A man nearly died after drinking eight to ten cans of 'any kind of energy drink he could get access to' on a daily basis.
The 26-year-old went to A&E with pain in his chest and left arm which had lasted nine hours, he claimed that his arm also felt numb, he was sweating and had been sick.
According to The Sun, doctors in Texas, US, carried out tests and found that his heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels were normal. They then found that he had a full blockage in one of his arteries in addition to other abnormalities.
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He explained to medics that he usually drinks somewhere between eight to ten cans of 473ml energy drinks each and every day - which is the equivalent to around four litres.
The bloke denied using any illegal drugs but did admit to smoking a packet of 20 cigarettes a day for the last two years, according to an article published in Case Reports in Emergency Medicine.
Daniel Solomin who co-authored the report, wrote: "Energy drink consumption is a growing health concern due to limited regulation and increasing use, especially in younger demographics.
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"With substantially higher caffeine content than soft drinks or coffee beverages, in some cases, as well as other poorly studied substances, there is significant potential for harm, especially when consumed in large quantities."
The man was discharged after two days in hospital. He was given prescriptions for an antiplatelet agent, an ACE inhibitor, a beta blocker and a statin, and he agreed to stop smoking and consuming energy drinks.
The report continued: "There are multiple ingredients among the common brands of energy drinks, with the most frequent being caffeine, taurine, glucuronolactone and ginseng.
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"A typical energy drink has approximately 0.34 mg of caffeine per ml, meaning our patient consumed between 1.2 and 1.6 g of caffeine per day, with a lethal dose of caffeine being between approximately 10 g of oral caffeine based on animal studies. However, smaller doses of caffeine may be fatal.
"We hypothesize that the significant quantity of energy drinks consumed by our patient, in the absence of any known genetic risk factors, contributed to the formation of the acute thrombus occluding the patient's coronary blood vessel.
"We hypothesize that vasospasm caused by excessive levels of caffeine, along with possible effects from other substances in energy drinks, reduced flow in the coronary vessel to such a degree that a thrombus was able to form."
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