Francis Allard, 33, does not drink coffee, but has been drinking the energy drink on a daily basis for a year or two. One can a day, sometimes two.
He arrived at the holiday season quite exhausted, to the point where, on December 23, he drank three cans of energy drink from a well-known brand during the day. He had also drunk three the day before, and three the other day before that.
Shawinigan resident Francis Allard, although in good health, suffered a heart attack on December 23 caused by the consumption of an energy drink. (Francis Allard)
Shortly after 10 p.m., he prepared a small meal and headed to the living room in his home in the Grand-Mère sector in Shawinigan. He then suffered discomfort.
“It’s a really bad chest pain, that’s never really happened to me, let’s say. And suddenly I lost the card. I fell flat on my face with my plate of tomato sandwich.”
— Francis Allard
It only lasted a few moments. Afterwards he was confused and just wanted to go to bed. He told his partner that he had tripped and fallen, but she saw the scene and did not believe him. They headed to the emergency room, afraid he would collapse again.
Emergency
“The minute I got into triage, they took my blood pressure and immediately transferred me to the other side. They got me plugged on the machines. […] my heart was making ups and downs», says the man who is notably a construction and industrial mechanics entrepreneur.
He says that blood tests taken at the hospital revealed caffeine and taurine levels at low levels. The best news is that the next day, after a sleepless night, he did some treadmill testing and was found to have no heart problems.
Francis Allard therefore got away with a good dose of awareness on the dangers of energy drinks by hospital staff. He claims to have not drunk any since December 23.
“It seems to have become addictive to me, a little bit. The next day I was looking at the fridges and that was the first thing I looked at. It’s as if I wanted to drink one more, but I knew I shouldn’t.”
-Since then, he has tried to raise awareness among consumers around him. He was well advised that if an episode like that of December 23 were repeated, he might not recover.
Caffeine poisoning?
Without commenting on specific cases, pharmacist at the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) Isabelle Bilodeau recalls that acute consumption of caffeine can lead to a state of intoxication, which can take multiple forms, including disorders cardiovascular or central nervous system.
She also points out that caffeine has a “half-life” of around four hours on average, but that this varies from one person to another. The elimination of half of the caffeine ingested can actually vary from two to 12 hours, which opens the door for accumulation in the blood.
“You can easily have a dozen hours of effect, but it’s not something that will accumulate over several days.”
— Isabelle Bilodeau, pharmacist at the INSPQ
Furthermore, the great variability explains why some people must stop taking caffeine early so as not to be affected by it in the evening, and why others drink it in the afternoon without problem.
Asking if there is a way to get rid of the effects of that last coffee too quickly, the answer is unfortunately not, according to the expert.
“It’s a bit like alcohol. There is no miracle formula. You have to wait until the liver has done its job. You have to live with the effects of caffeine a bit at that point.”
And the other products?
Now, as to whether other products, sometimes combined with caffeine in energy drinks, can have an impact on the heart, the answer is “probably.”
“But it remains a question that is still difficult to answer because often, energy drinks each have their own little unique recipes and contain a lot of compounds that are not necessarily studied that much, or they are substances that we will know the individual effect, but not necessarily in the exact mixture of the energy drink.
