With students having to balance school, a social life, sports, clubs or a job, the workload can be exhausting. On top of that, they may be getting just a few hours of sleep at night. These key factors influence students to turn to energy drinks.

Although they might give you a quick caffeine boost, the long term effects make them simply not worth drinking at all. Choosing to put such an unhealthy product in my body is not worth a few extra hours of energy.

Energy drinks have extremely dangerous risks that happen almost immediately after consumption. According to the American Journal of Cardiology, there have been several instances of energy drink users falling victim to heart problems, which required emergency room visits. To correlate with what the journal said, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that over 20,000 trips to the emergency department are associated with energy drink use every year in the U.S. alone. These drinks can cause instant problems, and anyone could have a bad reaction to them. Knowing this, why take the risk?

Energy drinks can also lead to long term health problems when used on a regular basis. Sage Journals, a scientific paper, says that multiple studies in humans have shown that consuming energy drinks may increase blood pressure and heart rate and decrease important markers of blood vessel function, which can be bad for heart health. When it comes down to it, no drink is worth endangering my health in any way.

Besides the health risks, energy drinks contain a dangerously large amount of sugar. Some energy drinks hold as many as 16 teaspoons of sugar, which is more than twice an adult’s recommended daily sugar intake, according to the international news source The Sun. The longer the drink promises to boost energy, the larger amount of sugar it contains, and so these can be even worse for consumers’ health.

Filling my body with so much sugar in just one drink is insane, especially when considering all of the other negative side effects associated with the drink. Students are better off working through their schedules and finding more time to sleep. The best solution for my body is the natural way, which means throwing out the cans that contain heart risks and sugar highs.