Energy drinks mixed with alcohol increase desire to drink

New findings show that combining alcohol with energy drinks can increase one's desire to drink more alcohol.

Rebecca McKetin, corresponding author for the study from Australian National University said that a number of cross-sectional studies show that young adults who mixed alcohol with energy drinks (A+ED) have higher levels of alcohol consumption than their peers who don't mix energy drinks with alcohol, and some studies suggest that this practice increases the risk of 'binge drinking. Though it may simply be the case that of people who drank more often were more likely to take A+EDs among other things, if it was the case that energy drinks increase binge drinking, the popularity of A+EDs could exacerbate alcohol-related harms among young people.

Study authors assigned 75 participants (46 women, 29 men) aged 18 to 30 years to an alcohol-only or A+ED condition in a double-blind randomized pre-versus post-test experiment.

It was found that people who drank A+EDs had a stronger desire to keep drinking than if they drank alcohol on its own, meaning that someone who drank A+EDs would want to keep drinking more than their friends who didn't. But they couldn't say whether this translated into people drinking more. However, if it did translate into greater alcohol consumption, they would expect to see people who drank A+EDs drinking more than their peers who didn't, said McKetin.

McKetin added that their findings suggested that energy drinks may increase people drinking to intoxication, and consequently increase the risk of alcohol-related problems like drunk-driving and alcohol-fuelled violence.

The study is due to be published in online issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and is currently on Early View.