Dr. Rima: Corporate Food, Not Energy Drinks Addiction Gateway
Energy Drinks or Crap Food Gateway to Addictions?
Next to Be Demonized: Energy Drinks as Gateway to Cocaine and Other Drug Addictions.
Could the Brain Be Seeking a Way to Survive Chronic Nutrient Density Starvation?
Opinion by Rima E. Laibow, MD
There’s a new bogey man on the block: Energy Drinks, which are now being blamed for gateway introduction to substance abuse later in life. No one, of course, is looking at the deep nutritional deficiencies that lead people to seek out substitutes for the nutrients that give the brain what it so urgently needs to create its own balance of neurotransmitters for a healthy, balanced life.
Instead, the World Health Organization (a private corporation, the vast bulk of whose funding comes directly from the pharmaceutical industry) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (ditto) opine against these beverages but neither makes the underlying, and much more salient point: demineralized food, grown in polluted soil [1], especially if genetically modified, may be sorely lacking in the very chemical the brain sucks up so avidly in Energy Drinks. What’s more, these sorry excuses for nutrition are so laced with toxic chemicals which further distort brain and immune function, that the body’s thirst not for Energy Drinks, but for survival, may be served better in a state of chronic starvation with these noxious foods than without them.
The findings are stark:
- •Energy drink (ED) use prevalence fell significantly during ages 21–25 (63%–49%).
- •Half (51%) of the sample exhibited a Persistent 4-year trajectory of ED use.
- •Persistent ED use predicted increased risk for alcohol use disorder at age 25.
- •Both Persistent and Intermediate ED use predicted cocaine use and nonmedical stimulant use.
- •ED trajectory group membership predicted neither marijuana nor tobacco use at age 25.
Trajectories of energy drink consumption and subsequent drug use during young adulthood, a study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence [2] showed that young adults in their twenties who regularly consume energy drinks are far more likely to become illicit substance abusers later in life. They found that those who regularly drank energy drinks were far more likely to use cocaine, non-prescription stimulants and excessive alcohol later in life.
The largest users of energy drinks are males between the ages of 18 and 34. The World Health Organization (WHO, a private organization which receives the lion’s share of its funding directly from the pharmaceutical industry), also warns that energy drinks may pose a threat to public health, particularly to the health of children and adolescents but says nothing of what they supply that food does not. Energy drink consumers are often children and adolescents: an estimated 68 percent of adolescents and 18 percent of children below the age of 10 drink energy drinks, which could have unsafe amounts of caffeine and sugar for their developing bodies and nervous systems. The American Academy of Pediatrics (ditto) already warns parents not to let their children consume these beverages.
Neither organization makes the point that these dangerous substitutes for balanced, natural nutrition indicate a problem, but that it is far deeper than the consumption of what the brain takes as an opportunity to have what it needs on the shortest of short term bases: One can of sugary caffeine because there is not enough healthy fat, protein and minerals to sustain normal function, let alone optimal output!
The solution? Whole food grown without pesticides, herbicides, nutricides, labeled Organic because if it does not say it is Organic, then it isn’t. Need electrolytes? Drink organic coconut water. Need energy? Eat real organic food. Want a super-charged brain? Use cognitive enhancing nutrients.
A personal note: this evening I met a lovely lady who raises chickens in her back yard and proudly sells them and their eggs. I asked whether the feed she uses is GMO and chemical free. No, she said, if I did that I would have to charge another dollar per dozen for my eggs and half as much more per pound of chicken.
But, she proudly told me, my chickens live a happier life than commercial ones!
Indeed, they do. But I won’t risk my happier, healthier life eating those eggs, local though they might be. It is my considered option that you should not, either.
After all, what’s an addiction or a case of cancer (or infertility or a thousand other ills) worth? For some, not much before the fact and everything once it is too late to trade money for NOT getting sick!
I have written about truly Organic food vs industrial “phude” – even when it is called “natural” [3] and you can be assured that the Dr. Rima Recommends™ nutrient and cognitive supporting products are always pure, organic or wild-crafted. Those products are here: http://www.NSFmarketplace.com/mainstore.
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[1] http://www.opensourcetruth.com/half-eu-soils-contaminated-with-roundup/
[2] http://www.drugandalcoholdependence.com/article/S0376-8716(17)3033
[3] http://drrimatruthreports.com/is-organic-worth-the-money/