A University of Florida study finds that college students who drink alcoholic energy-drink cocktails are three times more likely to get drunk and four times more likely to drive drunk according to researcher Dennis Thombs, Ph.D., and his associates.
Combining energy drinks and alcohol tricks the drinker’s brain into thinking he or she is sober when they are very drunk. The study found that 28% of college students surveyed drank alcohol mixed with energy drinks in a typical month.
The team of researchers interviewed 800 college students as they were leaving bars. The students were questioned on what types of drinks they consumed, their intentions of driving, and sampled their breath alcohol level.
The average breath alcohol level for those who consumed energy drink cocktails was 0.109
The average breath alcohol level for those who consumed alcohol only was 0.081.
The finding discovered that students who consumed energy drinks cocktails drank longer.
Students drinking energy cocktails also left the bars later on average than their non-energy drink peers.
The phenomenon has an acronym, AMED, which stands for Alcohol Mixed With Energy Drinks. Red Bull and Vodka and Four Loco are the two most popular versions of alcohol and energy drinks. Coca-Cola Company produces BPM Energy · Burn · Full Throttle · Mother · NOS · RAC 124 · Relentless · Tab Energy · Vault · Von Dutch. PepsiCo produces AMP Energy · Josta · Mountain Dew Energy. Independent producers of energy drinks are Bacchus-F · Bawls · Tiger Energy Drink · Boo Koo · Cocaine · Coolah Energy · Crunk!!! · Dark Dog · EJ-10 · Emerge · Explosade · Four · Joose · Kore · Lost Energy · Monster · Oronamin · Pimp Juice · Piranha · Powershot · Red Bull · Red Eye · Red Rooster · Rockstar · Semtex · Shark · V · Venom · Wired · XS Energy.
The college student energy drink study appeared in the 2009 April issue of the journal Addictive Behaviors.