Red Bull May Be Hurt by Alcohol Consumption Study

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jul 21, 6:39AM EDT

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The journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research has just published a study that concludes that combining energy drinks with alcohol tends to increase overall desire to drink more, compared to when people drink alcohol alone. The research is particularly damning for Red Bull, because its product was used as the energy drink portion of the study.

According to the research:

Participants received a cocktail containing either 60 ml of vodka and a Red Bull® Silver Edition energy drink (alcohol+energy drink condition) or 60 ml of vodka with a soda water vehicle (alcohol-only condition).

And, Combining energy drinks with alcohol increased the urge to drink alcohol relative to drinking alcohol alone.

The mixing of energy drinks and alcohol has been under siege by scientists for some time. Red Bull and 5-Hour Energy have been the primary targets, almost certainly because of their tremendous overall sales.

One of the defenses Red Bull has used, and one that is reasonable, is that the “energy drink” factor in Coke and Pepsi is not substantially different. The overall effects of these more popular drinks, they have argued, represent a larger health risk because they are available in an extremely large number of American homes. There is, Red Bull would argue, no reason to exclude caffeinated and sugary drinks from these tests. As a matter of fact, the exclusion only helps cover the fact that Coke is little different from Red Bull, at least insofar as health risks are involved.

It turns out to be an interesting battle with health experts and regulators. Soda and energy drinks get to be traded off with one another, study after study, based on which are the most dangerous when mixed with alcohol. The alcohol itself gets moved from center stage in some studies. So, the spirits industry gets some reprieve … until the research comes back around to focusing on alcohol.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.