Energy Drinks' Effect on the Heart

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this study is to investigate what are the acute effects of drinking energy drinks on the cardiovascular system of Daphnia magna, a fresh water crustacea which is semi-transparent and therefore easily visible heart under a light microscope comparing metabolic process to humans that are also biota organisms both multicellular, heterotrophic, and have bilaterian nerves and muscles. Methods/Materials Daphnia magna, Microscope (full set), Pipettes, Energy drinks: Monster, Red Bull, Powerade, Gatorade, Coffee (black, no sugar), Green tea (no sugar), Water (the control). Applied few drops of energy drink individually on Daphnia magna and counted their heartbeat under the microscope after one minute and after two minutes for 10 trials using a new Daphnia for each trial, and repeating for each drink. Results Monster and Red Bull lowered the heart rate of the Daphnia by 100%, which killed it. Coffee lowered the heart rate of the Daphnia by 5.36%. Gatorade lowered it by 3.95%. Green tea lowered it by 3.22%. Powerade lowered it by 0.89%. Water lowered it 0.46% which is insignificant. Conclusions/Discussion The evidence from the trials revealed that those drinks with the highest amount of caffeine, also from herbal additives in the ingredients, namely the energy drinks, acutely caused the most stressful effects on the ability of the heart to function. The significantly higher content of caffeine in energy drinks than in an average cup of coffee is linked to the adverse physiological effects on the heart, hence linking the possible dangers of energy drinks. The implications of this study is to raise awareness to contraindicate energy drinks to youngsters, those with heart morbidities and comorbidities and the elderly at drinking them and to those healthy individuals drinking them in large quantities or combining them with other caffeinated drinks and other substances that cause stress on the heart muscles.

Competition history

• CSEF 2018 Toxicology · Entry J2203

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Biomedical and Health Sciences projects
• CSEF Biomedical and Health Sciences projects
• Every CSEF 2018 project