Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in the US looked at the medical data of 144 patients who had survived a cardiac arrest following emergency treatment. Results found that seven of them, aged between 20 and 42, had consumed an energy drink some time before the life-threatening event, with six requiring electrical shock treatment and one needing manual resuscitation.
Peter Schwartz, of the Centre for Cardiac Arrhythmias of Genetic Origin and Laboratory of Cardiovascular Genetics, in Milan, Italy, wrote in an accompanying editorial: “Critics might say of these findings, ‘it’s just an association by chance’.
“We, as well as the Mayo Clinic group, are perfectly aware that there is no clear and definitive evidence that energy drinks indeed cause life-threatening arrhythmias and that more data are necessary, but we would be remiss if we were not sounding the alarm.”
Edit to add a link to the study … https://www.heartrhythmjournal.com/article/S1547-5271(24)00189-9/fulltext
It’s poor reporting, but not necessarily poor research.
Out of the 144, how many of them were under 42 years old.
All we know from this article is that some number of 20-42 year olds had a cardiac arrest correlated with energy drinks. That age group is extremely young to have a cardiac arrest.
If the 7 they looked at were all otherwise healthy 20-42 year olds, that consumed high levels of energy drinks, then there might be more to the story. Especially if they didn’t find any otherwise healthy 20-42 year olds that had a cardiac arrest and did not consume energy drinks.
Though with only the information in the article, we have no way to understand what is really being said.
Here’s the study (it’s free) … https://www.heartrhythmjournal.com/article/S1547-5271(24)00189-9/fulltext