Are pre workouts bad for long term health?

[Bright2131]

I love pre workout products. I use them 3 times a week and take around 2-3 weeks off every 6-8 weeks. Im just wondering if taking these for a long long time (say...10-15 years straight with the breaks and all) will affect your life span? I mean it makes your heart beat faster and all. I don't think this is true, but ive heard that every red bull or energy drink you consume you lose like a day off from your life span. I know it sounds stupid, but im just wondering if they are bad for your health in the long term? (enough to kill you years earlier)

thanks

[alex4199]

Stimulants And Their Risks by Mary F. Zesiewicz, MD

Stimulants come in all forms. They have great appeal for their ability to enhance alertness and produce a "high". Likewise, stimulants have risks. Stimulants literally "burn up" the body's cellular metabolism. Stimulants artificially "rev up"our metabolic processes- but everything that speeds up,invariably must slow down. Examples of stimulants include: caffeine, nicotine, over the counter cold medicines, chocolate, diet pills, like ephedrine, or ma huang, and the class of drugs known as amphetamines- both legally prescribed and illegal.

Of course, it is easy to get hooked. Many, if not most people today, quite frankly, are tired. Fatigue is a pandemic of 21st century life. First, the pace alone of our lives is dizzying. "Managing" day to day life requires a colossal "juggling" act.This phrenetic juggling will wear out the best of us. Shifting mentally and physically from task to task drains our resources of hormones and nerve chemicals and disrupts cellular health. But reaching for stimulants to get through our busy days backfires sooner or later.

The mental and emotional crash from stimulants is nothing to take lightly. Abruptly stopping stimulants of any kind can lead to depression, nervousness, irritability and even suicidal thinking. At the very least, fogginess, or dullness in focus and concentration exist, along with fatigue, which can be debilitating.

In addition, stimulants can be very "psychologically" addicting. There is an inherent fear of the "crash" even when it is mild, of stopping stimulants abruptly.

Physically, stimulants affect a range of organs and body systems. Strain on heart muscle and blood vessels are but a few physical risks of stimulant abuse. Dehydration is common. And there are hidden demands on the body of stimulant abuse- short term and long term.

In "The Schwarzbein Principle", Diana Schwarzbein, MD and Nancy Deville, ( Health Communications, Deerfield Beach, FL, 1999) elaborate on the complexity of the physiological mechanisms that disrupt bodily functions by use of stimulants.

First, stimulants rev up metabolism by increasing adrenaline. Adrenaline actually uses up protein in the body and destroys lean body mass. Of course, stimulants promote a decrease in appetite. This diminishing appetite will lead to malnutrition eventually. Even if the person maintains near normal body weight, the
nutritional value of cells becomes markedly depleted.

In addition, stimulants raise insulin levels in the body. Long term higher insulin levels actually promote weight gain, not weight loss, that people often reach for stimulants to achieve.

In addition, although stimulants induce a transient increase in serotonin, attributing to their mood enhancing effects, the long term use of stimulants burns out serotonin reserves. Serotoninis one of the major neurotransmitters (or nerve chemicals) responsible for maintaining a balanced mood. Long term stimulant use, in burning out serotonin in the body, will induce a major crash in mood.

Last, but not least, prolonged stimulant abuse will accelerate aging.

[mk.ultra]

Stimulants And Their Risks by Mary F. Zesiewicz, MD

Stimulants come in all forms. They have great appeal for their ability to enhance alertness and produce a "high". Likewise, stimulants have risks. Stimulants literally "burn up" the body's cellular metabolism. Stimulants artificially "rev up"our metabolic processes- but everything that speeds up,invariably must slow down. Examples of stimulants include: caffeine, nicotine, over the counter cold medicines, chocolate, diet pills, like ephedrine, or ma huang, and the class of drugs known as amphetamines- both legally prescribed and illegal.

Of course, it is easy to get hooked. Many, if not most people today, quite frankly, are tired. Fatigue is a pandemic of 21st century life. First, the pace alone of our lives is dizzying. "Managing" day to day life requires a colossal "juggling" act.This phrenetic juggling will wear out the best of us. Shifting mentally and physically from task to task drains our resources of hormones and nerve chemicals and disrupts cellular health. But reaching for stimulants to get through our busy days backfires sooner or later.

The mental and emotional crash from stimulants is nothing to take lightly. Abruptly stopping stimulants of any kind can lead to depression, nervousness, irritability and even suicidal thinking. At the very least, fogginess, or dullness in focus and concentration exist, along with fatigue, which can be debilitating.

In addition, stimulants can be very "psychologically" addicting. There is an inherent fear of the "crash" even when it is mild, of stopping stimulants abruptly.

Physically, stimulants affect a range of organs and body systems. Strain on heart muscle and blood vessels are but a few physical risks of stimulant abuse. Dehydration is common. And there are hidden demands on the body of stimulant abuse- short term and long term.

In "The Schwarzbein Principle", Diana Schwarzbein, MD and Nancy Deville, ( Health Communications, Deerfield Beach, FL, 1999) elaborate on the complexity of the physiological mechanisms that disrupt bodily functions by use of stimulants.

First, stimulants rev up metabolism by increasing adrenaline. Adrenaline actually uses up protein in the body and destroys lean body mass. Of course, stimulants promote a decrease in appetite. This diminishing appetite will lead to malnutrition eventually. Even if the person maintains near normal body weight, the
nutritional value of cells becomes markedly depleted.

In addition, stimulants raise insulin levels in the body. Long term higher insulin levels actually promote weight gain, not weight loss, that people often reach for stimulants to achieve.

In addition, although stimulants induce a transient increase in serotonin, attributing to their mood enhancing effects, the long term use of stimulants burns out serotonin reserves. Serotoninis one of the major neurotransmitters (or nerve chemicals) responsible for maintaining a balanced mood. Long term stimulant use, in burning out serotonin in the body, will induce a major crash in mood.

Last, but not least, prolonged stimulant abuse will accelerate aging.

Good post, thanks

[***8ness8***]

very interesting article... however it lacks fact based evidence... I'm not saying the article is wrong... it just doesn't reference any studies or statistics to back up the argument it is making, it would be interesting to see the study that was done to get to this conclusion

[Nakket]

I'm not sure what kind of stimulants the article speaks of. Surely there are differing degrees to stimulants (obviously caffeine seems low-mild compared to...*******), and I wonder if they are classifying all of these under the same category. Besides this, is the study done on healthy individuals or just the general population (I would think the latter) because obviously those of us working out regularly have increased health benefits. Besides that, I feel like the other supplements we take (think multis, fish oils, etc) as well as (hopefully) a moderately healthy diet could at least counteract the negatives somewhat.

Just my thoughts.

[mk.ultra]

I'm not sure what kind of stimulants the article speaks of. Surely there are differing degrees to stimulants (obviously caffeine seems low-mild compared to...*******), and I wonder if they are classifying all of these under the same category. Besides this, is the study done on healthy individuals or just the general population (I would think the latter) because obviously those of us working out regularly have increased health benefits. Besides that, I feel like the other supplements we take (think multis, fish oils, etc) as well as (hopefully) a moderately healthy diet could at least counteract the negatives somewhat.

Just my thoughts.

[img]http://www.qhud.net/pictures/09052010/090520101283706091i%20love%20*******.jpg[/img]

[gladcow]

I love pre workout products. I use them 3 times a week and take around 2-3 weeks off every 6-8 weeks. Im just wondering if taking these for a long long time (say...10-15 years straight with the breaks and all) will affect your life span? I mean it makes your heart beat faster and all. I don't think this is true, but ive heard that every red bull or energy drink you consume you lose like a day off from your life span. I know it sounds stupid, but im just wondering if they are bad for your health in the long term? (enough to kill you years earlier)

thanks

You know I was wondering what the long term effects of caffeine use are. You keep hearing about all these short term studies that shows how caffeine increases workload of a workout. I even read one study claiming that it decreases the cortisol response to stressful exercise as well. But what about long term use? I read somewhere that caffeine causes stimulation of the adrenal glands and that prolonged use can overstimulate them. I wonder how much caffeine and how long of use would cause that though. Plus your body builds up a tolerance for a reason I would imagine that all those short term benefits would disapear as tolerance builds up. Would the amount of workload completed in a workout be decreased below normal once tolerance builds up?
Sorry if this seems like I'm highjacking your thread, but your post had me wondering about the long term effects of caffeine. If some of my speculations are true then maybe preworkouts don't help as much as we think and aren't worth the risk. Maybe someone has insight on this topic.

[Elvis16]

They say pre workouts are bad because of caffeine content, and then in other articles they say coffee is good for you, makes no sense, this is all bull****, what about people who drink alcohol for years and they are okay,?in fact, what about people who do steroids for years and they are fine? What would a pre workout do to you? Come on. Unless you have serious heart conditions, you could take pre workouts.

[powercage]

Most, no.

[BenBlue]

There are a lot of "opinion piece" articles out there that aren't fact based in the slightest. Lot's of different studies producing different results.

I think it's safe to say that abuse of stimulants is bad for your health. But what constitutes as "abuse" is up for debate, and likely dependent on individual tolerances and individual general health, not to mention what specific types of stimulants are being used.

Plenty of wide spread studies supporting coffee as increasing life span and decreasing risk of heart disease, stroke etc as an example. On the flip side, there are studies suggesting the opposite as well.

The one thing i'll say for sure: people with heart conditions should probably stay away from stimulants. For healthy individuals who use with degrees of caution, I would guess that most legal stimulant use is OK. But that's just based on anecdotal and personal experience, so take that with a grain of salt and listen to your body.

[JuWo420]

I've heard that pre-workouts (if you have used it for a long time) can make your actual real energy decrease in your daily life (So i mean that you have to use the pre-workout to actually feel fit again) almost like a drug, but its not dangerous tho it wont kill you there's just chance of you losing your actual real energy. Myself only uses caffeine pills, never used any pre-workout in my life. Maybe try some of these? you can take up to 3 pills a day but i only use it before the gym so i only get this extra energy for the gym only.