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5-hour Energy

Article: [|Energy drink ingredients. Contribution of caffeine and taurine to performance outcomes]


 * Introduction**


 * Energy drinks have been marketed as being able to increase alertness and endurance by decreasing effects on fatigue.
 * Researchers have stated that the main ingredient that contributes to the stimulating effects of energy drinks comes from caffeine. Recent research however, suggests that the effects and benefits experienced by these energy drinks are from the beverage as a whole and not just caffeine.
 * One of the main ingredients in energy drinks is Taurine, an abundant free amino acid usually located in animal-derived dietary sources and widely distributed throughout the body.
 * There is lack of knowledge regarding the behavioral impact of Taurine. Experimenting with drinks containing Taurine resulted in much shorter reaction times on attention tasks compared to placebo and control beverages.
 * Inferences regarding the independent and interactive effects of Taurine have been hindered due to the presence of other ingredients within each beverage. Absence of comparative administration conditions regarding Taurine and other important ingredients in energy drinks have prohibited making judgments such as the independent effects of these substances, and whether outcomes are driven by one substance or the combination of substances.


 * Method**

//Participants//
 * Sample consisted of 19 healthy female college students who were right-handed and non-smokers.
 * Participants had minimum intake of 50mg caffeine daily and 1000mg taurine monthly.
 * Volunteers were told that the main objective was to assess the performance effects of caffeine and taurine.

//Procedure//
 * 1) Participants restrained from taking food, caffeine and energy drinks, alcohol, and psychoactive substances for 4 hours, 8 hours, 24 hours, and 48 hours respectively prior to experimental sessions.
 * 2) At the end of the session, the participants were given two questions to answer based on perceived treatment administration and treatment effects.

//Treatment administration//
 * Participants received a two-capsule combination.
 * Doses correspond to the content of a standard 250mL Red Bull energy drink, which contains 80mg of caffeine and 1000mg of taurine.

//Behavioral tasks//
 * The two tasks administered were a visual oddball task and a stimulus degradation task.
 * In the visual oddball task, participants differentiated safe traffic condition images, and imminent accident images. Stimulus presentation had an 8:2 ratio of safe to imminent accidental trials.
 * In the stimulus degradation task, three levels of degradation were presented to increase stimulus complexity: intact, low, and high.

//Data analysis//
 * For visual oddball task, the primary dependent measure was the mean reaction time to identify imminent accident scenes accurately.
 * For stimulus degradation task, the primary dependent measure was the mean reaction time to identify intact, low, and high degraded stimuli.


 * Results**
 * No significant effects were shown after analyzing the effect of Taurine, Caffeine, or a combination of them both.
 * There was no significant about the effect of Taurine but Caffeine had a significant main effect.
 * The main effect of Caffeine was modified by a large change in Taurine/Caffeine interaction. Some later tests showed that there was a strong decrease in mean reaction time.
 * A majority of the participants reported that the effects of Taurine and Caffeine increased alertness.


 * Discussion**
 * The goal of the study was to determine the both the independent and combined effects of Taurine and Caffeine on behavioral performance.
 * The study showed that Caffeine's impact on performance was task-dependent. Performance was not impacted by Caffeine on the visual oddball task, but it had an impact on the stimulus degradation task.
 * Taurine had no effect on reaction time for either task but there was evidence that it may have a negative impact Caffeine's effects dependent on the behavioral task.
 * The study showed no evidence on behavioral performance from the independent effects of Taurine.
 * The results show that the primary role of Taurine is to synthesize bile salts.

Final Project Title - **5-Hour Energy: Is it Worth Taking?**


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