Tag: vitamins in energy drinks

Is Niacin REALLY a Vitamin – Book Excerpt of the Week

Is Niacin REALLY a Vitamin – Book Excerpt of the Week

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Last week we said NIACIN was the Captain America of the Energy Drink Ingredient Avengers – one of the BEST energy drink ingredients – because it participates in numerous reactions to form ATP (the chemical form of energy) in the human body. But is niacin really a vitamin?

Vitamins are essential to life and, by definition, something we need to get from the diet because we can’t make on our own. Did you know the human body can MAKE niacin? As this book excerpt explains, tryptophan and protein are the key ingredients for this magic.

Niacin is still considered a vitamin because we can make some but we can’t make enough to survive and thrive.

The amount of niacin our bodies can make in a day from the amino acid tryptophan is not the full amount we’d need in a day, but it helps. Moreover, our bodies cannot make tryptophan: it is an ESSENTIAL amino acid, meaning we have to get from the diet.

STAY TUNED every Monday for more book excerpts and the science behind energy drink ingredients.  Stay tuned for next week’s book excerpt as we continue our page-by-page exploration through the Energy Drink Guide.

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5 Quick Facts About VoloVitamins: ingredients, food science, and caffeine

5 Quick Facts About VoloVitamins: ingredients, food science, and caffeine

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VoloVitamins is an energy supplement that comes in a powder. For this quick review, I share five quick facts about the energy supplement from a food scientist perspective.
  1. Vitamin B12 is the number-one most common energy drink ingredient (caffeine is third!) [Source, Caffeine Informer and Innova Market Insights’ Database]   and VoloVitamins has over 41,000% of the Daily Value of vitamin B12!

    caffeine informer top 5 ingredients
    Source: https://www.caffeineinformer.com/energy-drink-ingredients
  2. For most B-vitamins, you don’t have to worry about ingesting too much because you’ll just pee out the excess. This is NOT TRUE for vitamin B6 and niacin aka vitamin B3, which CAN give you upleasant symptoms if you have too much. The vitamin B6 in VoloVitamins is not high enough to cause any of these symptoms, but the amount of niacin is high enough to cause “niacin flush” in some people.
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  3. VoloVitamis contains 17 different fruits in powder form. Since the overall amount of the whole serving isn’t very big, it’s safe to assume the amount of each fruit is miniscule. That means VoloVitamins is not a replacement for whole fruit in the diet and does not provide sufficient amounts of fruit polyphenols and antioxidants to make any health claims. But fruit powders add flavor.
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  4. The caffeine content is not stated outright on the product but it’s compared to a cup of green tea. Comparisions like this are always tricky because it’s not a standard reference: an 8 ounce cup of green tea may have a little at 12 mg or as much as 48 mg caffeine according to the Caffeine Informer database.
    For VoloVitamins, the caffeine comes from guarana extract and green tea extract.
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  5. VoloVitamins conains NO artificial flavors or sweeteners. The color comes from grape seed extract. The sweetness comes from the natural sweetener stevia. Malic and citric acid also contribute some sourness to the taste, though they serve multiple roles in this formula: they are not just added for taste.

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Get your copy of my book on the science behind energy drink ingredients, available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

“ARE YOU A MONSTER OR A ROCK STAR: A GUIDE TO ENERGY DRINKS – HOW THEY WORK, WHY THEY WORK, HOW TO USE THEM SAFELY”

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Niacin as Riboflavin’s Cooler Older Brother – Book Excerpt of the Week

Niacin as Riboflavin’s Cooler Older Brother – Book Excerpt of the Week

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Riboflavin and niacin are both popular energy drink ingredients but in many ways one outshines the other. Niacin is like riboflavin’s cooler older brother. The two are similar, but niacin has more style to its game. Let’s start with how the two get into the body:

✔Niacin can walk into any room it wants but riboflavin needs help. Riboflavin has to be consumed with food because stomach acids need to free it from a protein it’s usually attched to. Niacin can pass through the walls of the stomach and intestines as effortlessly as perfume spreading through a small room (passive diffusion).

✔Riboflavin has to wait til it reaches the small intestine to get absorbed, but Niacin gets absorbed in the stomach too, as if it has a VIP Pass to cut the line and get into the club (the bloodstream) sooner.

✔Niacin is absorbed faster and more efficiently (% absorption-wise) than riboflavin.

✔Niacin is like that person EVERYONE wants at their party, and this will be even MORE apparent when we get to WHAT NIACIN DOES in next week’s book excerpt.

Get your copy of my book on the science behind energy drink ingredients, available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

“ARE YOU A MONSTER OR A ROCK STAR: A GUIDE TO ENERGY DRINKS – HOW THEY WORK, WHY THEY WORK, HOW TO USE THEM SAFELY”

Let’s connect!

Riboflavin Steals Sheep – Book Excerpt of the Week

Riboflavin Steals Sheep – Book Excerpt of the Week

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If you haven’t seen “How To Train Your Dragon”, I’m about to spoil it with riboflavin (vitamin B2). In that movie, wild dragons are stealing the villager’s sheep. One boy discovers the dragons aren’t actually eating the sheep, they’re just dumping them into this giant hole. Turns out, there’s a colossal dragon in the hole, and if we pretend the sheep are hydrogen atoms it’s a great metaphor for the Electron Transport Chain.

The following book excerpt comes from the “What Does It Do” section of the Riboflavin chapter of the Energy Drink Guide:

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In the body, there are all these (“redox”) reactions going on where Hydrogen atoms are passed around like the gravy dish at Thanksgiving dinner. This hydrogen passing occurs in fat metabolism (beta-oxidation) and carbohydrate metabolism (the Krebs cycle). In each case, riboflavin’s job is to collect the hydrogen atoms, carry them to a certain spot, and drop them into the Electronic Transport Chain (or “ETC”). When ETC is fed Hydrogen atoms, the result is heaps of metabolic energy.

In a previous book excerpt, we talked about how thiamin would be a leader if the B-vitamins were all Marvel Avengers. If B-vitamins were all superheroes and you were assembling your dream squad for an energy drink, you’d want riboflavin in the mix too. To learn more about riboflavin and the other B-vitamins, stay tuned for next week’s book excerpt as we continue our page-by-page exploration through the Energy Drink Guide.

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Thiamin, Anorexics, Athletes, and Alcoholics – Book Excerpt of the Week

Thiamin, Anorexics, Athletes, and Alcoholics – Book Excerpt of the Week

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Thiamin (Vitamin B1) is a popular ingredient in energy drinks, sports supplements, and other “functional” beverages. In last week’s book excerpt, we talked about how thiamin would be a leader if the B-vitamins were all Marvel Avengers, and how thiamin’s role in carbohydrate metabolism makes it an important facilitator in energy production. Thiamin is readily absorbed, readily depleted, and easily excreted, so you can never have too much. But what happens when you don’t get enough? There are different names for thiamin deficiency, depending on how it manifests.

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Anorexics, athletes, and alcoholics may all experience thiamin deficiency, for different reasons. Starvation leads to dry Beriberi. The combination of high carbohydrate intakes and heavy exercise can lead to wet Beriberi. Heavy alcohol use can lead to Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. Alcohol diminishes thiamin absorption and increases its excretion. Since thiamin is not readily stored, a poor quality diet with heavy alcohol consumption can lead to rapid thiamin depletion and deficiency.

Stay tuned as we look at other B-vitamins in our page-by-page tour through my book on the science of energy drinks and their ingredients.

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