Energy drinks that contain alcohol have long had a bad rap. From the negative effects on our health, to luring younger members of society to drinking, to mixed drinks being responsible for higher-levels of intoxication.
But now, it's non-alcoholic energy drinks that are under fire. A six year long study on 1000 university students has shown that the more non-alcoholic energy drinks a person drank, the more likely they were to drive drunk.
You might be wondering where on earth the connection is, and it would be a fair question. Researchers aren't sure, but a few of the proposed explanations were:
- That the 'wide-awake' feeling from the energy drink makes people feel safer about driving, even though they're over the limit.
- That people were consuming energy drinks in order to nurse a hangover, and therefore were already over the limit when consuming them
- Or even that the type of people who drink energy drinks are those most likely to drive drunk, or least admitting to it. The correlation here is that energy drink advertising tends to target those who are 'characterised by an idealised notion of an exciting, active lifestyle with a proudly carefree and undaunted attitude of 'living for the moment,’', so these might be the same people who would take a risk such as driving while intoxicated.
Follow up studies are already being called for to see if it can be determined which factors play the biggest part.
You can read more about the study here.
