HEALTH EFFECTS OF EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY DRINKS BY STUDENTS

Abstract

Introduction: Students make excessive use of energy drinks in order to reduce fatigue during their activities, especially academic ones, which can generate unwanted health consequences, such as diabetes and hypertension. Objective: To analyze the harmful effects of excessive use of energy drinks among students. Materials and Methods: This is a literature review. Selected articles from the Pubmed, Academic Google and Scielo databases were included, from March 1997 to february 2021. For the research, the following terms were used: "Energy drink", "Students", "Time", according to the descriptors standardized by the Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS) combined with each other by Boolean operators. After the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 23 articles were selected for review. Results and Discussion: Of the 23 articles used in the study, 2 showed that the sale of energy drinks lacks information on the composition, concentrations and adverse effects of them; 9 showed that the main harmful exponent is the high concentration of caffeine, which can cause episodes of tachycardia, hypertension, sweating, anxiety, vomiting, dependence, seizures and sudden death; 3 related the high levels of sugar in the drink to health problems, especially when taking into account the frequency of consumption, which may contribute to aggravate the rates of epidemics already installed, such as diabetes and obesity. Conclusion: The excessive use of energy drinks can cause several harms to students' health, in the long and short term, showing a need to inform the population about the risks of unbridled consumption of these drinks.