Energy Drink Ingredients

Caffeine

The most common stimulant, found also in coffee, Coke, and Mountain Dew but usually is found in much higher quantities in energy drinks.

Taurine

Taurine is an amino acid that your body naturally produces. It helps regulate heartbeat, muscle contractions, and energy levels.

Guarana

Guarana comes from plants native to South America. Amazonians have used it for a long time to increase alertness and energy. It’s more dense in caffeine and coffee beans.

B Vitamins

These are essentially the things that help you convert food to energy, like sugar which is found in abundance in energy drinks.

Ginseng

Ginseng, an adaptogenic herb, is known to increase energy, has some anti-fatigue components, supposedly relieves stress, and increase memory.

Ginkgo Biloba

This ingredient is named after the rare tree it originates from. It is believed to help with memory retention, concentration, circulation, acts as an anti-depressant, and even shows signs of helping people with Alzheimer’s.

L-Carnitine

An amino acid usually created by your liver and kidneys, this stuff helps up your metabolism and energy levels. Because of the way it interacts with your body, it may act as a thermogenic and help increase weight loss and endurance during exercise.

Sugars

Glucose is the body’s preferred fuel. That’s why you get hyper with a lot of sugar. Energy drinks contain a ton of sugar. Therefore, energy. It’s a carbohydrate and a lot of exercise regiments suggest a good dose of carbs for workouts lasting more than an hour.

Antioxidants

Anti-oxidants are things that help your body gracefully recover from the damage of free radicals. Vitamin C is an anti-oxidant, so claiming that your energy drink has a lot of anti-oxidants is like saying you’re buying really expensive orange juice.

Glucuronolactone

Glucuronolactone (DGL) occurs naturally in the human body as glucose is broken down by the liver.

Yerba Mate

This substance is derived from leaves of a shrub in the Holly family.

Creatine

Creatine is naturally obtained by eating meat. Creatine helps with supplying energy to the muscles and is usually found in energy drinks and products that are marketed to body builders.

Acai Berry

This ingredient is finding its way into more and more energy drinks. Acai berry comes from the Acai Palm tree which is found in South America.

Milk Thistle

This ingredient mainly found in Rockstar and a few other drinks is used as a liver detoxifying agent.

L-theanine

L-theanine is an amino acid that according to recent studies has shown to calm the brain to enhance concentration.

Inositol

Inositol was once considered a B vitamin, but has since been removed from this classification because the human body is able to produce it’s own supply without the need for supplementation through the diet.

Artificial Sweeteners

Many energy drinks contain artificial sweeteners. Even energy drinks that contain high amounts of sugar will include artificial sweeteners to help cover the medicinal taste of the other energy drink ingredients.