normal people develop symptoms normally associated with cardiovascular disease" after drinking Red Bull. The energy drink could be deadly for anyone who has high blood pressure, since it could impair proper blood vessel function and possibly increase the risk of blood clots.
Created in the 1980s by Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull is based on a similar Thai energy drink. It has been banned in Norway, Uruguay and Denmark because of health risks that are actually listed on the can. Each serving contains 80 mg of caffeine, around the same as a normal cup of brewed coffee, but consumers are warned not to drink more than one can a day.
Red Bull Australia spokeswoman Linda Rychter said the company, which is headquartered in Austria, will review the report. "The study does not show effects which would go beyond that of drinking a cup of coffee. Therefore, the reported results were to be expected and lie within the normal physiological range," Rychter told Reuters.
--From the Editors at Netscape
