Hey everybody, Caffeine Man here and
today I'm answering the question, "Does
5-hour energy work?" If so, how does 5-hour energy work? Is it a special ingredient?
Is it a combination of special
ingredients working together?
Does it last the full five hours?
Is it safe to drink? Well, there's a lot
involved and I'm about to go over it all
coming right up.
INTRO: C *THUD*  M *THUD*
*LIGHTNING STRIKE*
Hello again everyone and thanks for joining me today. In this video I'm gonna answer the question,
Does 5-hour energy work? I'm gonna go over the
ingredients, what the ingredients are
known for, what effects they have and see
if it actually lasts the full five hours.
Also, I'll answer the question is 5-hour
energy safe to drink? And lastly, I'll do
a little taste test so that you know
what you're in for.
Also if you want to stay informed on all
things caffeine related feel free to hit
the subscribe button. I post new videos
every Tuesday night. So let's start off
with the safety issues because I know
it's something people are concerned about.
Is 5-hour energy safe to drink?
Between 2009 and 2012 5-hour energy had
been associated with 13 deaths. Now,
currently in 2019, there still hasn't
been any proof that 5-hour energy was
the cause of death and no successful
lawsuit for wrongful death. All they know
is that in these 13 cases the deceased
had consumed a 5-hour energy. Was it the
cause? Unlikely since this company has
sold billions of the product and there
hasn't been any valid proof whatsoever proving otherwise.
If you are interested in finding out how much caffeine will kill you I'll include a card above.
It will take you to a video that I did about how much caffeine will kill you.
So how does
5-hour energy work and more importantly
does 5-hour energy last the full 5 hours?
Let's take a closer look at this drink.
First, let's look at the vitamins. 5-hour
energy has several B vitamins which are
all known to help support adrenal
function, help calm and maintain a
healthy nervous system and are necessary
for key metabolic processes.
The B vitamins included are B6, B12, B3 (also known as niacin), and B9 (also known as folic acid).
Now I was going to tell you
what each one of these B vitamins did
but that added about four minutes to
this video and I'm concerned about your
well-being so I've shortened it in to a couple of sentences. As good as B vitamins are for you they only
produce extra energy if you're deficient in B
vitamins. B vitamins just help your
metabolism process things. They help the
body convert food into glucose, which can
give you energy, but the B vitamins
themselves aren't specifically giving
you energy. They're just helping your
body convert the food, so really it's
just the food that's giving you the
energy. The B vitamins are helping it
therefore stands to reason that if you
don't have any food present, the B
vitamins aren't going to be doing much
for you.
What about too many vitamins, because
5-hour energy is heavy in B vitamins?
In general B vitamins aren't toxic in large
doses. They're water soluble which means
they'll pass the body through urine but,
high doses of B6 specifically, can cause
nerve damage, tingling and numbness in
the arms and legs. You shouldn't consume
more than 100 milligrams of B6
in a day and 5-hour energy has 40 milligrams of B6 in it.
Now 5-hour energy also has something that they call an energy blend.
There are a whopping 1870 milligrams of this blend.
The blend is made up of Citicoline,  Tyrosine, Phenylalanine, Taurine,
Malic Acid, that stuff, and my personal
favorite, caffeine. I'm gonna spend a
little bit more time on these
ingredients because in my opinion it's
this blend that differentiates 5-hour
energy from the other energy drinks on the market.
Citicoline. Citicoline supposedly helps mental energy as well as memory and focus.
Short-term studies
with Citicoline show it was beneficial in
individuals with lower cognition at the
beginning of the study but there is
insufficient evidence that it is
beneficial to healthy individuals who
did not have any problems with cognition.
Early research suggests that Citicoline
might improve memory learning
and the ability to focus better.
Other research suggests it might improve some
memory aspects in elderly people.
Overall, all these things are suggested but not
scientifically proven, yet.
Tyrosine. Tyrosine is an amino acid known for
increasing dopamine levels *YAY!*
and improving memory. It's also used in clinical trials
to improve attention deficit disorder
and showing some positive results.
Tyrosine has also been suggested to help
improve your mood. Overall, it's
definitely doing something to your brain
so if it's not specifically giving you
energy, but it's helping you maintain
focus and alertness then it is good to be in energy drinks.
Phenylalanine. I have no
idea if I said that correctly
I prefer, Fenny La La Nine because that's how it
looks like it should be pronounced.
As difficult as it is to pronounce that
word, researching it was just about as
complex. I'm gonna give you the super
short answer though. It's an amino acid
that's fairly similar to tyrosine.
Taurine. Taurine is one that a lot of
us have heard of. It's used in a decent
amount of energy drinks because it's
been shown to remove waste products that
lead to fatigue and can cause muscle burn.
Although it doesn't specifically give
you energy, it helps reduce fatigue so
just by default some people consider
that gaining energy. And as research
continues on taurine, some energy drink
companies like jolt caffeine gum have
stopped using it in their products
because it hasn't scientifically proven
to cause energy, only reduce fatigue.
Malic Acid. Most health websites claim
that malic acid can promote energy
production, increase exercise endurance
and help fight off muscle fatigue. More
specifically malic acid produces the
chemical energy required from managing
bodily discomfort, energy production and
general detoxification. It does a lot of
other stuff too, but I'm just focusing on
what it does in energy drinks and it
seems to help.
That stuff. I know sometimes it seems like I'm not even trying.
That stuff is commonly used in energy drinks due to its detoxification effects. Detoxification can lead to less
fatigue and reduce sleepiness. Also
combining that stuff with other stuff
such as caffeine has been proven to
improve performance particularly on
tasks that require a large amount of
focus and concentration.
Caffeine. AHHH!!! My friend! We should all know what
caffeine does. So how much caffeine is in
5-hour energy? It's only a 2 ounce bottle
but it has a whole whopping 200 milligrams of caffeine
the same amount as a caffeine pill. It's a pretty big
number considering that you're supposed
to take this all in one shot as opposed
to an energy drink, which is usually
about 160 milligrams of caffeine for 16 ounces
that you drink over time. This is 200 all at one time.
The extra strength 5-hour energy has 230
milligrams of caffeine in it. This is the
primary component which most energy
drinks get their working components from.
I don't say energy because caffeine
doesn't specifically give you energy but
that's a story for another video. And
those are your ingredients. Ultimately
the question is, Does 5-hour energy work?
Does it last 5 hours? For me personally,
it has definitely helped boost my energy
what I needed the energy boost.
When I take it, I do exactly as directed
in the commercial. I usually take it
right around two o'clock when I'm
hitting that wall from work and lunch is
finally settled in. It gets me through
the rest of the day without any problems
and is still working at six o'clock when
I get home and partially through dinner.
So that's five hours that it lasts. Now,
here are the important questions that I
asked myself when reviewing this product
and I think everyone needs to ask
themselves these questions too when
they're trying out the product.
Did I feel energized when I had the product? Yes.
Am i energetic for the full five hours? No.
Am I tired after five hours? No.
Would I be tired at six o'clock when I
get home after work if I didn't have the energy drink? Yes! and that's how I know it works!
Some people will say that they don't feel any energy four hours later but it's not about feeling energy. It's about
feeling less tired. I've seen plenty of
coffee challenges where some people
would take almost one full gram of
caffeine throughout the day through
coffee and they were saying, "Oh, I don't
feel hyper at all. This caffeine is not
working." but trust me, later in the video,
when they tried to go to bed four hours
later, they could not sleep and they even
showed it. I was kind of funny to me
because I knew that was gonna happen.
It's not about giving you energy, it's
about not making you tired.
Does 5-hour energy work for everyone?
Probably not. From numerous websites and
reviews a majority of the people did say
that they had more energy than from
their normal energy drink, but there were
still some people that said it didn't
last for the full four to five hours. But
still, in general, that's pretty
impressive that it lasts that long.
Plus, I feel that those people
that reviewed those were thinking that
they were supposed to have energy for
the full five hours and as I just
explained, that's not the case so even
though they didn't feel energized for
five hours I'm sure they still didn't
feel tired after five hours. Or it could
truly not have worked on them because
different people have different
sensitivities to caffeine and they could
have processed it even faster.
This brings me to the topic of the half-life
of caffeine. What is the half-life of
caffeine? I plan on doing a video about
it, I just haven't had time to get around
to it so I'm going to give you the brief
explanation right now. The half-life of
caffeine is basically how long it takes
for your body to eliminate half of it
from your system and that varies widely
from one person to another. Why?
There are a lot of factors such as age, weight,
medication intake and liver health and
several other health factors, but for the
average healthy adult the half-life of
caffeine is usually five to six hours.
Therefore, ingeniously enough, if you were to
take 5-hour energy, which has 200
milligrams of caffeine, 5 to 6 hours
later you should still have 100
milligrams in your system, thus 5-hour energy.
In conclusion, yes, 5-hour energy
drink does work. Will you get a full 5
hours of energy out of it?
Most likely not. Will you still feel
tired after 5 hours? Probably not and not
all energy drinks can claim that.
Why is that? Well a lot of the energy drinks
do have all the same B vitamins and
several of the supplements that this
drink has but it's 5-hour energies
energy blend that makes it different
from the rest. The other mainstream
energy drinks usually don't have
tyrosine, citicoline, Fenny La La Nine...
Fenny La La Nine, yeah, that's its new name. All of which help brain focus.
Now stick with me just for two more seconds as I explain my opinion on things.
Science hasn't proven
that any of these ingredients produce
energy, but a lot of research studies
have proven that these ingredients can
help improve cognitive function, improve
memory, improve focus, improve metabolism
and everything else mentioned in the
video. So even though these things aren't
scientifically proven, they could still
be working in your system positively.
I believe that by blending these
ingredients or blending certain
ingredients, they're gonna have a synergy
with each other and they're gonna
produce favorable results. Science just
hasn't confirmed it... yet.
Lastly let's taste these bad boys ... oh, I really don't want to do this part. I've tried the berry one
which is the original and I am NOT a fan
of it. I mean these things just taste bad,  to me at least.
So I've purchased several different flavors so that we can try the flavors and let you know how they are.
I'll try the berry one just as a baseline for the
rest of them but I don't have high hopes.
All right I'll just get to it.
Someone told me you need to shake them
up really good. I usually shake them for
at least a minute or so but
no matter how long I shake it it's not
going to shake out that flavor.
I got to tell you, the people at work, when they see me drink this they laugh at me
because I have this here, I have some
water that I chase it with and then I
have a piece of caffeine gum to get the
flavor out of my mouth.
So, Drink up!
*YUCK!* Oh, still as bad as I remember!
I mean honestly, the only reason I drink
this stuff is because it works, so I suck
it up what I have to.
hmmmm, what can I cleanse my palate with? Oh!
This is coconut Red Bull. If you haven't
heard of it, now you have. You have to buy
some because it's the best tasting
energy drink out there... and obviously
that's just my opinion. So on to number
two. This one's the orange flavor.
I heard online that this is actually
people's favorite so I'm hoping for the best.
Huh?
Actually it is a little bit
better than the berry one. It still
tastes kind of bad but the orange is so
strong that it helped mask that bad flavor.
Oh shoot! I shouldn't drink much, I
got four more to go,
not to mention the Red Bull.
Those two were the regular 5-hour energy for the berry and the orange. I also found some other interesting
flavors for the extra strength. This one is strawberry watermelon. Let's try it out.
*BLEEEECH!!!*
*YUCK!*
No, just no, just no, no, no
So that had a hint of, ugh, so that had a hint
of watermelon in there and then just
badness for the rest. *Yuck*
Makes me want to reconsider this profession.
Peach mango!
*UGH*  *YUCK*
No... a hint of mango... a hint of peach and then, a lot of bad stuff. *Yuck*
Blue Raspberry.
Huh?
Compared to the rest this
one's probably one of the best, close to
the orange but the bad flavor is a lot
less it's still there but after drinking
the others yeah I don't know how to
explain it
they're all pretty bad so if you're in
desperate need of some energy to last
you for a while, I recommend the orange
one and a coconut Red Bull chaser doesn't
hurt. Some of you're probably saying,
"Well you didn't even have to taste them.
You could've just told us they all
tasted bad."
But that's what I do for you guys! That's for you guys!
I struggle!!!  I take a hit for the team!!!
But that's what I do for you guys! See how much I love you guys!!!
Thanks for joining me and my wacky self today. If you want to stay informed on all things caffeine related
feel free to hit the subscribe button. I
post new videos every Tuesday night.
I hope you find them just as informative
and entertaining and if you really like
me feel free to follow me on Twitter and
Facebook. You can find me at Caffeineman1
and that's the number 1. Have a good
day... or night.
 
